EAGER/Collaborative Research: A New Science of Visual Experience

人类体验的本质是通过人类的五种感官，特别是通过视觉与自然和人造环境相互作用。这个早期概念探索性研究资助(AGER)项目的目标是为一门新的视觉体验科学建立分析基础，这门科学将从认知科学和系统工程的基本方法中架起桥梁。具体地说，这项研究将建立人类在三维空间(如工厂、博物馆或零售店)导航的数学和计算模型。这个想法是为了深入了解人类技术系统中可观察性和可控性的限制，并提高用户的情景感知。如果研究成功，研究人员将能够从行动的可能性和获取信息的角度来描述情况。这样的量化工具将使工程师能够设计环境，以实现诸如更专注、更安全、更好的寻路和更好的体验等结果。随着时间的推移，可能会设计出适应居住在其中的人的个人属性和身份的交互环境。研究成果有可能被工程、商业、建筑、心理学、认知和人类因素等许多学科所利用。由学者(工程学、心理学和计算机科学)和两名行业人员组成的多学科研究团队建议将三维环境的视觉体验从直觉和经验领域转移到分析科学领域。这笔赠款的具体重点将是开发一套通用的分析模型，这些模型来自对各种特定背景的人与环境相互作用的分析(例如，CCU的护士、零售店的购物者)。在知觉-行动的基本心理学基础上，分析模型将把三维空间关系与人眼的视野和人的身体属性结合起来。最重要的是，这项研究将考虑人类在空间中运动产生的复杂动力学，以及随之而来的视角变化，以及视觉障碍的出现和消失。为了验证视觉体验的分析指标，将在虚拟环境中对人类的表现进行经验检验。

The essence of human experience is interacting with the natural and man-made environments through the five human senses, and through vision in particular. The objective of this EArly-concept Grant for Exploratory Research (EAGER) project is to build analytical foundations for a new science of visual experience that will bridge basic approaches from cognitive science and systems engineering. Specifically, the research will build mathematical and computational models of a human navigating a three dimensional space such as a factory, museum, or retail store. The idea is to gain insights into the limits on observability and controllability in human-technology systems, and to improve the user's situational awareness. If the research is successful, researchers will be able to describe situations in terms of possibilities for action and access to information. Such quantitative tools will allow engineers to design environments to achieve outcomes such as increased focus, improved safety, better wayfinding, and improved experience. In time, it might be possible to engineer interactive environments that adapt to the personal attributes and identities of the humans that inhabit them. The results of the research have the potential to be used by many disciplines such as engineering, business, architecture, psychology, cognition, and human factors.The multidisciplinary research team consisting of academics (engineering, psychology, and computer science) and two industry personnel suggests moving visual experience of a three dimensional environment from the realm of intuition and experience to analytical science. The specific focus of this grant will be on developing a general set of analytical models that emerge from the analysis of a variety of context-specific human-environment interactions (e.g., nurse in CCU, shopper in a retail store). With a solid grounding in the basic psychology of Perception-Action, the analytical models will integrate three-dimensional spatial relationships with the human eye's field of vision and the physical attributes of a human. Most significantly, the research will consider complex dynamics resulting from human movement in the space, with all the attendant changes in visual angles, and the appearance and disappearance of visual obstacles. Human performance will be empirically examined in a Virtual Environment in order to validate the analytical metrics of visual experience.