Perceiving high-level relations

感知高层关系

• 批准号: 2021053
• 负责人: Chaz Firestone
• 金额: $ 52.78万
• 依托单位: Johns Hopkins University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2020
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2020-08-15 至 2024-07-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2021053&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Perceiving; level; relations

The world contains not only objects and features, but also relations holding between them. When a piece of fruit is in a bowl, and the bowl is on a table, we appreciate not only the visual appearance of the individual objects (e.g., a red apple, a wooden bowl), but also the relations "containment" (in) and "support" (on). A surprising number of everyday tasks depend on these and other relational representations, such as assembling furniture, packing a suitcase, reading a medical chart, or navigating a scene. How does the mind represent visual relations themselves, beyond the objects participating in them? The work proposed here explores an exciting hypothesis about how the mind extracts relations from images —— namely, that relations are properly *perceived*, in a fast and automatic manner akin to the perception of more familiar visual properties such as size, color, or shape. Across multiple case studies —— including the perception of fit, balance, containment, support, adhesion, enclosure, and more —— this work will take a psychophysical approach to the perception of relations, asking whether relational perception proceeds rapidly, automatically, reflexively, and in ways that interact with other perceptual processes.The work proposed here has three primary aims: (1) To characterize the kinds of relations we perceive; (2) To understand how such relations are extracted by the mind; and (3) To elucidate their function in the mind at large. First, what kinds of relations can we see? Previous work has focused mostly on basic geometric and spatial relations (such as being beside, above, or behind); but objects in the world are related to each other in far richer ways. Here, the investigator will catalog the kinds of relations that appear in perception, with a special focus on “force-dynamic” relations, including combining, containing, supporting, balancing, covering, tying, connecting, hanging, and other relations in which objects exert physical forces on one another. Second, do we only consider, judge, or infer the relations between objects? Or can we also see them directly? The next aim of this proposal is to investigate the nature of relational perception, by asking whether the mind extracts visual relations in ways that show signatures of genuinely perceptual processing, such as speed, automaticity, reflexiveness (or cognitive impenetrability), and interaction with other perceptual processes. Third, why do we perceive relations at all? Are they just curious quirks of the mind, or do they support other kinds of knowledge? For example, once we see that two objects are connected, do our minds automatically predict that tugging on one will bring the other along? Once we see that two object-parts can combine into a whole, is it easier to remember or count such objects? The final aim of this project is to explore how relational perception supports other sophisticated kinds of mental processing, including automatic prediction of physical contingencies between objects.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

世界不仅包含对象和特征，还包含它们之间的关系。当一片水果在碗里，而碗在桌子上时，我们不仅欣赏单个物体的视觉外观（例如，一个红苹果，一个木碗），而且关系“遏制”（在）和“支持”（上）。大量的日常任务依赖于这些和其他关系表征，例如组装家具、打包行李箱、阅读病历或浏览场景。除了参与视觉关系的对象之外，心智如何表现视觉关系本身？这里提出的工作探索了一个令人兴奋的假设，关于心灵如何从图像中提取关系-即，关系被正确地感知，以快速和自动的方式，类似于对更熟悉的视觉属性（如大小，颜色或形状）的感知。在多个案例研究中--包括对适合、平衡、包容、支持、粘附、封闭等的感知--这项工作将采取心理物理学方法来感知关系，询问关系感知是否快速、自动、反射性地进行，以及与其他感知过程相互作用的方式。这里提出的工作有三个主要目标：（1）描述我们所感知的各种关系;（2）理解这些关系是如何被心灵提取出来的;（3）阐明它们在整个心灵中的功能。第一，我们可以看到什么样的关系？以前的工作主要集中在基本的几何和空间关系上（例如在旁边，上面或后面）;但是世界上的物体以更丰富的方式相互关联。在这里，研究者将对感知中出现的各种关系进行分类，特别关注“力-动力”关系，包括组合、包含、支撑、平衡、覆盖、捆绑、连接、悬挂以及物体相互施加物理力的其他关系。第二，我们是否只考虑、判断或推断对象之间的关系？或者我们也可以直接看到它们？这个提议的下一个目标是研究关系知觉的本质，通过询问心智是否以显示真正知觉处理的特征的方式提取视觉关系，例如速度、自动性、自反性（或认知不可穿透性）以及与其他知觉过程的交互。第三，我们为什么要感知关系？它们只是心灵的好奇怪癖，还是它们支持其他类型的知识？例如，一旦我们看到两个物体是相连的，我们的大脑是否会自动预测拉一个物体会把另一个物体沿着拉过来？一旦我们看到两个物体的部分可以联合收割机组合成一个整体，是不是更容易记住或计算这样的物体？该项目的最终目的是探索关系感知如何支持其他复杂类型的心理处理，包括自动预测物体之间的物理突发事件。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力价值进行评估而被认为值得支持。和更广泛的影响审查标准。

项目成果

Physically Implied Surfaces

物理隐含曲面

• DOI: 10.1177/0956797620939942
• 发表时间: 2021
• 期刊: Psychological Science
• 影响因子: 8.2
• 作者: Little, Patrick C.;Firestone, Chaz
• 通讯作者: Firestone, Chaz

Melting Ice With Your Mind: Representational Momentum for Physical States

• DOI: 10.1177/09567976211051744
• 发表时间: 2022-04-26
• 期刊: PSYCHOLOGICAL SCIENCE
• 影响因子: 8.2
• 作者: Hafri, Alon;Boger, Tal;Firestone, Chaz
• 通讯作者: Firestone, Chaz

Empirical evidence for perspectival similarity.

视角相似性的经验证据。

• DOI: 10.1037/rev0000403
• 发表时间: 2023
• 期刊: Psychological Review
• 影响因子: 5.4
• 作者: Morales, Jorge;Firestone, Chaz
• 通讯作者: Firestone, Chaz

Problems and Mysteries of the Many Languages of Thought

多种思想语言的问题和奥秘

• DOI: 10.1111/cogs.13225
• 发表时间: 2022
• 期刊: Cognitive Science
• 影响因子: 2.5
• 作者: Mandelbaum, Eric;Dunham, Yarrow;Feiman, Roman;Firestone, Chaz;Green, E. J.;Harris, Daniel;Kibbe, Melissa M.;Kurdi, Benedek;Mylopoulos, Myrto;Shepherd, Joshua
• 通讯作者: Shepherd, Joshua

Seeing fast and thinking slow The Border Between Seeing and Thinking Ned Block Oxford University Press, 2023. 560 pp.

观察快而思考慢 观察与思考之间的界限 Ned Block 牛津大学出版社，2023 年。 560 页。

• DOI: 10.1126/science.adg8153
• 发表时间: 2023
• 期刊: Science
• 影响因子: 56.9
• 作者: Firestone, Chaz;Phillips, Ian
• 通讯作者: Phillips, Ian