All issues

We describe an engineering-psychological experiment that continues the study of ways to adapt a person to the increasing complexity of logical problems by presenting a series of problems of increasing complexity, which is determined by the volume of initial data. Tasks require calculations in an associative or non-associative system of operations. By the nature of the change in the time of solving the problem, depending on the number of necessary operations, we can conclude that a purely sequential method of solving problems or connecting additional brain resources to the solution in parallel mode. In a previously published experimental work, a person in the process of solving an associative problem recognized color images with meaningful images. In the new study, a similar problem is solved for abstract monochrome geometric shapes. Analysis of the result showed that for the second case, the probability of the subject switching to a parallel method of processing visual information is significantly reduced. The research method is based on presenting a person with two types of tasks. One type of problem contains associative calculations and allows a parallel solution algorithm. Another type of problem is the control one, which contains problems in which calculations are not associative and parallel algorithms are ineffective. The task of recognizing and searching for a given object is associative. A parallel strategy significantly speeds up the solution with relatively small additional resources. As a control series of problems (to separate parallel work from the acceleration of a sequential algorithm), we use, as in the previous experiment, a non-associative comparison problem in cyclic arithmetic, presented in the visual form of the game “rock, paper, scissors”. In this problem, the parallel algorithm requires a large number of processors with a small efficiency coefficient. Therefore, the transition of a person to a parallel algorithm for solving this problem is almost impossible, and the acceleration of processing input information is possible only by increasing the speed. Comparing the dependence of the solution time on the volume of source data for two types of problems allows us to identify four types of strategies for adapting to the increasing complexity of the problem: uniform sequential, accelerated sequential, parallel computing (where possible), or undefined (for this method) strategy. The Reducing of the number of subjects, who switch to a parallel strategy when encoding input information with formal images, shows the effectiveness of codes that cause subject associations. They increase the speed of human perception and processing of information. The article contains a preliminary mathematical model that explains this phenomenon. It is based on the appearance of a second set of initial data, which occurs in a person as a result of recognizing the depicted objects.

The practical application of nuclear medicine demonstrates the continued information deficiency of the algorithms and programs that provide visualization and analysis of medical images. The aim of the study was to determine the principles of optimizing the processing of planar osteostsintigraphy on the basis of сomputer aided diagnosis (CAD) for analysis of texture descriptions of images of metastatic zones on planar scintigrams of skeleton. A computer-aided diagnosis system for analysis of skeletal metastases based on planar scintigraphy data has been developed. This system includes skeleton image segmentation, calculation of textural, histogram and morphometrical parameters and the creation of a training set. For study of metastatic images’ textural characteristics on planar scintigrams of skeleton was developed the computer program of automatic analysis of skeletal metastases is used from data of planar scintigraphy. Also expert evaluation was used to distinguishing ‘pathological’ (metastatic) from ‘physiological’ (non-metastatic) radiopharmaceutical hyperfixation zones in which Haralick’s textural features were determined: autocorrelation, contrast, ‘forth moment’ and heterogeneity. This program was established on the principles of сomputer aided diagnosis researches planar scintigrams of skeletal patients with metastatic breast cancer hearths hyperfixation of radiopharmaceuticals were identified. Calculated parameters were made such as brightness, smoothness, the third moment of brightness, brightness uniformity, entropy brightness. It has been established that in most areas of the skeleton of histogram values of parameters in pathologic hyperfixation of radiopharmaceuticals predominate over the same values in the physiological. Most often pathological hyperfixation of radiopharmaceuticals as the front and rear fixed scintigramms prevalence of brightness and smoothness of the image brightness in comparison with those of the physiological hyperfixation of radiopharmaceuticals. Separate figures histogram analysis can be used in specifying the diagnosis of metastases in the mathematical modeling and interpretation bone scintigraphy. Separate figures histogram analysis can be used in specifying the diagnosis of metastases in the mathematical modeling and interpretation bone scintigraphy.

The work continues research on the ability of a person to improve the productivity of information processing, using parallel work or improving the performance of analyzers. A person receives a series of tasks, the solution of which requires the processing of a certain amount of information. The time and the validity of the decision are recorded. The dependence of the average solution time on the amount of information in the problem is determined by correctly solved problems. In accordance with the proposed method, the problems contain calculations of expressions in two algebras, one of which is associative and the other is nonassociative. To facilitate the work of the subjects in the experiment were used figurative graphic images of elements of algebra. Non-associative calculations were implemented in the form of the game “rock-paper-scissors”. It was necessary to determine the winning symbol in the long line of these figures, considering that they appear sequentially from left to right and play with the previous winner symbol. Associative calculations were based on the recognition of drawings from a finite set of simple images. It was necessary to determine which figure from this set in the line is not enough, or to state that all the pictures are present. In each problem there was no more than one picture. Computation in associative algebra allows the parallel counting, and in the absence of associativity only sequential computations are possible. Therefore, the analysis of the time for solving a series of problems reveals a consistent uniform, sequential accelerated and parallel computing strategy. In the experiments it was found that all subjects used a uniform sequential strategy to solve non-associative problems. For the associative task, all subjects used parallel computing, and some have used parallel computing acceleration of the growth of complexity of the task. A small part of the subjects with a high complexity, judging by the evolution of the solution time, supplemented the parallel account with a sequential stage of calculations (possibly to control the solution). We develop a special method for assessing the rate of processing of input information by a person. It allowed us to estimate the level of parallelism of the calculation in the associative task. Parallelism of level from two to three was registered. The characteristic speed of information processing in the sequential case (about one and a half characters per second) is twice less than the typical speed of human image recognition. Apparently the difference in processing time actually spent on the calculation process. For an associative problem in the case of a minimum amount of information, the solution time is near to the non-associativity case or less than twice. This is probably due to the fact that for a small number of characters recognition almost exhausts the calculations for the used non-associative problem.