The leit motif of this thesis is that binding of visual features is a process that begins with input of stimulation and ends with the emergence of an object in working memory so that it can be further manipulated for higher cognitive processes. The primary focus was on the binding process from 0 to 2500 ms, with stimuli defined by location, colour, and shape. The initial experiments explored the relative role of topdown and bottom-up factors. Task relevance was compared by asking participants to detect swaps in bindings of two features whilst the third was either unchanged, or made irrelevant by randomization from study to test, in a change detection task. The experiments also studied the differences among the three defining features across experiments where each feature was randomized, whilst the binding between the other two was tested. Results showed that though features were processed to different time scales, they were treated in the same way by Visual Working Memory processes. Relevant features were consolidated and irrelevant features were inhibited. Later experiments confirmed that consolidation was aided by iconic memory and the inhibitory process was primarily a post-perceptual active inhibition.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Chicago, Dept. of Psychology, 2001. / Includes bibliographical references. Also available on the Internet.

Thesis (M.S. in Psych.)--School of Psychology, Georgia Institute of Technology, 2004. Directed by Terry Maple. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 58-69).

Thesis (Ph.D)--Psychology, Georgia Institute of Technology, 2009. / Committee Chair: Dr. Elizabeth T. Davis; Committee Member: Dr. Gregory M. Corso; Committee Member: Dr. Krishnankutty Sathian; Committee Member: Dr. Paul Corballis; Committee Member: Dr. Wendy A. Rogers. Part of the SMARTech Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Collection.

The experiments in this thesis used behavioural measures and event-related potentials (ERPs) to investigate the influence of race on face processing in the brain. Previous behavioural research has highlighted an own-race effect in face processing, whereby individuals are more accurate at recognizing own-race compared to other-race faces. The current Thesis examined the own-race effect at perceptual and neural levels. Social influences on the own-race effect were also investigated, such as other-race experience, anxiety and implicit social bias, as these may account for differential own- versus other-race face processing. The main aim of the experiments contained in this thesis was to delve deeper into the examination of own and other-race face perception through a series of original experiments. Participants performed a variety of perceptual discrimination and identification tasks, and completed measures of explicit other-race experience and implicit racial bias to record their perceptions of other-race individuals. Chapters 2-4 saw the development of a new paradigm that tested the own-race effect in perception, in contrast to traditional recognition memory investigations. In Chapter 2 the own-race effect was investigated developmentally and found across three age-groups, and was larger in the two older age-groups. Chapters 3 and 4 found that the own-race effect differed across racial groups, and that social variables such as other-race experience influenced the strength of the own-race effect. In the latter experimental chapters, ERPs revealed that the behavioural own-race effect was evident at a neural level. Chapter 7 demonstrated that face-related stages of processing in the brain were sensitive to race of face. In Chapters 8 and 9, the sensitivity of face processing to own and other-race emotional expression processing was also examined. The additional social factor of emotional expression was explored in order to further the investigation of socially relevant information processing from the face. Findings from the last two experimental chapters demonstrated differential emotional face processing for own- versus other-race faces. Confirming the findings of the behavioural experiments, own- versus other-race emotion processing varied across racial groups and was subject to social influences such as other-race experience, intergroup anxiety and implicit racial bias. Overall, behavioural and neural investigations of the own-race effect demonstrated the influence of social variables such as other-race experience, intergroup anxiety and implicit racial bias on the way in which individuals processed own- versus other-race faces in the human brain.

Making a robot autonomous has been a common challenge to be overcome since the very beginning. To be an autonomous system, the robot should collect environmental data, interpret them, and act accordingly. In order to accomplish these, some resource management should be conducted. That is, the resources, which are time, and computation power in our case, should be allocated to more important areas. Existing researches and approaches, however, are not always human like. Indeed they don&rsquo / t give enough importance on this. Starting from this point of view, the system proposed in this thesis supplies the resource management trying to be more &rsquo / human like&rsquo / . It directs the focus of attention to where higher resolution algorithms are really needed. This &rsquo / real need&rsquo / is determined by the visual features of the scene, and current importance levels (or weight values) of each of these features. As a further attempt, the proposed system is compared with human subjects&rsquo / characteristics. With unbiased subjects, a set of parameters which resembles a normal human is obtained. Then, in order to see the effect of the guidance, the subjects are asked to concentrate on a single predetermined feature. Finally, an artificial neural network based learning mechanism is added to learn to mimic a single human or a group of humans. The system can be used as a preattentive stage module, or some more feature channels can be introduced for better performance in the future.

Thesis (M.S.)--University of British Columbia, 2006. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 45-48). Also available online (PDF file) by a subscription to the set or by purchasing the individual file.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Australian National University, 2000.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--UCLA, 2009. / Vita. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 300-309).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Rutgers University, 2008. / "Graduate Program in Biomedical Engineering." Includes bibliographical references (p. 139-144).