Friday, 28 August 2009

Psychophysiology vs Physiological psychology

Key distinction - how dependent and independent variables are used.

Psycho-physiology
  • dependent variables - physiological (e.g., heart rate)
  • independent variables - psychological (e.g., problem solving)
Physiological psychology
  • dependent variable - psychological (learning, or perceptual accuracy, as examples)
  • independent variable - physiological (e.g., brain stimulation, removal of brain tissue)

Psycho-physiology is the study of relations between psychological manipulations and resulting physiological responses, measured in the living organism, to promote understanding of the relation between mental and bodily processes.

Reference: John L. Andreassi, "Psychophysiology - Human Behavior & Physiological Response 5th Edition", Lawrence Erlbaum Associates Publishers, London 2007

Wednesday, 12 August 2009

Color Image Processing

.Three basic quantities are used to describe the quality of a chromatic light source:

  • Radiance - total amount of energy that flows from the light source, and it is usually measured in watts (W).
  • Luminance - measured in lumens (lm), gives a measure of the amount of energy and observer perceives from a light source.
  • Brightness - is a subjective descriptor that is practically impossible to measure. It embodies the achromatic notion of intensity and is one of the key factors in describing color sensation.

Example: light emitted from a source operating in the far infrared region of the spectrum could have significant energy (radiance), but an observer would hardly perceive it; its luminance would be almost zero.

Sensors in human eyes for color vision: cones -

  • Red - 65%
  • Green - 33%
  • Blue - 2%

--> CIE designated the following wavelength to the three primary colors:

  • 435.8nm - blue
  • 546.1nm - green
  • 700.0nm - red

* If refer to the color spectrum, NO SINGLE color (wavelength) can be called red, green or blue.
** Having three specific primary color wavelengths for the purpose of standardization does not mean that these three fixed RGB components acting alone can generate all spectrum colors.
*** Misinterpretation of PRIMARY color = three standard primaries, when mixed in various intensity proportions, can produce all visible color.


Secondary colors:
  • Magenta (red + blue)
  • Cyan (green + blue)
  • Yellow (red + green)


Ref: Gonzalez, R. C. and Woods, R. E. Digital Image Processing 3rd Edition (Chapter 6: Color Image Processing), Ner Jersey: Pearson Education, 2008