View All Items
- Title
- LET'S GIVE THEM SOMETHING TO TALK ABOUT: EXPLORING RACISM AND RACIAL TENSIONS AS POTENTIAL FACE THREATS IN BLACK AND WHITE INTERRACIAL RELATIONSHIPS.
- Creator
-
Castle, Gina, Hastings, Sally O., University of Central Florida
- Abstract / Description
-
This study examined how racism and racial tensions potentially threatened the face needs of Black and White interracial couples. Specifically, this study investigated the benefit of family approval of one's interracial relationship. Couples use of corrective face work in response to prejudice was also examined. This research used a qualitative, interpretive method to gather and analyze data from 14 personal interviews. The interview schedule enabled interviewees to use storytelling to...
Show moreThis study examined how racism and racial tensions potentially threatened the face needs of Black and White interracial couples. Specifically, this study investigated the benefit of family approval of one's interracial relationship. Couples use of corrective face work in response to prejudice was also examined. This research used a qualitative, interpretive method to gather and analyze data from 14 personal interviews. The interview schedule enabled interviewees to use storytelling to share their experience of being in a Black and White interracial relationship. Interviewees were asked questions surrounding their experience as the partner in an interracial relationship. Couples shared how they told their family that their romantic partner was a different race and shared how they encountered prejudice when they are out in public. Further, they spoke about how people stare at them and make comments about their interracial relationship. The data underwent a thematic analysis (Owen, 1984) where I reviewed the data and searched for themes that were recurrent and repeated by interviewees. There were several themes that emerged. First, the very presence of racial tensions and racism affects interracial couples. Second, family support seemed to mitigate threats to couples' positive and negative faces and enabled couples to engage in open and honest dialogue with their family and their significant other. Finally, even couples with family support, engaged in corrective face work to respond to the face threats posed by racism and racial tensions.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2008
- Identifier
- CFE0002441, ucf:52884
- Format
- Document (PDF)
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0002441
- Title
- Different Facial Recognition Techniques in Transform Domains.
- Creator
-
Al Obaidi, Taif, Mikhael, Wasfy, Atia, George, Jones, W Linwood, Myers, Brent, Moslehy, Faissal, University of Central Florida
- Abstract / Description
-
The human face is frequently used as the biometric signal presented to a machine for identificationpurposes. Several challenges are encountered while designing face identification systems.The challenges are either caused by the process of capturing the face image itself, or occur whileprocessing the face poses. Since the face image not only contains the face, this adds to the datadimensionality, and thus degrades the performance of the recognition system. Face Recognition(FR) has been a major...
Show moreThe human face is frequently used as the biometric signal presented to a machine for identificationpurposes. Several challenges are encountered while designing face identification systems.The challenges are either caused by the process of capturing the face image itself, or occur whileprocessing the face poses. Since the face image not only contains the face, this adds to the datadimensionality, and thus degrades the performance of the recognition system. Face Recognition(FR) has been a major signal processing topic of interest in the last few decades. Most commonapplications of the FR include, forensics, access authorization to facilities, or simply unlockingof a smart phone. The three factors governing the performance of a FR system are: the storagerequirements, the computational complexity, and the recognition accuracy. The typical FR systemconsists of the following main modules in each of the Training and Testing phases: Preprocessing,Feature Extraction, and Classification. The ORL, YALE, FERET, FEI, Cropped AR, and GeorgiaTech datasets are used to evaluate the performance of the proposed systems. The proposed systemsare categorized into Single-Transform and Two-Transform systems. In the first category, the featuresare extracted from a single domain, that of the Two-Dimensional Discrete Cosine Transform(2D DCT). In the latter category, the Two-Dimensional Discrete Wavelet Transform (2D DWT)coefficients are combined with those of the 2D DCT to form one feature vector. The feature vectorsare either used directly or further processed to obtain the persons' final models. The PrincipleComponent Analysis (PCA), the Sparse Representation, Vector Quantization (VQ) are employedas a second step in the Feature Extraction Module. Additionally, a technique is proposed in whichthe feature vector is composed of appropriately selected 2D DCT and 2D DWT coefficients basedon a residual minimization algorithm.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2018
- Identifier
- CFE0007146, ucf:52295
- Format
- Document (PDF)
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0007146
- Title
- LEVINAS ON THE 'ORIGIN' OF JUSTICE: KANT, HEIDEGGER, AND A COMMUNAL STRUCTURE OF DIFFERENCE.
- Creator
-
Tomasello, Olga, Janz, Bruce, University of Central Florida
- Abstract / Description
-
The way we understand community fundamentally structures the way we approach justice. In opposition to totalizing structures of justice founded upon an ontological conception of community, Emmanuel Levinas conceives the possibility of a political or social structure of difference. I argue that the conceptions of community presented by Kant and Heidegger, either as a harmonious, unified being in common, or as a common-identity disclosed beneath the ontological horizon of being-with,...
Show moreThe way we understand community fundamentally structures the way we approach justice. In opposition to totalizing structures of justice founded upon an ontological conception of community, Emmanuel Levinas conceives the possibility of a political or social structure of difference. I argue that the conceptions of community presented by Kant and Heidegger, either as a harmonious, unified being in common, or as a common-identity disclosed beneath the ontological horizon of being-with, necessarily leads to violence. This violence is reflected in the forms of justice instantiated by these philosophies, which privilege the 'light' of the universal over the particularity of individuals in the face-to-face encounter, ultimately corrupting and nullifying one's anarchic moral responsibility for the Other. The intent of this thesis is to argue that justice can only remain just if it is seen, not on the basis of a communal 'light' that absorbs, integrates, and incorporates the Other as an element of a system, but as founded on the anarchic responsibility of the one-for-the-Other. Justice, I will show, cannot be seen as an aim of a community—complete and self-sufficient—in achieving an end, but as a rupture, a disturbance, as a call made among a multitude of particular, unique Others by which ethics (the face-to-face) is fundamental.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2014
- Identifier
- CFH0004630, ucf:45309
- Format
- Document (PDF)
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFH0004630
- Title
- THE ROLE OF FACIAL APPEARANCE IN GENDER CATEGORIZATION.
- Creator
-
Simpkins, Joshua, Carter, Shannon, University of Central Florida
- Abstract / Description
-
Of the many systems of social organization which members of US society use to categorize other members, gender is one of the most important. The gender system operates to place members of US society into categories, and then allocate labor and resources to those members on the basis of their category membership. In order to better understand the gender system, this study examines the methods by which members of US society use the gender system to place other members into a gender category....
Show moreOf the many systems of social organization which members of US society use to categorize other members, gender is one of the most important. The gender system operates to place members of US society into categories, and then allocate labor and resources to those members on the basis of their category membership. In order to better understand the gender system, this study examines the methods by which members of US society use the gender system to place other members into a gender category. First, full facial photographs were taken of a group of participants of varying gender, race, ethnicity, and age. Then, parts of each participant's face were isolated digitally and shown to a second group of participants. This second group was asked to identify the sex and/or gender of the individual in the image, indicate how confident they were in this identification, and then write a brief explanation for why they identified the individual in the image as they did. The analysis conducted by this study supports three findings. First, though the gender categories "male" and "female" are still widely predominant, other categories such as "genderqueer" are seeing use as well. Second, the mouth and lips tend to be seen as more important indicators of gender than other facial features. Finally, while the race and gender category membership of the member doing the categorizing has little or no interaction with the gender categorization process, the race and gender category membership of the member being categorized does have a significant interaction.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2011
- Identifier
- CFH0003690, ucf:44750
- Format
- Document (PDF)
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFH0003690
- Title
- FLOW VISUALIZATION IN MICROFLUIDIC EXPANSION AND MIXING.
- Creator
-
Yakhshi Tafti, Ehsan, Kumar, Ranganathan, University of Central Florida
- Abstract / Description
-
Micro particle image velocimetry (microPIV) is a non-intrusive tool for visualizing flow in micron-scale conduits. Using this investigative instrument, two experimental studies were performed to understand flow behaviors in microfluidic channels - a sudden expansion step flow and laminar velocity profile variation in diffusion driven mixing. First, flow in a backward facing step feature (1:5 expansion ratio) in a microchannel was taken as the subject of microPIV flow visualization. The onset...
Show moreMicro particle image velocimetry (microPIV) is a non-intrusive tool for visualizing flow in micron-scale conduits. Using this investigative instrument, two experimental studies were performed to understand flow behaviors in microfluidic channels - a sudden expansion step flow and laminar velocity profile variation in diffusion driven mixing. First, flow in a backward facing step feature (1:5 expansion ratio) in a microchannel was taken as the subject of microPIV flow visualization. The onset and development of a recirculation flow was studied as a function of flow rate. This flow pattern was further used to investigate two major parameters affecting microPIV measurements; the depth-of-focus and recording time-intervals between images in a microPIV image pair. The onset of recirculation was initiated at flow rates that correspond to Reynolds numbers, Re>95, which is well beyond the typical working range of microfluidic devices (Re=0.01-10). The recirculation flow has a 3D structure due to the dimensions of the microchannel and the effect of no slip condition on the walls. Ensemble cross-correlation was found not to be sensitive to variations of depth-of-focus and the output flow fields were similar as long as the overall optical focus remained within the upper and lower bounds of the microchannel. However, variations of time intervals between images in a microPIV pair, resulted in quantitatively and qualitatively different flow patterns for a given constant flow rate and depth-of-focus. In the second experiment, the effect of the laminar velocity profile and its variation on mixing phenomena at the reduced scale is studied. It is shown that the diffusive mass flux between two miscible streams, flowing in a laminar regime in a microchannel, is enhanced if the velocity at their diffusion interface is increased. Based on this idea, an in-plane passive micromixing concept is proposed and implemented in a working device (sigma micromixer). This mixer shows considerable mixing performance by periodically varying the flow velocity profile, such that the maximum of the profile coincides with the transversely progressing diffusion fronts repeatedly throughout the mixing channel. microPIV has been used to visualize the behavior of laminar flow inside the micromixer device and to confirm the periodic variation of the velocity profile through the mixing channel.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2009
- Identifier
- CFE0002826, ucf:48079
- Format
- Document (PDF)
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0002826
- Title
- VIRTUAL TEAM COOPETITION: AN INVESTIGATION OF COOPETITIVE PROCLIVITY IN VIRTUAL AND FACE-TO-FACE FEMALE DYADS.
- Creator
-
Lutz, Andrew, Chin, Matthew, University of Central Florida
- Abstract / Description
-
The use of virtual teams (VTs) in the workplace has increased rapidly as companies seek to coordinate the collaboration of geographically dispersed employees effectively. This study involved an experimental comparison of VTs and face-to-face teams engaged in coopetition. Coopetition occurs when a relationship is characterized by simultaneous cooperation and competition. This study differed from previous research because many previous studies of team coopetition place their focus on...
Show moreThe use of virtual teams (VTs) in the workplace has increased rapidly as companies seek to coordinate the collaboration of geographically dispersed employees effectively. This study involved an experimental comparison of VTs and face-to-face teams engaged in coopetition. Coopetition occurs when a relationship is characterized by simultaneous cooperation and competition. This study differed from previous research because many previous studies of team coopetition place their focus on traditional face-to-face teams and fail to touch upon the intricacies of VT coopetition. Because of this, investigating the intricacies of coopetition among VT members is an essential addition to the large body of research on face-to-face teams. This study examined team coopetition through separate measures of competitiveness and cooperativeness. The constructs competitiveness and cooperativeness were measured separately instead of together on a single continuum. This method determined team members' coopetitive proclivities, the balance between one's tendency to perform behaviors directed toward achieving a self-serving goal or goals and one's tendency to perform behaviors directed toward achieving a group-serving goal or goals within the context of a coopetitive relationship. Team members' coopetitive proclivities were examined through a combination of videogame play and electronic surveys. All participants in this experiment were female. No significant differences between the coopetitive proclivities of virtual and face-to-face teams were found. We found that the ratings of competence that participants received from their partners tended to be lower under the virtual condition. We found that extroverted team members were more likely to cooperate. We also found that the ratings of competitiveness that participants received from their partners were negatively correlated with the ratings of desirability for future collaboration (i.e., team viability) that participants received from their partners. Further, it was determined that the ratings of cooperativeness that participants received from their partners were positively correlated with the ratings of team viability that participants received from their partners. Additional results indicated a positive relationship between team members' self-reported levels of agreeableness and the ratings of competence that participants received from their partners. Results also indicated a positive relationship between team members' self-reported levels of openness and the ratings of competence that participants received from their partners. This paper discusses the implications of these results and possible directions for future study.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2015
- Identifier
- CFH0004743, ucf:45378
- Format
- Document (PDF)
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFH0004743
- Title
- Comparison of Traditional Educative Delivery to Online Education in United States History as Measured by Florida's End-Of-Course Examinations in a Large Urban School District in Central Florida.
- Creator
-
Wilson, William, Murray, Barbara, Murray, Kenneth, Baldwin, Lee, Holt, Larry, University of Central Florida
- Abstract / Description
-
Student participation in online courses has been growing steadily for the past decade, and the trend appears to continue the growth in this form of instructional delivery method for the foreseeable future (iNACOL, 2012). To date, little research exploring student success rates exists in the social studies. This particular study was conducted to examine what differences, if any, existed in the End-Of-Course (EOC) scores of 11th grade United States history students who took the course in a...
Show moreStudent participation in online courses has been growing steadily for the past decade, and the trend appears to continue the growth in this form of instructional delivery method for the foreseeable future (iNACOL, 2012). To date, little research exploring student success rates exists in the social studies. This particular study was conducted to examine what differences, if any, existed in the End-Of-Course (EOC) scores of 11th grade United States history students who took the course in a traditional, face-to-face format versus students who took the same course online through Florida Virtual School. For this study, proper permission was received from all interested parties, and a sample of 9,339 End of Course (EOC) examinations were taken from 36 high schools in a large, urban school district in Central Florida. All identifiable data were scrubbed from the sample. Due to the extremely small sampling of online students, the One-Sample Wilcoxon test was used on four research questions to compare students in the traditional, face-to-face versus online format and based on ethnicity, gender, and free-and-reduced lunch status.Overall, none of the One-Sample Wilcoxon tests indicated the presence of a significant difference among any subgroup(-)overall, White, non-White, female, male, high socioeconomic status, or low socioeconomic status. Therefore, none of the null hypotheses presented were rejected. Recommendations included replicating the study on a broader scale and conducting a qualitative study to examine the characteristics of online students, their similarities and differences, to those of students who attend class in a face-to-face format.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2014
- Identifier
- CFE0005444, ucf:50391
- Format
- Document (PDF)
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0005444
- Title
- EVALUATING NEONATAL FACIAL PAIN EXPRESSION: IS THERE A PRIMAL FACE OF PAIN?.
- Creator
-
Schiavenato, Martin, Byers, Jacqueline, University of Central Florida
- Abstract / Description
-
Pain assessment continues to be poorly managed in the clinical arena. A review of the communication process in pain assessment is carried out and the hierarchical approach often recommended in the literature with self-report as its "gold-standard," is criticized as limited and simplistic. A comprehensive approach to pain assessment is recommended and a model that conceptualizes pain assessment as a complex transaction with various patient and clinician dependant factors is proposed....
Show morePain assessment continues to be poorly managed in the clinical arena. A review of the communication process in pain assessment is carried out and the hierarchical approach often recommended in the literature with self-report as its "gold-standard," is criticized as limited and simplistic. A comprehensive approach to pain assessment is recommended and a model that conceptualizes pain assessment as a complex transaction with various patient and clinician dependant factors is proposed. Attention is then focused on the pediatric patient whose pain assessment is often dependent on nonverbal communicative action. The clinical approaches to pain assessment in this population mainly the use of behavioral/observational pain scales and facial pain scales, are explored. The primal face of pain (PFP) is identified and proposed theoretically as an important link in the function of facial pain scales. Finally, the existence of the PFP is investigated in a sample of 57 neonates across differences in sex and ethnic origin while controlling for potentially confounding factors. Facial expression to a painful stimulus is measured based on the Neonatal Facial Coding System (NFCS) and applying an innovative computer-based methodology. No statistically significant differences in facial expression were found in infant display thereby supporting the existence of the PFP.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2007
- Identifier
- CFE0001808, ucf:47373
- Format
- Document (PDF)
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0001808
- Title
- REAL-TIME MONOCULAR VISION-BASED TRACKING FOR INTERACTIVE AUGMENTED REALITY.
- Creator
-
Spencer, Lisa, Guha, Ratan, University of Central Florida
- Abstract / Description
-
The need for real-time video analysis is rapidly increasing in today's world. The decreasing cost of powerful processors and the proliferation of affordable cameras, combined with needs for security, methods for searching the growing collection of video data, and an appetite for high-tech entertainment, have produced an environment where video processing is utilized for a wide variety of applications. Tracking is an element in many of these applications, for purposes like detecting anomalous...
Show moreThe need for real-time video analysis is rapidly increasing in today's world. The decreasing cost of powerful processors and the proliferation of affordable cameras, combined with needs for security, methods for searching the growing collection of video data, and an appetite for high-tech entertainment, have produced an environment where video processing is utilized for a wide variety of applications. Tracking is an element in many of these applications, for purposes like detecting anomalous behavior, classifying video clips, and measuring athletic performance. In this dissertation we focus on augmented reality, but the methods and conclusions are applicable to a wide variety of other areas. In particular, our work deals with achieving real-time performance while tracking with augmented reality systems using a minimum set of commercial hardware. We have built prototypes that use both existing technologies and new algorithms we have developed. While performance improvements would be possible with additional hardware, such as multiple cameras or parallel processors, we have concentrated on getting the most performance with the least equipment. Tracking is a broad research area, but an essential component of an augmented reality system. Tracking of some sort is needed to determine the location of scene augmentation. First, we investigated the effects of illumination on the pixel values recorded by a color video camera. We used the results to track a simple solid-colored object in our first augmented reality application. Our second augmented reality application tracks complex non-rigid objects, namely human faces. In the color experiment, we studied the effects of illumination on the color values recorded by a real camera. Human perception is important for many applications, but our focus is on the RGB values available to tracking algorithms. Since the lighting in most environments where video monitoring is done is close to white, (e.g., fluorescent lights in an office, incandescent lights in a home, or direct and indirect sunlight outside,) we looked at the response to "white" light sources as the intensity varied. The red, green, and blue values recorded by the camera can be converted to a number of other color spaces which have been shown to be invariant to various lighting conditions, including view angle, light angle, light intensity, or light color, using models of the physical properties of reflection. Our experiments show how well these derived quantities actually remained constant with real materials, real lights, and real cameras, while still retaining the ability to discriminate between different colors. This color experiment enabled us to find color spaces that were more invariant to changes in illumination intensity than the ones traditionally used. The first augmented reality application tracks a solid colored rectangle and replaces the rectangle with an image, so it appears that the subject is holding a picture instead. Tracking this simple shape is both easy and hard; easy because of the single color and the shape that can be represented by four points or four lines, and hard because there are fewer features available and the color is affected by illumination changes. Many algorithms for tracking fixed shapes do not run in real time or require rich feature sets. We have created a tracking method for simple solid colored objects that uses color and edge information and is fast enough for real-time operation. We also demonstrate a fast deinterlacing method to avoid "tearing" of fast moving edges when recorded by an interlaced camera, and optimization techniques that usually achieved a speedup of about 10 from an implementation that already used optimized image processing library routines. Human faces are complex objects that differ between individuals and undergo non-rigid transformations. Our second augmented reality application detects faces, determines their initial pose, and then tracks changes in real time. The results are displayed as virtual objects overlaid on the real video image. We used existing algorithms for motion detection and face detection. We present a novel method for determining the initial face pose in real time using symmetry. Our face tracking uses existing point tracking methods as well as extensions to Active Appearance Models (AAMs). We also give a new method for integrating detection and tracking data and leveraging the temporal coherence in video data to mitigate the false positive detections. While many face tracking applications assume exactly one face is in the image, our techniques can handle any number of faces. The color experiment along with the two augmented reality applications provide improvements in understanding the effects of illumination intensity changes on recorded colors, as well as better real-time methods for detection and tracking of solid shapes and human faces for augmented reality. These techniques can be applied to other real-time video analysis tasks, such as surveillance and video analysis.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2006
- Identifier
- CFE0001075, ucf:46786
- Format
- Document (PDF)
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0001075
- Title
- PERCEPTION OF FACIAL EXPRESSIONS IN SOCIAL ANXIETY AND GAZE ANXIETY.
- Creator
-
Necaise, Aaron, Neer, Sandra, University of Central Florida
- Abstract / Description
-
This study explored the relationship between gaze anxiety and the perception of facial expressions. The literature suggests that individuals experiencing Social Anxiety Disorder (SAD) might have a fear of making direct eye contact, and that these individuals also demonstrate a hypervigilance towards the eye region. It was thought that this increased anxiety concerning eye contact might be related to the tendency of socially anxious individuals to mislabel emotion in the faces of onlookers. A...
Show moreThis study explored the relationship between gaze anxiety and the perception of facial expressions. The literature suggests that individuals experiencing Social Anxiety Disorder (SAD) might have a fear of making direct eye contact, and that these individuals also demonstrate a hypervigilance towards the eye region. It was thought that this increased anxiety concerning eye contact might be related to the tendency of socially anxious individuals to mislabel emotion in the faces of onlookers. A better understanding of the cognitive biases common to SAD could lead to more efficient intervention and assessment methods. In the present study, the Depression Anxiety Stress Scale-21 (DASS-21) and the Social Phobia and Anxiety Inventory-23 (SPAI-23) were used to measure social anxiety, depression, and overall distress. These forms allowed us to separate participants who reported high socially anxious and depressive traits from those in the normal range. We then compared anxiety concerning mutual eye contact as measured by the Gaze Anxiety Rating Scale (GARS) to performance on a facial recognition task. Performance was measured as recognition accuracy and average perceived intensity of onlooker expression on a scale of 1-5. A linear regression analysis revealed that higher GARS scores were related to higher perceived intensity of emotion by socially anxious individuals. An exploratory correlation analysis also revealed that higher gaze anxiety was related to lower accuracy at identifying neutral emotions and higher accuracy at identifying angry emotions. While past research has demonstrated these same biases by socially anxious individuals, gaze anxiety had not been explored extensively. Future research should investigate gaze anxiety�s role as a moderating variable.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2016
- Identifier
- CFH2000039, ucf:45554
- Format
- Document (PDF)
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFH2000039
- Title
- The Effect of Face Threat Mitigation on Instructor Credibility and Student Motivation in the Absence of Instructor Nonverbal Immediacy.
- Creator
-
Trad, Laura, Katt, James, Miller, Ann, Graham, Rita, University of Central Florida
- Abstract / Description
-
Many years of communication research have shown that an increase in immediacy has been a major factor that affects students' perceptions of instructor credibility which in turn affects, both students' cognitive and affective learning, student state motivation and a variety of other positive outcomes. However, in order for immediacy to be effective, instructor and student must be in the same location at the same time. With the recent push toward on-line classes, what can we find to act like...
Show moreMany years of communication research have shown that an increase in immediacy has been a major factor that affects students' perceptions of instructor credibility which in turn affects, both students' cognitive and affective learning, student state motivation and a variety of other positive outcomes. However, in order for immediacy to be effective, instructor and student must be in the same location at the same time. With the recent push toward on-line classes, what can we find to act like immediacy in a text based format? This research suggests that face threat mitigation can be used in a text-based environment, to achieve the pro-social goals of instructor credibility and student state motivation to the same extent as it does when coupled with immediacy. This study is a replication of a study done by Witt and Kerssen-Griep (2012). In the original study face threat mitigation (FTM) was coupled with instructor nonverbal immediacy (NVI) and they examined the impact these factors had on instructor credibility (i.e., competence, character, and caring) and student state motivation in a video simulated feedback situation. This study surveyed 218 undergraduate students in an introductory communication course. Students were randomly assigned to read hypothetical scenarios in which FTM was manipulated in a manner similar to Witt and Kerssen-Griep's study. They responded to three scales. The current study removed the instructor by using a simulated electronic feedback correspondence. Results of a MANCOVA and four separate ANOVAs were similar to those of the original findings. FTM was found to have a significant positive relationship with instructor credibility (i.e., competence, character, and caring) and student state motivation.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2013
- Identifier
- CFE0004948, ucf:49577
- Format
- Document (PDF)
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0004948
- Title
- Prototype Development in General Purpose Representation and Association Machine Using Communication Theory.
- Creator
-
Li, Huihui, Wei, Lei, Rahnavard, Nazanin, Vosoughi, Azadeh, Da Vitoria Lobo, Niels, Wang, Wei, University of Central Florida
- Abstract / Description
-
Biological system study has been an intense research area in neuroscience and cognitive science for decades of years. Biological human brain is created as an intelligent system that integrates various types of sensor information and processes them intelligently. Neurons, as activated brain cells help the brain to make instant and rough decisions. From the 1950s, researchers start attempting to understand the strategies the biological system employs, then eventually translate them into machine...
Show moreBiological system study has been an intense research area in neuroscience and cognitive science for decades of years. Biological human brain is created as an intelligent system that integrates various types of sensor information and processes them intelligently. Neurons, as activated brain cells help the brain to make instant and rough decisions. From the 1950s, researchers start attempting to understand the strategies the biological system employs, then eventually translate them into machine-based algorithms. Modern computers have been developed to meet our need to handle computational tasks which our brains are not capable of performing with precision and speed. While in these existing man-made intelligent systems, most of them are designed for specific purposes. The modern computers solve sophistic problems based on fixed representation and association formats, instead of employing versatile approaches to explore the unsolved problems.Because of the above limitations of the conventional machines, General Purpose Representation and Association Machine (GPRAM) System is proposed to focus on using a versatile approach with hierarchical representation and association structures to do a quick and rough assessment on multitasks. Through lessons learned from neuroscience, error control coding and digital communications, a prototype of GPRAM system by employing (7,4) Hamming codes and short Low-Density Parity Check (LDPC) codes is implemented. Types of learning processes are presented, which prove the capability of GPRAM for handling multitasks.Furthermore, a study of low resolution simple patterns and face images recognition using an Image Processing Unit (IPU) structure for GPRAM system is presented. IPU structure consists of a randomly constructed LDPC code, an iterative decoder, a switch and scaling, and decision devices. All the input images have been severely degraded to mimic human Visual Information Variability (VIV) experienced in human visual system. The numerical results show that 1) IPU can reliably recognize simple pattern images in different shapes and sizes; 2) IPU demonstrates an excellent multi-class recognition performance for the face images with high degradation. Our results are comparable to popular machine learning recognition methods towards images without any quality degradation; 3) A bunch of methods have been discussed for improving IPU recognition performance, e.g. designing various detection and power scaling methods, constructing specific LDPC codes with large minimum girth, etc.Finally, novel methods to optimize M-ary PSK, M-ary DPSK, and dual-ring QAM signaling with non-equal symbol probabilities over AWGN channels are presented. In digital communication systems, MPSK, MDPSK, and dual-ring QAM signaling with equiprobable symbols have been well analyzed and widely used in practice. Inspired by bio-systems, we suggest investigating signaling with non-equiprobable symbol probabilities, since in bio-systems it is highly-unlikely to follow the ideal setting and uniform construction of single type of system. The results show that the optimizing system has lower error probabilities than conventional systems and the improvements are dramatic. Even though the communication systems are used as the testing environment, clearly, our final goal is to extend current communication theory to accommodate or better understand bio-neural information processing systems.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2017
- Identifier
- CFE0006758, ucf:51846
- Format
- Document (PDF)
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0006758
- Title
- Taming Wild Faces: Web-Scale, Open-Universe Face Identification in Still and Video Imagery.
- Creator
-
Ortiz, Enrique, Shah, Mubarak, Sukthankar, Rahul, Da Vitoria Lobo, Niels, Wang, Jun, Li, Xin, University of Central Florida
- Abstract / Description
-
With the increasing pervasiveness of digital cameras, the Internet, and social networking, there is a growing need to catalog and analyze large collections of photos and videos. In this dissertation, we explore unconstrained still-image and video-based face recognition in real-world scenarios, e.g. social photo sharing and movie trailers, where people of interest are recognized and all others are ignored. In such a scenario, we must obtain high precision in recognizing the known identities,...
Show moreWith the increasing pervasiveness of digital cameras, the Internet, and social networking, there is a growing need to catalog and analyze large collections of photos and videos. In this dissertation, we explore unconstrained still-image and video-based face recognition in real-world scenarios, e.g. social photo sharing and movie trailers, where people of interest are recognized and all others are ignored. In such a scenario, we must obtain high precision in recognizing the known identities, while accurately rejecting those of no interest.Recent advancements in face recognition research has seen Sparse Representation-based Classification (SRC) advance to the forefront of competing methods. However, its drawbacks, slow speed and sensitivity to variations in pose, illumination, and occlusion, have hindered its wide-spread applicability. The contributions of this dissertation are three-fold: 1. For still-image data, we propose a novel Linearly Approximated Sparse Representation-based Classification (LASRC) algorithm that uses linear regression to perform sample selection for l1-minimization, thus harnessing the speed of least-squares and the robustness of SRC. On our large dataset collected from Facebook, LASRC performs equally to standard SRC with a speedup of 100-250x.2. For video, applying the popular l1-minimization for face recognition on a frame-by-frame basis is prohibitively expensive computationally, so we propose a new algorithm Mean Sequence SRC (MSSRC) that performs video face recognition using a joint optimization leveraging all of the available video data and employing the knowledge that the face track frames belong to the same individual. Employing MSSRC results in a speedup of 5x on average over SRC on a frame-by-frame basis.3. Finally, we make the observation that MSSRC sometimes assigns inconsistent identities to the same individual in a scene that could be corrected based on their visual similarity. Therefore, we construct a probabilistic affinity graph combining appearance and co-occurrence similarities to model the relationship between face tracks in a video. Using this relationship graph, we employ random walk analysis to propagate strong class predictions among similar face tracks, while dampening weak predictions. Our method results in a performance gain of 15.8% in average precision over using MSSRC alone.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2014
- Identifier
- CFE0005536, ucf:50313
- Format
- Document (PDF)
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0005536
- Title
- Facilitating Information Retrieval in Social Media User Interfaces.
- Creator
-
Costello, Anthony, Tang, Yubo, Fiore, Stephen, Goldiez, Brian, University of Central Florida
- Abstract / Description
-
As the amount of computer mediated information (e.g., emails, documents, multi-media) we need to process grows, our need to rapidly sort, organize and store electronic information likewise increases. In order to store information effectively, we must find ways to sort through it and organize it in a manner that facilitates efficient retrieval. The instantaneous and emergent nature of communications across networks like Twitter makes them suitable for discussing events (e.g., natural disasters...
Show moreAs the amount of computer mediated information (e.g., emails, documents, multi-media) we need to process grows, our need to rapidly sort, organize and store electronic information likewise increases. In order to store information effectively, we must find ways to sort through it and organize it in a manner that facilitates efficient retrieval. The instantaneous and emergent nature of communications across networks like Twitter makes them suitable for discussing events (e.g., natural disasters) that are amorphous and prone to rapid changes. It can be difficult for an individual human to filter through and organize the large amounts of information that can pass through these types of social networks when events are unfolding rapidly. A common feature of social networks is the images (e.g., human faces, inanimate objects) that are often used by those who send messages across these networks. Humans have a particularly strong ability to recognize and differentiate between human Faces. This effect may also extend to recalling information associated with each human Face. This study investigated the difference between human Face images, non-human Face images and alphanumeric labels as retrieval cues under different levels of Task Load. Participants were required to recall key pieces of event information as they emerged from a Twitter-style message feed during a simulated natural disaster. A counter-balanced within-subjects design was used for this experiment. Participants were exposed to low, medium and high Task Load while responding to five different types of recall cues: (1) Nickname, (2) Non-Face, (3) Non-Face (&) Nickname, (4) Face and (5) Face (&) Nickname. The task required participants to organize information regarding emergencies (e.g., car accidents) from a Twitter-style message feed. The messages reported various events such as fires occurring around a fictional city. Each message was associated with a different recall cue type, depending on the experimental condition. Following the task, participants were asked to recall the information associated with one of the cues they worked with during the task. Results indicate that under medium and high Task Load, both Non-Face and Face retrieval cues increased recall performance over Nickname alone with Non-Faces resulting in the highest mean recall scores. When comparing medium to high Task Load: Face (&) Nickname and Non-Face significantly outperformed the Face condition. The performance in Non-Face (&) Nickname was significantly better than Face (&) Nickname. No significant difference was found between Non-Faces and Non-Faces (&) Nickname. Subjective Task Load scores indicate that participants experienced lower mental workload when using Non-Face cues than using Nickname or Face cues. Generally, these results indicate that under medium and high Task Load levels, images outperformed alphanumeric nicknames, Non-Face images outperformed Face images, and combining alphanumeric nicknames with images may have offered a significant performance advantage only when the image is that of a Face. Both theoretical and practical design implications are provided from these findings.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2014
- Identifier
- CFE0005318, ucf:50524
- Format
- Document (PDF)
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0005318
- Title
- LEARNING GEOMETRY-FREE FACE RE-LIGHTING.
- Creator
-
Moore, Thomas, Foroosh, Hassan, University of Central Florida
- Abstract / Description
-
The accurate modeling of the variability of illumination in a class of images is a fundamental problem that occurs in many areas of computer vision and graphics. For instance, in computer vision there is the problem of facial recognition. Simply, one would hope to be able to identify a known face under any illumination. On the other hand, in graphics one could imagine a system that, given an image, the illumination model could be identified and then used to create new images. In this thesis...
Show moreThe accurate modeling of the variability of illumination in a class of images is a fundamental problem that occurs in many areas of computer vision and graphics. For instance, in computer vision there is the problem of facial recognition. Simply, one would hope to be able to identify a known face under any illumination. On the other hand, in graphics one could imagine a system that, given an image, the illumination model could be identified and then used to create new images. In this thesis we describe a method for learning the illumination model for a class of images. Once the model is learnt it is then used to render new images of the same class under the new illumination. Results are shown for both synthetic and real images. The key contribution of this work is that images of known objects can be re-illuminated using small patches of image data and relatively simple kernel regression models. Additionally, our approach does not require any knowledge of the geometry of the class of objects under consideration making it relatively straightforward to implement. As part of this work we will examine existing geometric and image-based re-lighting techniques; give a detailed description of our geometry-free face re-lighting process; present non-linear regression and basis selection with respect to image synthesis; discuss system limitations; and look at possible extensions and future work.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2007
- Identifier
- CFE0001893, ucf:47394
- Format
- Document (PDF)
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0001893
- Title
- High Performance Techniques for Face Recognition.
- Creator
-
Aldhahab, Ahmed, Mikhael, Wasfy, Atia, George, Jones, W Linwood, Wei, Lei, Elshennawy, Ahmad, University of Central Florida
- Abstract / Description
-
The identification of individuals using face recognition techniques is a challenging task. This is due to the variations resulting from facial expressions, makeup, rotations, illuminations, gestures, etc. Also, facial images contain a great deal of redundant information, which negatively affects the performance of the recognition system. The dimensionality and the redundancy of the facial features have a direct effect on the face recognition accuracy. Not all the features in the feature...
Show moreThe identification of individuals using face recognition techniques is a challenging task. This is due to the variations resulting from facial expressions, makeup, rotations, illuminations, gestures, etc. Also, facial images contain a great deal of redundant information, which negatively affects the performance of the recognition system. The dimensionality and the redundancy of the facial features have a direct effect on the face recognition accuracy. Not all the features in the feature vector space are useful. For example, non-discriminating features in the feature vector space not only degrade the recognition accuracy but also increase the computational complexity.In the field of computer vision, pattern recognition, and image processing, face recognition has become a popular research topic. This is due to its wide spread applications in security and control, which allow the identified individual to access secure areas, personal information, etc. The performance of any recognition system depends on three factors: 1) the storage requirements, 2) the computational complexity, and 3) the recognition rates.Two different recognition system families are presented and developed in this dissertation. Each family consists of several face recognition systems. Each system contains three main steps, namely, preprocessing, feature extraction, and classification. Several preprocessing steps, such as cropping, facial detection, dividing the facial image into sub-images, etc. are applied to the facial images. This reduces the effect of the irrelevant information (background) and improves the system performance. In this dissertation, either a Neural Network (NN) based classifier or Euclidean distance is used for classification purposes. Five widely used databases, namely, ORL, YALE, FERET, FEI, and LFW, each containing different facial variations, such as light condition, rotations, facial expressions, facial details, etc., are used to evaluate the proposed systems. The experimental results of the proposed systems are analyzed using K-folds Cross Validation (CV).In the family-1, Several systems are proposed for face recognition. Each system employs different integrated tools in the feature extraction step. These tools, Two Dimensional Discrete Multiwavelet Transform (2D DMWT), 2D Radon Transform (2D RT), 2D or 3D DWT, and Fast Independent Component Analysis (FastICA), are applied to the processed facial images to reduce the dimensionality and to obtain discriminating features. Each proposed system produces a unique representation, and achieves less storage requirements and better performance than the existing methods.For further facial compression, there are three face recognition systems in the second family. Each system uses different integrated tools to obtain better facial representation. The integrated tools, Vector Quantization (VQ), Discrete cosine Transform (DCT), and 2D DWT, are applied to the facial images for further facial compression and better facial representation. In the systems using the tools VQ/2D DCT and VQ/ 2D DWT, each pose in the databases is represented by one centroid with 4*4*16 dimensions. In the third system, VQ/ Facial Part Detection (FPD), each person in the databases is represented by four centroids with 4*Centroids (4*4*16) dimensions. The systems in the family-2 are proposed to further reduce the dimensions of the data compared to the systems in the family-1 while attaining comparable results. For example, in family-1, the integrated tools, FastICA/ 2D DMWT, applied to different combinations of sub-images in the FERET database with K-fold=5 (9 different poses used in the training mode), reduce the dimensions of the database by 97.22% and achieve 99% accuracy. In contrast, the integrated tools, VQ/ FPD, in the family-2 reduce the dimensions of the data by 99.31% and achieve 97.98% accuracy. In this example, the integrated tools, VQ/ FPD, accomplished further data compression and less accuracy compared to those reported by FastICA/ 2D DMWT tools. Various experiments and simulations using MATLAB are applied. The experimental results of both families confirm the improvements in the storage requirements, as well as the recognition rates as compared to some recently reported methods.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2017
- Identifier
- CFE0006709, ucf:51878
- Format
- Document (PDF)
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0006709
- Title
- Instructor Response to Uncivil Behaviors in the Classroom: An Application of Politeness Theory.
- Creator
-
Yrisarry, Natalie, Miller, Ann, Neuberger, Lindsay, Katt, James, University of Central Florida
- Abstract / Description
-
This study examines levels of politeness in real time instructor responses to classroom incivility behaviors. Student participants were randomly assigned to view a video of an instructor responding to either passive or active student incivility behaviors in various ways. The responses were based on politeness theory conceptualizations of avoidance, mid-level politeness, or bald on record responses. A 2 (i.e., passive, active student incivility) x 3 (i.e., avoidance, mid-level, or bald on...
Show moreThis study examines levels of politeness in real time instructor responses to classroom incivility behaviors. Student participants were randomly assigned to view a video of an instructor responding to either passive or active student incivility behaviors in various ways. The responses were based on politeness theory conceptualizations of avoidance, mid-level politeness, or bald on record responses. A 2 (i.e., passive, active student incivility) x 3 (i.e., avoidance, mid-level, or bald on record instructor response) experimental design formed six conditions. High quality video simulations of a classroom environment, portraying one of the six conditions, were created to specifically address these dimensions. Participants took a web based survey and evaluated the instructor with respect to effectiveness, credibility, and impact on student motivation. Results demonstrate students had most positive responses to bald on record instructor responses to active student incivility. When responding to passive student incivility, a less harsh response (i.e., avoidance, mid-level), while not significantly different from a bald on record response, indicate better outcomes. Therefore, in accordance with politeness theory, instructors should consider the level of imposition created by uncivil student behavior when calibrating responses, as student perceptions can be greatly affected. Theoretical and practical considerations as well as avenues for future research are presented.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2015
- Identifier
- CFE0005746, ucf:50084
- Format
- Document (PDF)
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0005746
- Title
- The Effects of Facial Cues on Consumer Judgment and Decision-Making.
- Creator
-
Liu, Fan, He, Xin, Wang, Ze, Mao, Huifang, Sivo, Stephen, University of Central Florida
- Abstract / Description
-
This dissertation investigates the roles of facial cues in consumer behavior. Specifically, the research examines the effect of facial structural resemblance, facial expressions, and other perceptual cues(-)in both individual and group settings(-)on consumer judgment and decision-making. Essay 1 examines the influence of facial resemblance on consumers' product purchase likelihood. This effect is moderated by consumers' mental construal, such that the effect of increased facial resemblance on...
Show moreThis dissertation investigates the roles of facial cues in consumer behavior. Specifically, the research examines the effect of facial structural resemblance, facial expressions, and other perceptual cues(-)in both individual and group settings(-)on consumer judgment and decision-making. Essay 1 examines the influence of facial resemblance on consumers' product purchase likelihood. This effect is moderated by consumers' mental construal, such that the effect of increased facial resemblance on product purchase likelihood occurs among consumers with high-level construals but not among those with low-level construals. Results of three experimental studies show that increased facial resemblance among team members enhances the perceived entitativity of the group, which in turn leads to more favorable intention of purchasing the product offered by the group. Essay 2 investigates the differential effects of recipients' group entitativity on two types of donation (time vs. money). Through three studies, the research demonstrates that high (versus low) group entitativity among the recipients increases donation of time but decreases donation of money. Such differential effects on donation of time versus money are driven by consumers' emotional or cognitive well-being associated with time or money donations. In essay 3, the effect of smile intensity on customer behavior is shown to be moderated by power and salience of ulterior motive. When employees' ulterior motive is not salient to customers, low-power customers evaluate the employee with intensified smiles more favorably compared to high-power customers. In contrast, when ulterior motive is made salient, high-power rather than low-power customers react more positively to smile intensity. Results show that the interactive effects between smile, power, and ulterior motive are driven by customers' warmth and competence perceptions. Collectively, this dissertation focuses on consumers' face-based judgments of individuals and teams, and investigates how such facial cues might influence consumers' attitude, purchase intention, and prosocial behavior.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2015
- Identifier
- CFE0005828, ucf:50930
- Format
- Document (PDF)
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0005828
- Title
- Beauty and the Beast: The Attractiveness Bias in an Online Peer Mentoring Program.
- Creator
-
Garcia, Carollaine, Jentsch, Kimberly, Jentsch, Florian, Fritzsche, Barbara, Burke, Shawn, University of Central Florida
- Abstract / Description
-
The bias against attractiveness is fairly implicit and furthermore, powerfully impacts people's subsequent impressions of and behaviors toward others (Cash, Gillen, (&) Burns, 1977; Dion et al., 1972). Pallet, Link and Lee (2010) examined the effect of various facial spatial configurations on attractiveness and found that raters rated faces as most attractive when the eye-to-mouth ratio approximated 36% of the face length (the "golden ratio"), which coincides with the measurements of an...
Show moreThe bias against attractiveness is fairly implicit and furthermore, powerfully impacts people's subsequent impressions of and behaviors toward others (Cash, Gillen, (&) Burns, 1977; Dion et al., 1972). Pallet, Link and Lee (2010) examined the effect of various facial spatial configurations on attractiveness and found that raters rated faces as most attractive when the eye-to-mouth ratio approximated 36% of the face length (the "golden ratio"), which coincides with the measurements of an average and thus more attractive face. The present study examined the extent to which the distance of these objectively measured facial features affected mentors' perceptions of their prot(&)#233;g(&)#233;s, the subsequent mentoring given to them, and the prot(&)#233;g(&)#233;s' own behavior (e.g. seek feedback, request specific information).The gender composition of the mentor-prot(&)#233;g(&)#233; dyad was expected to moderate these relationships. I also examined whether, given the expected effects of facial measurements, withholding access to visual cues would affect mentor perceptions and behavior. Participants were 118 mentor/prot(&)#233;g(&)#233; dyads from a large Southeastern university who volunteered to participate in a formal online peer mentoring program. After seeing their prot(&)#233;g(&)#233;s' profiles (and for those in the experimental condition, a picture), mentors chatted with their prot(&)#233;g(&)#233;s once a week for 30 minutes for a total of 4 weeks. Results indicated that prot(&)#233;g(&)#233;s with facial features moderately distant from the golden ratio were perceived as more similar by mentors in same-gender dyads and received greater mentoring than did prot(&)#233;g(&)#233;s closest and farthest from the golden ratio. In opposite-gender dyads, however, mentors reported greater similarity toward those that were farthest from the golden ratio but provided the greatest mentoring to those closest to the golden ratio. The relationship between facial measurements and prot(&)#233;g(&)#233; proactivity was moderated by whether or not their mentor had access to their picture. While prot(&)#233;g(&)#233;s closest to the ratio were more proactive in the picture condition, those that were farthest from it were more proactive in the non-picture condition. Proactivity was as expected associated with greater levels of mentoring, which was ultimately related to a more fulfilled and beneficial relationship for prot(&)#233;g(&)#233;s (i.e. less stress, greater self-efficacy and satisfaction). The results of this study indicate that facial measurements are associated with both differences in mentor and in prot(&)#233;g(&)#233; behavior and that the specific nature of these relationships differs as a function of gender composition. Implications for practice and theory will be discussed.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2012
- Identifier
- CFE0004504, ucf:49275
- Format
- Document (PDF)
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0004504
- Title
- PERCEPTION OF CUTENESS AND BEAUTY.
- Creator
-
Jones, Danielle, Poindexter, Carla, University of Central Florida
- Abstract / Description
-
Upbringing and psychological make-up inspire individual norms for beauty and cuteness. The mannerist approach in my work is a product of the figural liberties found in cartooning, illustration and art history. By altering facial and bodily features, I relate the proportions of an infant to cuteness and innocence. However, I tailor the photographs to empower the subjects all the while mirroring trends in contemporary pop culture. I'm interested in themes of everyday life, vitality and...
Show moreUpbringing and psychological make-up inspire individual norms for beauty and cuteness. The mannerist approach in my work is a product of the figural liberties found in cartooning, illustration and art history. By altering facial and bodily features, I relate the proportions of an infant to cuteness and innocence. However, I tailor the photographs to empower the subjects all the while mirroring trends in contemporary pop culture. I'm interested in themes of everyday life, vitality and emotion placed in obscure, imaginary or exaggerated venues. I fictionalize subjects of my reality to compel viewers to identify with and fancy emotions, circumstances, moods and relationships. The intent is to amplify, yet be truer to their existence and idiosyncrasies through figural adaptations.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2009
- Identifier
- CFE0002538, ucf:47637
- Format
- Document (PDF)
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0002538