Representing a stable environment by egocentric updating and invariant representations

To represent a stable environment despite the experience of changes during self movements, one can either develop an invariant allocentric representation, or update the egocentric representations as one moves. Using a disorientation paradigm, three sets of studies investigated these mechanisms in human navigation and scene recognition. Accuracy in the configuration of multiple object localization is impaired by disorientation, an effect not due to artifacts such as memory deterioration over time, intervening physical activities, uncertainty in self position and orientation, etc., suggesting one can locate objects primarily by updating their egocentric positions as she or he moves. Disorientation also impaired the judgment of changes to a scene after viewer movements, suggesting a similar egocentric updating process. On the contrary, representation of the shape of the surroundings is invariant and persists through disorientation. The coexistence of multiple mechanisms may increase the flexibility and robustness of the system.     

Place learning in humans: The role of distance and direction information

Although the process of establishing a memoryof a location is necessary for navigation,relatively little is known about theinformation that humans use when forming placememories. We examined the relative importanceof distance and angular information aboutlandmarks in place learning. Participantsrepeatedly learned a target location inrelation to three distinct landmarks in animmersive computer-generated (virtual)environment. Later, during testing, theyattempted to return to that location. Theconfigurations of landmarks used during testingwere altered from those participants learned inorder to separate the effects of metricdistance information and information aboutinter-landmark angles. In general,participants showed greater reliance ondistance information than angular information. This reliance was affected by nonmetricrelationships present during learning, as wellas by the degree to which the learnedenvironment contained right or straightangles.     

多孔铝板高速撞击声发射定位方法

目前,声发射定位技术在空间碎片撞击航天器事件中的撞击源定位问题中得到了广泛研究。在定位算法上,声发射信号传播机理的复杂性表现为输入量的随机性;多次撞击的复杂性则表现为声发射信号传播的弯曲路径。文章针对多孔铝板声发射定位问题进行研究,采用伽马分布对声发射信号传播的弯曲效应进行建模,采用相对时间差方法对声源进行定位,最后通过仿真分析对所提供的模型与算法性能进行了数值演示。该方法可应用于空间碎片撞击航天器的撞击源定位与损伤评估。     

The Influence of Landmarks and Pre-exposure to a Structural Map During the Process of Spatial Knowledge Acquisition: A Study with Children and Adults in a Virtual Environment

ABSTRACT

This study investigated the effects of featural information (landmarks) and geometric information (pre-exposure to a structural map) and their possible interaction during the process of spatial knowledge acquisition of 8- and 11-year-old children and adults in a virtual environment. The study confirmed the well-known result of a developmental achievement in spatial cognition from childhood to adulthood. Although landmarks and the pre-exposure to a structural map did not affect the time to learn a specific route, they influenced the use of behavior in spatial learning and eased the acquisition of spatial knowledge measured by a route reversal and map-drawing tasks. Children and adults are able to integrate featural and geometric information in the spatial knowledge acquisition process in an environmental space, but their integration depends on the spatial processing stages that are investigated. Moreover, it was successfully demonstrated that the use of desktop virtual environments seems to be appropriate to investigate the development of spatial cognition.     

Risk-taking during wayfinding is modulated by external stressors and personality traits

ABSTRACT

Two experiments examined cue reliance and risk-taking during desktop virtual wayfinding, and how they might be modulated by personality traits and external stressors. Participants navigated a series of virtual buildings and we manipulated the strength of probabilistic cues available to guide turn decisions. Navigators frequently discounted probabilistic cues and instead took risks, particularly when costs were low and potential benefits were high. Risk-taking was predicted by higher sense of direction and lower need for structure. Introducing a time stressor lowered risk-taking, with a higher relative reliance on probability-based information. This was most pronounced in females and those with a high need for structure. Results provide novel evidence that spatial cue reliance is modulated by individual differences and contextual constraints.     

空间碎片撞击在轨感知技术研究综述

随着航天发射活动的日益频繁,空间碎片环境随之恶化。为了应对空间碎片的撞击威胁,人们提出了用空间碎片撞击在轨感知系统实时监测航天器在轨遭受空间碎片撞击的情况。文章在对国内外相关研究机构研究成果的调研基础上,介绍了国内外在空间碎片撞击在轨感知技术领域的研究现状,对各国基于超高速撞击声发射技术的空间碎片撞击在轨感知技术的发展状况进行了全面评述,重点介绍了国内的研究进展。最后基于国内航天事业需要,探讨了未来发展方向。     

Gesture in Spatial Cognition: Expressing,Communicating, and Thinking About Spatial Information

Do hand gestures play a role in spatial cognition? This paper reviews literature addressing the roles of gestures in (1) expressing spatial information, (2) communicating about spatial information, and (3) thinking about spatial information. Speakers tend to produce gestures when they produce linguistic units that contain spatial information, and they gesture more when talking about spatial topics than when talking about abstract or verbal ones. Thus, gestures are commonly used to express spatial information. Speakers use gestures more in situations when those gestures could contribute to communication, suggesting that they intend those gestures to communicate. Further, gestures influence addressees' comprehension of the speech they accompany, and addressees also detect information that is conveyed uniquely in gestures. Thus, gestures contribute to effective communication of spatial information. Gestures also play multiple roles in thinking about spatial information. There is evidence that gestures activate lexical and spatial representations, promote a focus on spatial information, and facilitate the packaging of spatial information in speech. Finally, some of the observed variation across tasks in gesture production is associated with task differences in demands on spatial cognitive processes, and individual differences in gesture production are associated with individual differences in spatial and verbal abilities. In sum, gestures appear to play multiple roles in spatial cognition. Central challenges for future research include: (1) better specification of the mental representations that give rise to gestures, (2) deeper understanding of the mechanisms by which gestures play a role in spatial thinking, and (3) greater knowledge of the sources of task and individual differences in gesture production.     

The effect of the configuration and the interior design of a virtual weightless space station on human spatial orientation

In a virtual weightless environment, subjects’ orientation skills were studied to examine what kind of cognitive errors people make when they moved through the interior space of virtual space stations and what kind of visual information effectively decreases those errors. Subjects wearing a head-mounted display moved from one end to the other end in space station-like routes constructed of rectangular and cubical modules, and did Pointing and Modeling tasks. In Experiment 1, configurations of the routes were changed with such variables as the number of bends, the number of embedding planes, and the number of planes with respect to the body posture. The results indicated that spatial orientation ability was relevant to the variables and that orientational errors were explained by two causes. One of these was that the place, the direction, and the sequence of turns were incorrect. The other was that subjects did not recognize the rotation of the frame of reference, especially when they turned in pitch direction rather than in yaw. In Experiment 2, the effect of the interior design was examined by testing three design settings. Wall colors that showed the allocentric frame of reference and the different interior design of vertical and horizontal modules were effective; however, there was a limit to the effectiveness in complicated configurations.     

利用单传感器的三维密闭空间突发持续污染源辨识研究

诸如载人航天器、潜艇及地下涵洞等有限空间,由于空间小、密闭性强、人员活动频繁,应对突发污染能力差,当发生突发污染事故,直接影响密闭空间内人员的身体健康和生命安全,亟需发展一种可行的突发污染源辨识方法,提高上述密闭环境应对突发污染事故的能力。针对三维密闭空间内的持续污染源,提出一种基于多位置假设的突发污染源定位方法,利用单传感器的观测数据实现三维空间内突发持续污染源辨识;为了提高起始污染浓度感知速度和突发持续污染源定位精度,同时提出采用单边U检测方法进行污染感知;另外针对影响定位的主要因素进行仿真分析。本项研究能够为三维密闭空间内突发持续污染控制提供有效依据。     

Learning Spatial Localization: From Rat Studies to Computational Models of the Hippocampus

In his landmark article, Richard Morris (1981) introduced a set of rat experiments intended “to demonstrate that rats can rapidly learn to locate an object that they can never see, hear, or smell provided it remains in a fixed spatial location relative to distal room cues” (p. 239). These experimental studies have greatly impacted our understanding of rat spatial cognition. In this article, we address a spatial cognition model primarily based on hippocampus place cell computation where we extend the prior Barrera–Weitzenfeld model (2008) intended to allow navigation in mazes containing corridors. The current work extends beyond the limitations of corridors to enable navigation in open arenas where a rat may move in any direction at any time. The extended work reproduces Morris's rat experiments through virtual rats that search for a hidden platform using visual cues in a circular open maze analogous to the Morris water maze experiments. We show results with virtual rats comparing them to Morris's original studies with rats.     

Three dimensional spatial memory and learning in real and virtual environments

Human orientation and spatial cognition partlydepends on our ability to remember sets ofvisual landmarks and imagine their relationshipto us from a different viewpoint. We normallymake large body rotations only about a singleaxis which is aligned with gravity. However,astronauts who try to recognize environmentsrotated in 3 dimensions report that theirterrestrial ability to imagine the relativeorientation of remembered landmarks does noteasily generalize. The ability of humansubjects to learn to mentally rotate a simplearray of six objects around them was studied in1-G laboratory experiments. Subjects weretested in a cubic chamber (n = 73) and aequivalent virtual environment (n = 24),analogous to the interior of a space stationnode module. A picture of an object waspresented at the center of each wall. Subjectshad to memorize the spatial relationships amongthe six objects and learn to predict thedirection to a specific object if their bodywere in a specified 3D orientation. Percentcorrect learning curves and response times weremeasured. Most subjects achieved high accuracyfrom a given viewpoint within 20 trials,regardless of roll orientation, and learned asecond view direction with equal or greaterease. Performance of the subject group thatused a head mounted display/head tracker wasqualitatively similar to that of the secondgroup tested in a physical node simulator. Body position with respect to gravity had asignificant but minor effect on performance ofeach group, suggesting that results may alsoapply to weightless situations. A correlationwas found between task performance measures andconventional paper-and-pencil tests of fieldindependence and 2&3 dimensional figurerotation ability.     

基于稀疏重构的杂波环境下红外图像空间邻近目标超分辨方法

基于稀疏重构的超分辨方法是应对空间邻近目标的有效方法之一,但是当目标处于杂波环境下时,杂波会布满在整个视场范围内,导致场景原有的稀疏性被破坏。针对这一现象提出了一种在杂波环境下的超分辨方法。该方法充分利用了传感器的结构特性以及重构算法中的参数,通过建立观测信号的红外成像模型并利用像元网格划分的方式,建立空间邻近目标群的位置和幅度信号的稀疏表示,并利用其光学系统的点扩散函数来构造超完备字典,最后通过控制重构场景中非零元素的个数比例来使重构参数处于一个合理的区间范围,以此来达到去除杂波干扰并准确重建稀疏目标的目的。     

航天员微重力作业训练系统重力补偿控制策略

针对航天员微重力作业训练系统的重力场补偿控制这一关键技术,进行了理论和实验研究。分析了模拟微重力环境的机理,确定了微重力作业训练系统的总体结构方案,提出了一种基于电流反馈的重力补偿控制及多干扰力补偿控制策略。通过虚拟重力补偿控制实验,验证了在地面环境、动态作业过程中,模拟物体在不同空间重力加速度环境下的运动规律,实现了在重力方向模拟空间环境下物体移动的作业训练效果。研究成果为在地面实现三维作业训练系统的控制奠定了基础。     

空间目标碰撞预警技术研究综述

随着在轨空间目标数量的不断增加,空间目标碰撞预警工作变得越来越重要。通过对国内外相关文献的调研分析,对空间目标碰撞预警的相关技术及其研究进展进行了全面地介绍。给出了空间目标碰撞预警的总体框架、关键技术和涉及的理论问题,对主要技术问题的研究进展进行了综述,提出了一些需要解决的问题,可供从事空间目标监视和碰撞预警等任务和研究的技术人员参考。     

Japan's future in space

Japan's Consultative Committee on Long Term Policy was established within the Space Activities Commission to consider how the country's space activities should proceed. The Committee was asked to take a long-term viewpoint, considering the rapid changes in both domestic and overseas space activities. This report is an edited version (and unofficial translation) of the Committee's report, published in May 1987. It outlines the significance of space activities for Japan, considers how they have developed during this century, forecasts development after the year 2000, and presents proposals for the execution of Japan's space development.     

Magnetic dipole moment estimation and compensation for an accurate attitude control in nano-satellite missions

Nano-satellites provide space access to broader range of satellite developers and attract interests as an application of the space developments. These days several new nano-satellite missions are proposed with sophisticated objectives such as remote-sensing and observation of astronomical objects. In these advanced missions, some nano-satellites must meet strict attitude requirements for obtaining scientific data or images. For LEO nano-satellite, a magnetic attitude disturbance dominates over other environmental disturbances as a result of small moment of inertia, and this effect should be cancelled for a precise attitude control. This research focuses on how to cancel the magnetic disturbance in orbit. This paper presents a unique method to estimate and compensate the residual magnetic moment, which interacts with the geomagnetic field and causes the magnetic disturbance. An extended Kalman filter is used to estimate the magnetic disturbance. For more practical considerations of the magnetic disturbance compensation, this method has been examined in the PRISM (Pico-satellite for Remote-sensing and Innovative Space Missions). This method will be also used for a nano-astrometry satellite mission. This paper concludes that use of the magnetic disturbance estimation and compensation are useful for nano-satellites missions which require a high accurate attitude control.     

A 6 D.O.F. opto-inertial tracker for virtual reality experiments in microgravity.

Gravity plays a role in many different levels of human motor behavior. It dictates the laws of motion of our body and limbs, as well as of the objects in the external world with which we wish to interact. The dynamic interaction of our body with the world is molded within gravity's constraints. The role played by gravity in the perception of visual stimuli and the elaboration of human movement is an active research theme in the field of Neurophysiology. Conditions of microgravity, coupled with techniques from the world of virtual reality, provide a unique opportunity to address these questions concerning the function of the human sensorimotor system. The ability to measure movements of the head and to update in real time the visual scene presented to the subject based on these measurements is a key element in producing a realistic virtual environment. A variety of head-tracking hardware exists on the market today, but none seem particularly well suited to the constraints of working with a space station environment. Nor can any of the existing commercial systems meet the more stringent requirements for physiological experimentation (high accuracy, high resolution, low jitter, low lag) in a wireless configuration. To this end, we have developed and tested a hybrid opto-inertial 6 degree-of-freedom tracker based on existing inertial technology. To confirm that the inertial components and algorithms will function properly, this system was tested in the microgravity conditions of parabolic flight. Here we present the design goals of this tracker, the system configuration and the results of 0g and 1g testing.     

Flunking on space station cooperation?

This article looks at the collaboration between the USA and Europe to develop a permanently manned space station. The US view was initially somewhat conjectural and European involvement has become a matter of dispute. The problem started with President Reagan's vague invitation which has not been followed up. NASA, directed by Congress, has already established a programme to which European contributions would appear as afterthoughts. While, on the other hand, the Europeans have asked for a collaboration, at the same time insisting on separate ownership, jurisdiction, use and control of the elements they intend to provide.