Tootfinder

Time-to-collision estimation with age-related macular degeneration using visual and auditory cues: which cues are most important? #AMD

"Another threat to reefs: Microplastic chemicals may harm coral reproduction"
#CoralReef #Microplastics #Plastic

Another threat to reefs: Microplastic chemicals may harm coral reproduction
As the sliver of a new moon shines over Kāneʻohe Bay, Oʻahu, millions of tiny orbs ascend from a reef and swirl in the water column. These spheres are bundles of coral eggs and sperm responding to lunar cycles and chemical cues in the water that tell them when to fertilize and where to settle […]

Incredibly, this is a 1979 design, but looks far more “peak 1985” and importantly has a lot of (exterior) design cues that were imperative in the 1990s. However a few clues about the technical form make it too “old” for the 1990s — not the style though, but the fact that this style technically came from the 1970s was a shock.
(German Transport Museum — the “UNI Car”)

audio description rules because even though im completely sighted, sometimes my brain doesn't work right and I can't follow what's happening BUT ALSO it's great for if you wanna watch something but also close your eyes for a bit or try to fall asleep or your head hurts but you still wanna watch an episode of something. they're usually really well done, too

🎲 TextBandit: Evaluating Probabilistic Reasoning in LLMs Through Language-Only Decision Tasks
#llm

TextBandit: Evaluating Probabilistic Reasoning in LLMs Through Language-Only Decision Tasks
Large language models (LLMs) have shown to be increasingly capable of performing reasoning tasks, but their ability to make sequential decisions under uncertainty only using natural language remains underexplored. We introduce a novel benchmark in which LLMs interact with multi-armed bandit environments using purely textual feedback, "you earned a token", without access to numerical cues or explicit probabilities, resulting in the model to infer latent reward structures purely off linguistic cu…

We forget at our peril the craze for drawing curly cues around chickens of the mid-18th century.
Source: https://archive.org/details/bim_eighteenth-century_the-pennsylvania-sic-a_bickham-george_1750/page/n11/mode/2up

Visual load does not modulate neural processing of audiovisual speech integration https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0028393225002799 "results support an automatic integration of acoustic and visual speech cues, independent of visual load…

The Third Visual Pathway for Social Perception
David Pitcher
https://arxiv.org/abs/2512.09351 https://arxiv.org/pdf/2512.09351 https://arxiv.org/html/2512.09351
arXiv:2512.09351v1 Announce Type: new
Abstract: Influential models of primate visual cortex describe two functionally distinct pathways: a ventral pathway for object recognition and the dorsal pathway for spatial and action processing. However, recent human and non-human primate research suggests the existence of a third visual pathway projecting from early visual cortex through the motion-selective area V5/MT into the superior temporal sulcus (STS). Here we integrate anatomical, neuroimaging, and neuropsychological evidence demonstrating that this pathway specializes in processing dynamic social cues such as facial expressions, eye gaze, and body movements. This third pathway supports social perception by computing the actions and intentions of other people. These findings enhance our understanding of visual cortical organization and highlight the STS's critical role in social cognition, suggesting that visual processing encompasses a dedicated neural circuit for interpreting socially relevant motion and behavior.
toXiv_bot_toot

Visual, auditory, and audiovisual time-to-collision estimation among participants with age-related macular degeneration compared to a normal-vision group: the TTC-AMD study https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0337549

Visual, auditory, and audiovisual time-to-collision estimation among participants with age-related macular degeneration compared to a normal-vision group: The TTC-AMD study
Little is known about whether and to what degree people with different amounts of visual impairment rely on hearing instead of vision for mobility, particularly in judgments of collision. We measured how much importance was assigned to visual and auditory cues during time-to-collision judgments made by people with age-related macular degeneration (Impaired Vision Group; IV) compared to a control group without age-related macular degeneration (Normal Vision Group; NV). A virtual reality system s…

Enhancing grasping ability with vibrational guidance for individuals who are blind or partially sighted https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-025-21720-0 "Tactile sensory substitution, like auditory substitution, effectively compensates for lost vision by engaging cross-modal r…

Enhancing grasping ability with vibrational guidance for individuals who are blind or partially sighted - Scientific Reports
This study investigates the effectiveness of a vibrotactile bracelet in supporting goal-directed hand movements and grasping tasks for visually conditioned individuals. The research addresses the challenge of object manipulation without visual feedback, comparing tactile to auditory cues. The primary research question explores whether vibrotactile signals delivered via a wrist-worn device can accurately guide hand movements and improve grasping precision. Forty-one participants with varying deg…

Spectral peak picking improves tactile speech perception https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-025-28930-6 "The algorithm is suitable for real-time use in wearable sensory substitution devices and could aid the development of effective haptic hearing aids."