Abstract : Dual-process models postulate two distinct modes of information processing, one automatically invoked, highly parallel, and not under conscious control, and the other consciously invoked and limited to serial processing. Stereotype-driven behaviors have been identified as an example of an implicitly activated and automatically invoked behavior. In this effort, we describe the modeling of stereotypes and prejudice, principally with respect to race and religion, in social interactions. We developed a computational model of these implicitly activated behaviors and how they are sometimes refined, even overridden, by often concurrent, explicitly-driven processes. The test-bed for the work reported on here is the Operator Model Architecture (OMAR), a simulation framework for agent-based modeling. OMAR was used to facilitate the building of the computational models of agents, visualized as avatars, which pursue goals that drive their behaviors in social interactions. In carrying out their proactive agendas the OMAR agents respond to perceptual stimuli that activate implicit attitudes which may, in turn, be overturned by stimuli that activate explicit attitudes leading to alternate behaviors. Our goal has been to model both the proactive and reactive processes, and their concurrent implicit and explicit components, in social interactions from perceptual input through behavioral consequences.
This article examines aspects of how sound (especially music) integrates with animated images and, especially, how synchrony between sound and image offers the viewer focal points of attention within the animation. It examines synchronic gestures in two animations one abstract, the other representational and compares the use of synchronous sound in both. It places these two works in the context of animation generally and offers reflections on aspects of the relationship between sound and image in animated film. Links to the audio and video material described are offered in the body of the text.
There are currently many books and journals on film music in print, most of which describe music as a separate activity from film, applied to images most often at the very end of the production process by composers normally resident outside the filmic world. This article endeavours to modify this practice by placing music within the larger notion of “the soundtrack”. This new model assumes that irrespective of industrial determinants, the soundtrack is perceived by an audience as such a unity; that music, dialogue, effects and atmospheres are heard as interdependent layers in the sonification of the film. We often can identify the individual sonic elements when they appear, but we are more aware of the blending they produce when sounding together, much as we are when we hear an orchestra.
A human performance model that produces credible human-like behaviors requires an architecture and implementation strongly grounded in theory. Through an iterative process of model development and theory refinement, a better understanding of the sources of human error can then be achieved. Aircrew and air traffic controller models were used in an analysis of the 1994 windshear accident at Charlotte, NC. The analysis led to a focus on the captain’s briefing for the plan to address the immanent windshear threat. The skilled-based decision to plan for the necessary microburst escape maneuver was not well established on the part of the captain. This led to what proved to be a creative, but flawed plan. The theory, as refined during the accident analysis, suggested that the decision-making process was grounded in narrative synthesis—a process hypothesized to underlay much of decision-making and action selection both at the conscious and automatic levels.
This practice-based article, in two sections, is an account of and a reflection on the making of the natural history film, Wild South. It discusses the shooting of the film and the subsequent collaboration between filmmaker Nick Wright and soundtrack designer Stephen Deutsch, from initial concepts to finished film.
An initial model of human error in a real-world teamwork environment has been developed. The captain and first officer of a commercial aircraft and the air traffic controllers with whom they interact are modeled as the crew executes an approach and landing followed by taxi operations that take them to their assigned gate. Scenario details and human model development were based on the results of a series of full-task simulation experiments using commercial pilots as subjects. The focus of the experiment was on errors committed by the aircrews during taxi operations. The models developed exhibit the robust behaviors typically exhibited by aircrews and identify psychologically grounded windows for error within that robust behavior.
