I have a picture in my room that I never really thought to much about until this post.  It has almost all of the depth cues which we learned about in class in the picture.  The picture is of my brother and I standing outside of my house that was drawn by an artist.  The first cue that I noticed was occlusion.  The house was obviously behind my brother and I because you could see our whole bodies, but not the whole house.  Part of the house is blocked by us and also trees that are between us and the house.  The next cue I noticed when looking at the picture was linear depth cue.  You could see the river behind the house meeting with the horizon and all the rest of the picture kind of going to one spot where it looks to all vanish.  The third depth cue I saw in the picture was atmosphere perspective.  You could see that the sun which was closer to the horizon looked much farther away than the house or my brother and I.  The clouds were higher up in the sky making them look closer.  Under the horizon you can see the river which is very close to it and the water looks like it is going very far out while the trees which are drawn lower in the picture seem to almost stick out more.  Other obvious depth cues that were in the picture were familiar size.  You know how big a person is compared to a house or even compared to the river.  We looked bigger because it was the main part of the picture making the house and river behind us look much smaller.  You can find these depth cues in almost all of the pictures you will see in your life.

This past summer I went on a trip to Paris, France and discovered first hand at the crime that occurred there. In many cities, pick pocketing is a problem, but in Paris pickpocketing is extremely common. Residents have learned to always carry purses close to their body and be aware of their surroundings. When I arrived in Paris, we took the subway called the Metro back to our hotel. I learned before my trip that many immigrants from poor African countries, who are very experienced pickpocketers also have children trained in this craft as well. My mom warned me to securely hold my bag on the Metro to make sure nothing got stolen, because often people leave the metro noticing that there is a hole in their purse or pocket, and there wallet often times is stolen without their awareness. When I was riding the metro to our hotel, I was nervous, because I had to keep an eye on both my backpack and suitcase. Meanwhile, I felt a little tug on my backpack and turned around to see the zipper open and a young boy’s hand about to grab my cellphone. Since my attention was focused on my bags on the subway, I noticed the tug, but if my attention had been directed on my mom and sister, I would probably not have noticed the boy opening my backpack zipper. I was frightened and shocked at how fast the boy did this. I have heard various stories of pick pocketers on these subways cutting into bags and even back pockets without people noticing, because there attention was directed somewhere else. It happens so quickly that people don’t notice until the pickpocketer vanishes into the crowd. This story relates to the concept of Selective attention. If people’s attention is directed on things like talking to friend and family while walking through the city or on the subway, they often miss other things going on in their environment.  The concept of selective attention is when attention is restricted to certain locations, objects, or times. For example, in class we watched the video we watched in class of the pick pocketer, the person’s object based and space based attention was directed on one thing while the pick pocketer stole the object that wasn’t being focused on. Pickpocketing is something that is not magic and can be easily learned by learning how to direct people’s attention or taking advantage of them when their attention is already focused on something else, such as on the Metro in Paris or walking through the city.

The other day a few friends and I decided to climb mount nittany because he weather was particularly nice out and we had to cross it off of our bucket lists. When we finally got to the top of the mountain we were amazed at the fact that you could have such a perfect view of the campus from this tiny little lookout. As we stood there gazing at the campus trying to figure out where everything was, I realized that I was using a few of my depth cues to help me work out the layout of the town.

I found that a great deal of the depth cues were used. I used aerial perspective to decipher that the mountains in the distance were a bluish color and seemed a bit hazy because the light was scattered by the atmosphere. I used linear perspective to decipher where the roads were close the parallel lines were not converging and in the distance they were converging and forming a vanishing point. I used familiar size with many objects. For instance, I knew how big objects such as Beaver stadium and Thomas were, so I used this as a cue. Also, I used relative height. I could tell that the objects that were highest in my visual field, in this case it was the mountains on the other side of the town, were the farthest away and the objects lower on my visual field, the trees and ground surrounding me, were closest. I used occlusion to tell that the trees, or homes, or whatever was blocking the view of something else, was in front. I also used motion parallax. If a bird flew out of a tree that was just in front of me it seemed to move faster than the cars on the street miles away.

In class, we learned two examples of adaptation. First was when we looked at stripes in one direction for a really long time and when we looked at straight stripes they look like they are tilted. Another example was after we look at the swirling circles for a while and then when we looked at our hands, our skin looks like it was moving. Both of these are due to adaptation because when our visual system is adapted to a certain stimulus thus we see the stimulus when it is not present. The definition of adaptation from Dictionary.com says, “the decrease in response of sensory receptor organs, as those of vision, touch, temperature, olfaction, audition, and pain, to changed, constantly applied, environmental conditions.”
I have had a lot of experience with traveling, especially through airplanes. Every summer and sometimes winter, I fly airplanes back and forth from Taiwan to the states. When the airplane is flying, there is a constant noise coming from the engines. It is very hard to bear at first for how loud of a noise the engines make; however, after I got used to it I feel like it does not bother me anymore. A plane ride back to Taiwan usually takes about 24 hours, including two layovers. Under around 20 hours of listening to the same noise, my ears get somewhat adapted to the noise and thus when I got off the plane I still hear the engine noises in my ear. Sometimes it will last for the whole night until I fall asleep.
Another example is when I ride airplanes or boats and fairies. Whenever the plane is in the air, or when the boat is in the sea, they constantly float up and down. My vision, then, gets adapted to that motion of rising up and down. After getting off the boat or airplane, I feel like my vision does not go back to normal quickly. I still see the objects and everything around me moving up and down. There are times when it was so serious that it was even hard for me to walk straight at first. Both of these examples show adaptations in our vision and hearing. Because I was constantly stimulated by certain stimuli, hearing the noise and seeing the up and down movement, I got used to it. However, when the stimuli are not present, I still see them for a little while before they go away.

Citation
“Adaptation.” Dictionary.com. Dictionary.com, n.d. Web. 29 Apr. 2014.

Everyone has been to an arcade before, or at least has heard about it. Flashing lights, loud noises, popcorn, slushes, and who can forget the games. Usually I like to partake in the driving games or the ones that require a great deal of attention to stop a fast flashing light to stop at the smallest designated spot, but from my last trip to Dave and Buster’s I remember one game; the Whac-a-Mole. It’s not normally my game of choice but my son really wanted to play it. Since it was the harder adult version and he is still pretty small I ended up playing it for him with him just holding the mallet. Just like the other games it was flashing lights galore. My son, who thought he was the actual one playing, directed me to where the moles were so I could hit them. I tried my best to score high so he could have more tickets but like I said it was an adult game with a child directing me.

I didn’t notice until the topic was mentioned in class the trick that was used in the Whac-a-Mole game. They used cues to direct the player’s attention; the holes had lights around them and other places as well on the game. Before starting the game it flashed lights but as soon as I started playing the lights increased, especially to where the moles were popping out of. I know now that the reason why my son had directed me to hit in null places was because if the invalid cues in the game. Cues are defined as a stimulus that might indicate where the leading stimulus may appear. Cues can be valid; correctly directing you to the following stimulus, invalid; wrongly directing you to a following stimulus, or neutral which leads to neither a right nor wrong stimulus. My reaction time was slower due to the invalid cues because I believed that the lights indicated an incoming mole, than if we had not focused on the lights. Whac-a-Mole is filled with invalid and natural cues was designed to direct your attention to a lit hole, giving off the impression that a mole would pop out but really the mole would come out of an unlit hole. Thus making you miss the mole and lose points, all because of theses invalid cues. So the next time you go to an arcade, don’t let the lights get you, direct your attention on the actual game.

In class, we learned how people can be color anomolous based on a lack of one of the three cones. This is part of Young-Heomholtz’s theory that people have S-Cones, M-Cones, and L-Cones. These cones can be excited by certain wavelengths and help in distinguishing color. Without one, color could appear similar, causing difficulty in a world of color. There are some people who are truly colorblind and do not have any of these cones or only have one.

I knew a man who was color anomolous in high school, as colorblindness is more common in men. He had trouble distinguishing between blues and purples. He had told me before that he was colorbling, however, I first understood what he meant when I went to an improv performance for a club he was in at the school. It was called the Purple Monkey Club. When I saw him earlier in the day, he was wearing a blue shirt and I thought nothing of the name of the club having something to do with a type of uniform. Sitting in the audience, I was excited to support my friend and waiting for the group to walk on stage. When the lights when up, it all became clear. Out of the six students on stage, his was the only blue shirt. All of the others were purple. I overheard some laughter in the audience and instantly felt bad that I had not commented on his blue shirt earlier in the day.

I could never understand exactly what he saw with colors, but I got a glimpse of some of the struggles he must forever face. It soon just became a normal part of our friendship, something to joke about. Sometimes it would be a game for him to try and guess different colored outfits. There were times when he looked for my help in situations such as matching a tie to his date’s dress for prom.

This is the first time I was ever exposed to the struggles of those who are colorblind. I will never be able to understand what these people see as I am not colorblind but can only imagine some of the difficulties.  This class has helped me understand these issues even more.

We all experience motion parallax in our everyday lives. It can occur from walking downtown to class, driving to Wal-Mart to get groceries, taking the bus home for a weekend, or even while flying in an airplane on the way to Cancun, Mexico for Spring Break. In all these instances, as we are moving along, the objects/images that are closest to us, the observer, appear to move faster across the visual field than images further away. Essentially, motion parallax provides perceptual cues about difference in distance and motion, and is associated with depth perception. Also, many animals, including humans, have two eyes with overlapping visual fields that use parallax to gain depth perception and this process is known as steropsis.

One of my most recent intriguing cases of experiencing motion parallax happened in the Spring of 2013 as me and five of my best buds at PSU were departing from the BWI Airport on our way to Canucn, Mexico for Spring Break. This was my first time on an airplane that I would actually remember, since I was too young to remember the first time I experienced air flight. Anyway, as we were in take-off mode, the plane began to get faster and faster as it gained speed on the runway. I remember looking out the window and seeing other stand still planes at the airport pass by us in an instant, yet at the same time, the trees far out in the distance seemed to remain in view for most of the runway. This phenomenon was also experienced in the air at an even greater level. As we were flying south towards Mexico, the clouds in the sky passed by the window so quickly, you hardly had a chance to recognize them, yet like the trees on the runway, the ground below remained in view for a very long time. It seemed as if a cloud could pass the window view within a second, but there could be a patch of farmland that would remain in the window view for 20 minutes.

At the time, I didn’t think anything of it because I did not understand the concept of motion parallax. Now that I have an understanding of how it works, the plane ride was more than just a view of the world from a distance, it was a concept in psychological perception.