Revisiting Perspective-Taking: Can People Maintain Imagined Perspectives?

Abstract

Three experiments were conducted to examine whether people can adopt and maintain imagined perspectives in the absence of target information. The task used entailed providing information about an imagined perspective in advance of target information to examine whether this would facilitate perspective-taking performance and reduce or eliminate alignment effects that are commonly reported in the literature. The three experiments employed different types of spatial environments: an environment learned from navigating a computer screen (Experiment 1), and an immersive environment that was either remote (Experiment 2) or immediate (Experiment 3) at the time of retrieval. Across the three experiments, results showed that information about an imagined perspective can be utilized ahead of target information. Furthermore, they suggested that alignment effects can be reduced as a result of processing information about perspective ahead of target information, but only when reasoning about specific nonimmediate spatial relations (Experiments 1 and 2). Results are discussed in connection with previous findings on spatial updating and the organizational structure of spatial memory.     

Optical properties of the undisturbed mesosphere from wide-angle twilight sky polarimetry

The paper describes the first results of all-sky polarization measurements of the twilight background started in central Russia in the very beginning of summer 2011. Time-frequency data of the sky intensity and polarization over a wide range of sky point zenith distances are used to separate single and multiple scattering and construct the altitude dependence of the scattering coefficient and polarization in the mesosphere (altitudes from 60 to 90 km) at different angles. The undisturbed structure of the mesosphere without noticeable aerosol stratification on observation days makes it possible to estimate the temperature of the atmosphere at these altitudes.     

Studies of Comets in the Ultraviolet: The Past and the Future

The remote sensing of comets in the ultraviolet bandpass has been a valuable tool for studying the structure, composition, variability, and physical processes at work in cometary comae. By extension, these studies of comae have revealed key insights into the composition of cometary nuclei. Here we briefly review the ultraviolet studies of comets, and then take a look toward the future of such work as anticipated by the advent of several key new instruments. This revised version was published online in June 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

A method to ensure energy security of satellite communication systems

A method is substantiated to ensure energy security for the satellite communication systems (SCS) at a close position of the radio interception receiver. This is done by lowering the carrier frequency down to f ₀ = 60…80 MHz and by applying spaced measurements with n ≥ 4 receiving antennas.     

Stellar coronagraph using the principle of achromatic null-interferometer

In order to observe exoplanets we propose a space-based achromatic stellar coronagraph combined with a 0.8–1.5 m telescope. We develop an achromatic common path interferometer for observing an exoplanet (a faint off-axis source) on the background of a hoste star (bright axial source). An image of the star and its copy acquire an achromatic phase shift by 180° and interfere in antiphase. The achromatic phase shift is caused by geometric phase in the scheme of a three-dimensional interferometer. The interference process divides spatially the dark and light fields of the star image redirecting them to the opposite sides of a beam splitter. The interference process does not weaken the image of a planet, with equal intensities it is redirected to both sides of a beam splitter. The suggested scheme of common path interferometer ensures mechanical stability. The background signal is experimentally demonstrated to be reduced by six orders of magnitude.     

Analytic expansions of luni-solar gravity perturbations along rotating axes for trajectory optimization—Part 2: The multipliers system and simulations

An efficient self-contained trajectory optimization software is generated by making use of de Pontécoulant's analytic lunar theory removing the need for an outside third body ephemeris program to compute the lunar and solar position vectors at each integration step. The accelerations being further resolved along the rotating Euler–Hill frame after expansion to third order in the spacecraft radial distance, the adjoint differential equations are derived in a direct manner complementing the generation of the dynamic system of equations for full compatibility. Because the variation of parameters equations are cast in terms of the nonsingular equinoctial elements with the perturbation accelerations resolved in their analytic form along the rotating axes, the adjoint equations are also derived in the same manner providing a highly efficient and accurate system of equations for rapid computations in conjunction with Aerospace Corporation's NLP2 nonlinear programming codes to search for the initial values of the multipliers that steer the spacecraft towards its target orbit in minimum time. Numerical simulations show that the solutions obtained by the analysis developed in this paper are essentially identical to the more indirect approach based on the use of inertial accelerations obtained from a separate ephemeris generator and subsequent conversions to the thrust frame and equinoctial system.     

Who’s supporting space activities? An ‘issue public’ for US space policy

Using data from the General Social Survey, this research identifies the issue public of US space policy. Highlighting the need to understand and identify the portion of the public that supports space activities, this study underscores the limited appeal of space for the public as a whole. We find that those who support space activities tend to be younger, male, Republican, and have a higher level of education and socioeconomic status. Because these characteristics make up a relatively small proportion of the American population, those supporting space activities must broaden the appeal of space, making it more accessible and understandable for those with whom the issue does not have much saliency.     

Solution to the problem of stability of regular precessions of a symmetrical gyrostat in Newtonian field

The constraints imposed on parameters of a force field and of a symmetrical gyrostat in it are determined, at which regular precession of this gyrostat demonstrate Lyapunov stability (or, respectively, instability).     

Transformation of the Spectrum of a Signal in Communication between Relativistically Moving Inertial Frames

Future space exploration may involve communications between spacecraft moving at relativistic velocities. One of the significant problems associated with such communication is spectral distortion of signals which are propagated between relativistic frames. This distortion is generated by both changing propagation distances and purely relativistic electromagnetic field transformations. In this paper a linear integral transformation is formulated for relating the Fourier spectra of the source antenna excitation current and the resulting incident electric field at the receiving antenna. The kernel of the transformation is evaluated for the case of a steerable source antenna tracking on the advanced receiver position. The transformation is then applied to the case of an ideal thin-wire half-wave dipole source antenna excited by a narrowband, double-sideband modulated current. The specific distortions of spectral spreading and translation are then related to increased bandwidth and upper cutoff frequency requirements of receiving systems in relativistic applications.     

UWB radar detection of targets in foliage using alpha-stableclutter models

We address the problem of detection of targets obscured by a forest canopy using an ultrawideband (UWB) radar. The forest clutter observed in the radar imagery is a highly impulsive random process that is more accurately modeled with the recently proposed class of alpha-stable processes as compared with Gaussian, Weibull, and K-distribution models. With this more accurate model, segmentation is performed on the imagery into forest and clear regions. Further, a region-adaptive symmetric alpha stable (SαS) constant false-alarm rate (CFAR) detector is introduced and its performance is compared with the Weibull and Gaussian CFAR detectors. The results on real data show that the SαS CFAR performs better than the Weibull and Gaussian CFAR detectors in detecting obscured targets