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The motion-induced contour (MIC) was first described by Victor Klymenko and Naomi Weisstein in a series of papers in the 1980s. The effect is created by rotating the outline of a tilted cube in depth. When one of the vertical edges is removed, an illusory contour can be seen in its place. In four experiments, we explored which stimulus features influence perceived illusory contour strength. Participants provided subjective ratings of illusory contour strength as a function of orientation of the stimulus, separation between inducing edges, and the length of inducing edges. We found that the angle of tilt of the object in depth had the largest impact on perceived illusory contour strength with tilt angles of 20° and 30° producing the strongest percepts. Tilt angle is an unexplored feature of structure-from-motion displays. In addition, we found that once the depth structure of the object was extracted, other features of the display, such as the distance spanned by the illusory contour, could also influence its strength, similar to the notion of support ratio for 2-D illusory contours. Illusory contour strength was better predicted by the length of the contour in 3-D rather than in 2-D, suggesting that MICs are constructed by a 3-D process that takes as input initially recovered contour orientation and position information in depth and only then forms interpolations between them.

Although there are several studies that have highlighted the importance of attention in reducing the number of injures in the construction industry, few studies have attempted to empirically measure the attention of construction workers. One of the techniques that can be used to measure workers’ attention is eye-tracking. Eye-tracking is widely accepted as the most direct and continuous measure of attention given that where one looks is highly correlated with where a person is focusing his/her attention. Thus, with the fundamental objective of investigating hazard identification abilities and the visual attention of construction workers, this study pioneers the application of eye-tracking technology to the realm of construction-safety practices. The study conducts a pilot test to examine the pattern of participants’ eye movement and attention distribution when shown a hazardous situation in a construction site. To achieve this objective, thirty-five pictures that include multiple areas of interest were shown to ten participants, and their eye movements were recorded using a head mounted EyeLink-II system (SR Research). Then, the absolute duration heat maps were generated and the fixation/gaze-related and saccade-related metrics were calculated for each area of interest. The results of the analysis revealed that some people failed to fixate on hidden hazards or even a danger sign. The findings of the study exhibit the immense potential of using eye-tracking technology for improving construction site safety.

We report evidence that individual-level variation in people's physiological and attentional responses to aversive and appetitive stimuli are correlated with broad political orientations. Specifically, we find that greater orientation to aversive stimuli tends to be associated with right-of-centre and greater orientation to appetitive (pleasing) stimuli with left-of-centre political inclinations. These findings are consistent with recent evidence that political views are connected to physiological predispositions but are unique in incorporating findings on variation in directed attention that make it possible to understand additional aspects of the link between the physiological and the political.