Deciding on Optical Illusions: Reduced Alpha Power in Body Dysmorphic Disorder

Background: Body dysmorphic disorder (BDD) is a psychiatric disorder characterized by excessive preoccupation with imagined defects in appearance. Optical illusions induce illusory effects that distort the presented stimulus thus leading to ambiguous percepts. Using electroencephalography (EEG), we investigated whether BDD is related to differentiated perception during illusory percepts. Methods: 18 BDD patients and 18 controls were presented with 39 optical illusions together with a statement testing whether or not they perceived the illusion. After a delay period, they were prompted to answer whether the statement is right/wrong and their degree of confidence for their answer. We investigated differences of BDD on task performance and self-reported confidence and analysed the brain oscillations during decision-making using nonparametric cluster statistics. Results: Behaviorally, the BDD group exhibited reduced confidence when responding incorrectly, potentially attributed to higher levels of doubt. Electrophysiologically, the BDD group showed significantly reduced alpha power at mid-central scalp areas, suggesting impaired allocation of attention. Interestingly, the lower the alpha power of the identified cluster, the higher the BDD severity, as assessed by BDD psychometrics. Conclusions: Results evidenced that alpha power during illusory processing might serve as a quantitative EEG biomarker of BDD, potentially associated with reduced inhibition of task-irrelevant areas.

Relativity and View Effects

Relativity has been based on the implicit assumption that it would exclusively describe interactions. Relativistic view effects are included as well, and they act with no force and no energy exchanges. The Ehrenfest paradox is solved. View effects specific to each point of view are the solution. The calculation of the deflection of light by the sun explains in detail why the deflection angle must be almost double the value obtained with Newton’s laws. The compatibility of General Relativity with the new interpretation is discussed. An object has no speed limit due to gravitation but it is limited in speed with electromagnetism. Inertial behavior is examined. The equivalence principle does not introduce gravitation to General Relativity. Relativity impacts the energy formula of electromagnetism using the Lorentz factor which also introduces view effects that are optical illusions with no impact on energy.

Relativity and View Effects

Relativity has been based on the implicit assumption that it would exclusively describe interactions. Relativistic view effects are included as well, and they act with no force and no energy exchanges. The Ehrenfest paradox is solved. View effects specific to each point of view are the solution. The calculation of the deflection of light by the sun explains in detail why the deflection angle must be almost double the value obtained with Newton’s laws. The compatibility of General Relativity with the new interpretation is discussed. An object has no speed limit due to gravitation but it is limited in speed with electromagnetism. Inertial behavior is examined. The equivalence principle does not introduce gravitation to General Relativity. Relativity impacts the energy formula of electromagnetism using the Lorentz factor which also introduces view effects that are optical illusions with no impact on energy.

The Passionate Beliefs. A Defense of the Cognitive-Evaluative Theory of Emotions

The philosophy of emotions has long been dominated by the view called «cognitivism». According to it, emotions are characterized (and definable) not by mere physical impulses but by a cognitive evaluation of their object. However, despite their success, cognitive theories have to deal with various objections and are divided on how to answer to them. In this essay I want to defend the form of cognitivism claimed by Martha Nussbaum from the most common criticisms. After a brief summary of her account, I confront some of the objections that have been raised against it. In Section 2 I deal with the classic problem of emotions in infants and animals, which lack linguistic abilities. Later, I confront the potential problem represented by cases in which one’s emotion and reasoned judgment seem to differ: in paragraph 3 I consider irrational phobias and fears, to show how they can be accounted for in terms of judgments and thoughts, and not only of perceptions; in paragraph 4 I deal with the objection that «judgementalist» theories (that is, those that describe emotions in terms of judgments and beliefs) violate the «principle of charity», for they ascribe an excessive irrationality to people. I argue that experimental evidence suggest that it is not implausible to assume that people have contradictory beliefs under conditions of uncertainty, and that perceptual theories of emotion (which compare emotional conflicts to optical illusions) fail to account for some fundamental aspects of these phenomena. Finally, in paragraph 5, I deal with the objection according to which a cognitive-evaluative theory cannot explain the sense of passivity that we commonly experience in emotions.

Role of optical illusions and acoustic effects in the city architecture and the assessment of their impact on human

The modern person spends the most part of time in the urban environment. Any environment influences human. At the moment, the issue of psychological impact of architecture on people is especially topical. The analysis of the foreign and domestic developments and research, describing the influence of urban development, architecture of buildings and the interior of rooms in terms of architecture psychology is presented in the article. The authors studied the phenomenon of architecture psychology during the research as well as the main methods of psychological influence, characteristic of architecture, and methods of their realization in practice. The research concerns the optical illusions and acoustic effects in architecture objects, having the largest potential as instruments of psychological impact on human. The authors of the article developed classification of optical illusions by the purposes of their use and the nature of origin during the research. The most striking examples of the use of optical illusions and acoustic effects in already existing buildings and structures are reviewed in the article. The main design methods of the similar phenomena are also provided. The negative impact of noise pollution is also considered in the work besides the positive impact of sound on human. Its sources and measures, directed to the decrease in negative noise impact, are also described. The principles of the creation of positive sound influence in architecture were studied. The extent of impact of these architectural acceptances on psychological state of human is revealed as the result. According to that the conclusions are drawn on the need of taking into account of psychological influence of objects of architecture at the design stage.

Why Does Rubin's Vase Differ Radically From Optical Illusions? Framing Effects Contra Cognitive Illusions

Many researchers use the term “context” loosely to denote diverse kinds of reference points. The issue is not about terminology but rather about the common conflation of one kind of reference points, such as rules of perception, which is responsible for optical illusions, with another kind, known as “context” or “frame,” as exemplified in Rubin's vase. Many researchers regard Rubin's vase as a special kind of optical illusions. This paper rather argues that the two phenomena are radically different. Optical illusions are occasional mistakes that people quickly recognize and eagerly correct, while the different figures of Rubin's vase are not mistakes but, rather, the outcomes of different perspectives that do not need correction. The competing figures in Rubin's vase can, at best, in light of more information, be more warranted or unwarranted. This paper discusses at length one ramification of the proposed distinction. The framing effects, such as loss/gain frame, are the products of contexts and, hence, resemble greatly the figures in Rubin's vase. In contrast, cognitive illusions generated occasionally by the rules of thumb (heuristics) are mistakes and, hence, resemble optical illusions. The proposed distinction carries other ramifications regarding, e.g., happiness studies, moral judgments, and the new philosophy of science.

An Effective Turkey Marble Classification System: Convolutional Neural Network with Genetic Algorithm -Wavelet Kernel - Extreme Learning Machine

Marble is one of the most popular decorative elements. Marble quality varies depending on its vein patterns and color, which are the two most important factors affecting marble quality and class. The manual classification of marbles is likely to lead to various mistakes due to different optical illusions. However, computer vision minimizes these mistakes thanks to artificial intelligence and machine learning. The present study proposes the Convolutional Neural Network- (CNN-) with genetic algorithm- (GA) Wavelet Kernel- (WK-) Extreme Learning Machine (ELM) (CNN–GA-WK-ELM) approach. Using CNN architectures such as AlexNet, VGG-19, SqueezeNet, and ResNet-50, the proposed approach obtained 4 different feature vectors from 10 different marble images. Later, Genetic Algorithm (GA) was used to optimize adjustable parameters, i.e. k, 1, and m, and hidden layer neuron number in Wavelet Kernel (WK) – Extreme Learning Machine (ELM) and to increase the performance of ELM. Finally, 4 different feature vector parameters were optimized and classified using the WK-ELM classifier. The proposed CNN–GA-WK-ELM yielded an accuracy rate of 98.20%, 96.40%, 96.20%, and 95.60% using AlexNet, SequeezeNet, VGG-19, and ResNet-50, respectively.