Advanced perception

This course covers advanced knowledge about perceptual processes in interaction with modern technologies. The course will discuss quantitative modeling and present basic human recognition models and models for information representation, as well as methods to develop and estimate their parameters.

Perception may seem trivial since people usually assume that we see, feel and experience the world just as it is. However, extraordinarily fascinating and complex processes occupy more than half of the brain to accomplish this seemingly effortless feat. When measuring perception quantitatively, it turns out that perception does not at all result in a faithful representation of physical reality. All sorts of systematic deviations occur. Nonetheless, this does not substantially affect us in daily life. In extreme circumstances, however, like moving at high speeds, perceptual errors are often a cause for human failure.

A good understanding of human perception is essential for many areas of research. For instance:

• It provides insights into how information should be presented to human observers.

• It can be used to optimize what people see, how they perform and how they feel.

• It can be used to understand underlying causes of human failure.

• It provides insights on how to optimize the design of current and new technological applications, such as displays, artificial agents, computer vision, medical imaging, etc.

The course expands on base knowledge from the bachelor course 0HV20 Perception and Motor control. While having taken this course is an advantage, all necessary concepts will be briefly introduced again. Several specific topics of human perception are discussed in depth. These topics are related to the research areas within the HTI group, and, thus, they provide concrete examples of topics for the HTI master thesis. The topics include:

• Signal detection theory & Psychophysics
• Decision making in the brain
• Saccadic eye movements
• Visual perception
• Perception of light
• Haptic perception
• Multisensory perception
• Perception in virtual reality

At the end of this course students have gained in depth insights into selected areas of human perception and their applicability in modern technologies.
The objectives are:

• to obtain the capability to develop, understand and evaluate models of human perception,
• to understand the relation between human perception and methods of signal coding for perceptual information,
• to obtain insight into the perceptual requirements applicable in a user-centered design approach to optimize current and novel technological developments in multi media applications,
• to obtain insight into the possibilities and limits of human perception in realistic situations,
• to be able to read and understand scientific papers not directly written for educational purposes,
• to be able to directly apply the theoretical topics of the lectures in a practical setting through the practical assignments.

You must meet one of the following collections of requirements

• Collection 1
• Completed Final examination Bsc program
• Collection 2
• Completed Pre-Master

• The study material consists of research papers and book chapters, which will be provided in advance for each lecture separately. It is recommended to have read the distributed material before the lecture.