Clipmarks | Perception Clips

Talent Utilization / Perception Disconnect

Thu, 28 Aug 2008 06:26:45 GMT

clipped by: connorcl
clipper's remarks: Ouch...

A study by IBM and the Human Capital Institute (HCI) shows that while 84 percent of organizations know workforce effectiveness is important to achieving business results, only 42 percent of those surveyed say managers devote sufficient time to people management.

Tags: hr, talent management, management

Hotels Cumbria

Wed, 27 Aug 2008 13:50:04 GMT

clipped by: maxicraf
clipper's remarks: The Cranleigh Hotel is more than any of the Lake District Hotels, located on Windermere, Englands largest Lake. Luxury Hotel accommodation in Bowness-on-Windermere.

Clip Source: www.thecranleigh.com

Cranleigh House

The Cranleigh Hotel
Bowness on Windermere

For Hotels on Windermere the Cranleigh Guesthouse is perfectly located just two minutes walk from the shores of Lake Windermere. It is situated just one minute’s walk from the centre of Bowness on Windermere, where you will find a large selection of established restaurants, bars, shops and cafés.

This Lake District hotel is family run and under new ownership. The Cranleigh is a unique Lake District guesthouse for Bowness on Windermere. Stephen and Louise, the owners, have bought the Cranleigh with a vision to create a luxury cutting-edge guesthouse, with in-room facilities that rival the best Lake District hotels around. Their aim is to change the perception of traditional guesthouses by creating a haven of style and comfort with a relaxed and friendly atmosphere in the centre of the English Lake District.

Tags: hotels on windermere, lake district hotels, windermere hotels, hotels in the lake district, hotels lake district

How Contraceptive Pill Influences Partner Choice

Tue, 26 Aug 2008 15:42:54 GMT

clipped by: mugofcoffee

Clip Source: articles.mercola.com

The contraceptive pill may disrupt women's natural ability to choose a partner genetically dissimilar to themselves. This could result in difficulties when trying to conceive, an increased risk of miscarriage and long intervals between pregnancies. Passing on a lack of diverse genes to children could also weaken their immune systems.

Not only could genetic similarity in couples lead to fertility problems, but it could ultimately lead to the breakdown of relationships when women stop using the contraceptive pill, as odor perception plays a significant role in maintaining attraction to partners, researchers said.

Sources:

Eurekalert August 12, 2008

Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences August 12, 2008

Is Seeing Into the Future More Than an Optical Illusion?

Mon, 25 Aug 2008 23:57:22 GMT

clipped by: edwardmasen9
clipper's remarks: Do you believe in the ability to see into the future? Well, it turns out that we all might be able to see the future -- at least a few fractions of a second into the future.

Clip Source: brainblogger.com

Most humans do not have the power to predict the future, but we can see it. At least we can see one-tenth of a second of it. The May-June issue of the journal Cognitive Science published a review by Mark Changizi of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, claiming that the human visual system has evolved to allow us to see fractions of a second into the future.

Tags: cognitive, delay, distance, future, optical, perception, present, science, second, system

Perceptual Power

Mon, 25 Aug 2008 20:22:52 GMT

clipped by: bellapria

Clip Source: www.karrass.com

Perceptual Power

I recently celebrated another birthday and one of the comic cards I received illustrates a great negotiation lesson. Picture a small goldfish swimming in the fish tank. Strapped to the goldfish is a shark's fin, which protrudes out of the tank several inches.

Now, how much power does this little goldfish have? If the other occupants of the tank accept that fin as real, has the goldfish grown real power or perceptual power?

How much value is there in perceptual power? It is easy to dismiss perceptual power as bluff or fake, but you might be interested in some other's thoughts:

· Re Jesse Helms: "…he plugs into no important levers, controls no important network, has relatively scant rewards to offer and penalties to impose on his own." "…such power as he has is strictly a function of their own willingness to let him push them around." Meg Greenfield, Newsweek, August 1, 1997

Tags: negotiations, power, perception

On Why The Civilizations Clash

Mon, 25 Aug 2008 15:56:20 GMT

clipped by: Elisabeth Eaves
clipper's remarks: Wise man Bernard Lewis tells Foreign Policy that Christianity and Islam have been at odds because of similarities, not differences.

Clip Source: www.foreignpolicy.com

What brought Islam and Christendom into conflict was not so much their differences as their resemblances. There are many religions in the world, but almost all of them are regional, local, ethnic, or whatever you choose to call it. Christianity and Islam are the only religions that claim universal truth. Christians and Muslims are the only people who claim they are the fortunate recipients of God’s final message to humanity, which it is their duty not to keep selfishly to themselves—like the Jews or the Hindus or the Buddhists—but to bring to the rest of mankind, removing whatever obstacles there may be in the way.

So, we have two religions with a similar self-perception, a similar historical background, living side by side, and conflict becomes inevitable.

Lifelike Animation Breakthrough

Mon, 25 Aug 2008 13:02:28 GMT

clipped by: Silkweaver
clipper's remarks: AMD last week released a new chip with a billion transistors that will be able to show off creations such as Emily by allowing a much greater number of computations per second. "If you're trying to process the graphics in a photo-realistic animation, in real-time, there's a lot of computation involved," said Mr Koduri.

He said that AMD's new chip - the Radeon HD 4870 X2 - was able to process 2.4 teraflops of information per second, meaning it had a capability similar to a computer that - only 12 years ago - would have filled a room. AMD's chip fits inside a standard PC.

But he said that the line between what was real and what was rendered would not be blurred completely until 2020.

Clip Source: www.youtube.com

[Video]

Clip Source: technology.timesonline.co.uk

Extraordinarily lifelike characters are to begin appearing in films and computer games thanks to a new type of animation technology.

Emily - the woman in the above animation - was produced using a new modelling technology that enables the most minute details of a facial expression to be captured and recreated.

She is considered to be one of the first animations to have overleapt a long-standing barrier known as 'uncanny valley' - which refers to the perception that animation looks less realistic as it approaches human likeness.

"Ninety per cent of the work is convincing people that the eyes are real," Mike Starkenburg, chief operating officer of Image Metrics, said.

"The subtlety of the timing of eye movements is a big one. People also have a natural asymmetry - for instance, in the muscles in the side of their face.

they are what makes people look real."

Emily' will set a new precedent for photo-realistic characters in video games and films

Tags: animation, computer graphics, virtual characters, gaming

Pioneering Research in Neuromorphic Electronics that Function Like the Biological Brain

Mon, 25 Aug 2008 12:36:58 GMT

clipped by: Silkweaver
clipper's remarks: The HRL team's ultimate goal is to build a low-power, compact electronic chip combining a novel analog circuit design and a neuroscience-inspired architecture that can address a wide range of cognitive abilities--perception, planning, decision making, and motor control. In the initial two phases of the SyNAPSE program, the team will translate the neuronal and synaptic functions of the biological cortex into similar microelectronic functions.

Clip Source: www.alzheimer.ca

Clip Source: www.prweb.com

HRL Laboratories, LLC, will begin pioneering research to develop electronics that will simulate the cognitive capabilities and efficiencies of the biological brain.

The daunting undertaking is part of the Defense Advanced Research Project Agency's (DARPA) SyNAPSE, or Systems of Neuromorphic Adaptive Plastic Scalable Electronics, program. HRL will lead a group of industry and university research laboratories with expertise in core areas of neuro and cognitive science in the groundbreaking research.

Despite exponential advances in computing technology over the last decade, the limitations of hardware and architecture prohibit computers from functioning independently in real-world scenarios. The goal of the SyNAPSE program is to bridge biology and electronics and establish a new paradigm for creating more intelligent machines that can interact with, react to, and actually learn from their environments.

Tags: technology, neuromorphic electronics, electronics

The Science of Magic: Turning Tricks into Research

Sun, 24 Aug 2008 13:59:42 GMT

clipped by: Djiezes

Clip Source: scienceblogs.com

The Science of Magic

There is a fascinating review in Nature Reviews Neuroscience this month about the cognitive science of magic tricks

The article attempts to list and describe in neuroscientific terms the techniques that magicians use to trick their audiences. The authors break down these into "visual illusions (after-images), optical illusions ('smoke and mirrors'), cognitive illusions (inattentional blindness), special effects (explosions, fake gunshots, et cetera), and secret devices and mechanical artifacts (gimmicks)." The use of visual illusions to study perception is certainly nothing new, but the emphasis on cognitive illusions -- illusions that trick higher order perceptions like attention and judgment -- is novel.

Clip Source: www.nature.com

Nature Reviews Neuroscience

Attention and awareness in stage magic: turning tricks into research

Box 1 | Pickpockets pick your brain

Table 1 | Types of conjuring effects^*

Box 3 | Magic techniques in the choice-blindness paradigm

Tags: science, magic, cognition, illusion, article, visual, neuroscience

No moral considerations can stop them from earning money...

Sun, 24 Aug 2008 13:09:29 GMT

clipped by: mugofcoffee
clipper's remarks: Study Says Tobacco Marketing Promotes Youth Smoking...

Clip Source: www.medindia.com

Lifestyle News

Subscribe

Posted online: Sunday, August 24, 2008 at 12:56:58 PM

A new study says that tobacco marketing and depictions of smoking in movies promote youth smoking.

The report released by the National Cancer Institute (NCI) revealed that smoking prevention campaigns sponsored by the tobacco industry are generally ineffective and may even increase youth smoking.

"There is now incontrovertible evidence that marketing of tobacco, and the depiction of smoking in the movies, promote youth smoking and can cause young people to begin smoking," said University of Minnesota professor Barbara Loken and one of the report's five scientific editors.

The report concluded tobacco advertising targets psychological needs of adolescents, such as popularity and peer acceptance. Advertising creates the perception that smoking satisfies these needs.

Moreover, brief exposure to tobacco advertising influences adolescents' perceptions about smoking, smokers, and adolescents' intentions to smoke.

Naturalism's Hot Water

Sat, 23 Aug 2008 22:10:12 GMT

clipped by: willhelm
clipper's remarks: The problem, as several thinkers (C. S. Lewis, for example) have seen, is that naturalism, or evolutionary naturalism, seems to lead to a deep and pervasive skepticism. It leads to the conclusion that our cognitive or belief-producing faculties—memory, perception, logical insight, etc.—are unreliable and cannot be trusted to produce a preponderance of true beliefs over false....

Clip Source: str.typepad.com

Alvin Plantinga, philosophy professor emeritus from Notre Dame, shows why the basic presuppositions and worldview of the new atheists undermine their claim to hold the rationally superior beliefs about religion:

I believe it's extremely important to see that naturalism itself, despite the smug and arrogant tone of the so-called New Atheists, is in very serious philosophical hot water: one can't sensibly believe it....

[T]his is true on several counts, but here I want to concentrate on just one—one connected with the thought that evolution supports or endorses or is in some way evidence for naturalism. As I see it, this is a whopping error: evolution and naturalism are not merely uneasy bedfellows; they are more like belligerent combatants. One can't rationally accept both evolution and naturalism; one can't rationally be an evolutionary naturalist.

Tags: naturalism, evolution, science, religion

Rabbit-Duck Illusion

Sat, 23 Aug 2008 17:47:44 GMT

clipped by: JULIE PENKOVA
clipper's remarks: It's just an illusion.... not a confusion!!

Clip Source: mathworld.wolfram.com

Rabbit-Duck Illusion

An ambiguous figure in which the brain switches between seeing a rabbit and a duck. The duck-rabbit was "originally noted" by American psychologist Joseph Jastrow (Jastrow 1899, p. 312; 1900; see also Brugger 1999). Jastrow used the figure, together with such figures as the Necker cube and Schröder stairs, to point out that perception is not just a product of the stimulus, but also of mental activity (Kihlstrom 2004).

How do you look? well it depends...

Sat, 23 Aug 2008 15:52:04 GMT

clipped by: balthazarus
clipper's remarks: Interesting study into how perception is influenced and shaped. What seems so natural and true, is relative and biased.

Clip Source: www.sciencedaily.com

Face Recognition: Nurture Not Nature

Fixation biases for Western Caucasian (WC - red) and East Asian (EA - blue) observers are highlighted by subtracting WC and the EA Z-scored fixation distribution maps during WC and EA face learning, recognition and categorization by race. (Credit: Caroline Blais et al, doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0003022.g002)

researchers at the University of Glasgow have discovered that cultural differences cause us to look at faces differently.

We found that Westerners tend to look at specific features on an individual's face such as the eyes and mouth whereas East Asian observers tend to focus on the nose or the centre of the face which allows a more general view of all the features.

Western societies are generally more individualistic, whereas East Asian societies are collectivistic

Westerners appear to think and perceive focally and Easterners globally.

external environment, including the society in which we develop, is very influential in basic human mechanisms

Tags: neuroscience, culture

Apple, too much too quick?

Fri, 22 Aug 2008 10:49:42 GMT

clipped by: Lawl78
clipper's remarks: Big fan of Apple products, but do get the sense of late that the company is finding it hard to meet expectation. Quite a few product recalls, cutting corners to meet deadlines, all symptoms of success I guess...

Clip Source: www.macworld.com

When Apple's reach exceeds its grasp

The huge success of the iPod and the incredible media hoopla surrounding the iPhone have transformed the way the world looks at Apple. In five years, it has gone from being the company that makes weird non-Windows computers to the company that makes all kinds of cool products—including great, non-Windows computers. The public perception of Apple is that it's a technology juggernaut with immense power at its disposal as it steamrolls over everyone else in the technology industry while creating one industry-busting product after another.

There’s just one problem with that image: It’s not true. In the past year, we’ve seen numerous examples of how Apple’s reach can dramatically exceed its grasp.

We’ve seen plenty of signs recently that while Apple has lots of of good ideas, it also has a limited pool of people to implement them.

Too much, too fast?

Tags: apple, technology, tech

Pregnancy affects the senses of taste and smell.

Thu, 21 Aug 2008 21:19:31 GMT

clipped by: fewstingscorpio
clipper's remarks: Read the whole article:
http://health.howstuffworks.com/pregnancy-affect-senses-of-smell-and-taste.htm

Clip Source: health.howstuffworks.com

Inside this Article

One such study, published in 2004, asked more than 100 pregnant women to report on their senses at several points in their pregnancy, and 76 percent of respondents experienced a change in smell or taste [source: Nordin et al]. Two-thirds of the women reported increased smell sensitivity, but they also reported distortions in smells, phantom smells and abnormal tastes, including increased bitter sensitivity and decreased salt sensitivity [source: Nordin et al.]. Women experienced these effects mostly during the first trimester of pregnancy, though a smaller percentage reported changes at a later stage of pregnancy as well. After pregnancy, all changes to smell and taste perception disappeared.

One supermarket chain thought pregnant women would make better wine tasters.

Tags: pregnancy, smell, senses, research, science, taste

Clipmarks | Perception Clips

Talent Utilization / Perception Disconnect

Hotels Cumbria

Cranleigh House

The Cranleigh Hotel Bowness on Windermere

How Contraceptive Pill Influences Partner Choice

Is Seeing Into the Future More Than an Optical Illusion?

Perceptual Power

Perceptual Power

On Why The Civilizations Clash

Lifelike Animation Breakthrough

Pioneering Research in Neuromorphic Electronics that Function Like the Biological Brain

The Science of Magic: Turning Tricks into Research

The Science of Magic

Box 1 | Pickpockets pick your brain

Table 1 | Types of conjuring effects*

Box 3 | Magic techniques in the choice-blindness paradigm

No moral considerations can stop them from earning money...

Naturalism's Hot Water

Rabbit-Duck Illusion

How do you look? well it depends...

Face Recognition: Nurture Not Nature

Apple, too much too quick?

When Apple's reach exceeds its grasp

Too much, too fast?

Pregnancy affects the senses of taste and smell.

Inside this Article

The Cranleigh Hotel
Bowness on Windermere

Table 1 | Types of conjuring effects^*