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For hearing sense, the mechanoreceptors fire action potentials when their membranes are physically stretched. Based on the statistical physics, we analyzed the entropical aspects in auditory processes of hearing. We develop a model that connects the logarithm of relative intensity of sound (loudness) to the level of energy disorder within the system of cellular sensory system. The increasing of entropy and disorder in the system is connected to the free energy available to signal the production of action potentials in inner hair cells of the vestibulocochlear auditory organ.

Although stochastic resonance has been demonstrated for many physical and biological systems, in both dynamic and threshold forms, its study in whole human beings presents special problems. Psychophysics provides theoretical and methodological tools for measuring information processing by humans, but modern psychophysics seems to be incompatible with some of the concepts of current theories of stochastic resonance. In this paper I review some of these problems, providing suggestions for solutions where none have as yet appeared. In particular, I discuss incompatibilities between signal detection theory and threshold stochastic resonance, and the problem of the effect of noise on information transfer across a "soft" threshold.

This article discusses the basic ideas and the practical applications of information acquisition in relation to psychophysics theory as implemented via the Soft-Haptics concept for Internet-based robotic teleoperation systems. In specific, a study on using acoustic display for navigation applications in Internet-based robot teleoperation is presented via psychophysics tests and experimental studies of the Internet-based teleoperated robotic systems to illustrate the ideas and concepts of this paper.

Transparent visualization is used in many fields because it can visualize not only the frontal object but also other important objects behind it. Although in many situations, it would be very important for the 3D structures of the visualized transparent images to be perceived as they are simulated, little is known quantitatively as to how such transparent 3D structures are perceived. To address this question, in the present study, we conducted a psychophysical experiment in which the observers reported the perceived depth magnitude of a transparent object in medical images, presented with a multi-view 3D display. For the visualization, we employed a stochastic point-based rendering (SPBR) method, which was developed recently as a technique for efficient transparent-rendering. Perceived depth of the transparent object was smaller than the simulated depth. We found, however, that such depth underestimation can be alleviated to some extent by (1) applying luminance gradient inherent in the SPBR method, (2) employing high opacities, and (3) introducing binocular disparity and motion parallax produced by a multi-view 3D display.

The golden ratio (GR) is an irrational number (close to 1.618) that repeatedly occurs in nature as well as in masterpieces of art. The GR has been considered a proportion perfectly representing beauty since ancient times, and it was investigated in several scientific fields but with conflicting results. This study aims at investigating if this proportion is associated with a judgment of beauty independently of the type of the stimulus, and the factors that may affect this aesthetic preference. In Experiment 1, an online psychophysical questionnaire was administered to 256 volunteers asked to choose among three possible proportions between the parts of the same stimulus (GR, 1.5, and 1.8). In Experiment 2, we recorded eye movements of 15 participants who had to express an aesthetic judgment on the same stimuli as Experiment 1. The results revealed a slight overall preference for GR (53%, p < 0.001), with higher preferences for stimuli representing humans, anthropomorphic sculptures, and paintings, regardless of the cultural level. In Experiment 2, a shorter dwell time was significantly associated with a better aesthetic judgment (p = 0.005), suggesting the possibility that GR could be associated with easier visual processing, and it could be hence considered as a visual affordance.

The experience of time’s passing appears, from the 1st person perspective, to be a primordial subjective experience, seemingly inaccessible to the 3rd person accounts of time perception (psychophysics, cognitive psychology). In our analysis of the ‘dual klepsydra’ model of reproduction of temporal durations, time passage occurs as a cognitive construct, based upon more elementary (‘proto-cognitive’) function of the psychophysical organism. This conclusion contradicts the common concepts of ‘subjective’ or ‘psychological’ time as readings of an ‘internal clock’. Our study shows how phenomenological, experimental and modelling approaches can be fruitfully combined.