Date: Friday, August 29
Time: 09:30-12:30
Location: Athens
Chair: G. van der Heijden (Wageningen University, Wageningen, The Netherlands)

This symposium will present research funded within the EU “Measuring the Impossible” initiative. The “Measuring the Impossible” initiative is part of the New and Emerging Science and Technologies programs of the EU (cordis.europa.eu/nest/).

Measuring the Impossible is about supporting interdisciplinary research and novel investigative methods that could present prospects for advancing the measurement of multidimensional phenomena which are mediated by human interpretation and/or perception – to be able to advance the frontiers of the science of measurement and to respond to future requirements for measuring properties such as comfort, naturalness, perceived quality, feelings, body language and consciousness (ftp://ftp.cordis.europa.eu/pub/nest/docs/1-nest-measuring-290507.pdf).

Many problems in real-life are so complex that they can only be solved using an interdisciplinary approach, including physical metrology (physics, chemistry, biology), neuroscience and psychology. The idea is that solutions require the combined effort of creative researchers with different scientific backgrounds. The emphasis of the initiative therefore lies in the multifaceted character and interdisciplinarity of the research and it aims to promote the creation of new interdisciplinary partnerships between researchers stemming from a wide range of research fields.

Successful cooperation will result in innovative theories and methods for measuring complex human perception and interpretation. The measurement based on novel kinds of technical cognitive systems will help understand human behaviour without neglecting the ethical and gender impacts.
Within the Measuring the Impossible initiative, 15 projects are granted with a total grant from the EU of over 26 M€. This symposium will present the progress of seven projects, with emphasis on the techniques and methods that will be used for measuring the complex phenomena.

Program

• 09:30 MINET – A European network on Measuring the Impossible
  M. Gröning (Stockholm University, Stockholm, Sweden)
  

• 09:50 Measuring perceived odor quality
  L. Zheng (Stockholm University, Stockholm, Sweden)
  

• 10:10 Focal attention models driven by image statistics
  Jan-Mark Geusebroek¹, Victoria Yanulevskaya¹, Jan Bernard Marsman², Frans Cornelissen²
  (¹University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands; 2University Medical Centre, Groningen, The Netherlands)
  

• 10:30 Measuring Perception of Naturalness
  K.E. Overvliet¹, S. Soto-Faraco¹, T.A. Whitaker², L. Johnstone Sorensen³, F. McGlone⁴ , and G. van der Heijden⁵
  (¹Universitat de Barcelona, Spain; ²Trinity College Dublin, Ireland; ³National Physical Laboratory (NPL), London, UK; ⁴Unilever Research Port Sunlight Laboratory, UK; ⁵Wageningen University, Wageningen, The Netherlands)
  

• 10:50 Coffee break
  

• 11:30 Measuring the Experience of Digital Game Enjoyment
  Wijnand IJsselsteijn (FUGA)
  

• 11:50 Measuring conscious mental states
  M. Overgaard¹, K. Sandberg¹, B. Timmermans² and A. Cleeremans³
  (¹Aarhus University Hospital, Hammel, Denmark; ²Universite Libre de Bruxelles, Brussels, Belgium; ³Universite Libre de Bruxelles, Brussels, Belgium)
  

• 12:10 MEMORY: Measuring the relationship between perception of space and time
  G. M. Cicchini¹, P. Binda¹, D. Burr² and M. C. Morrone¹
  (¹Università Vita-Salute, San Raffaele, Milan, Italy; ²Università degli Studi di Firenze, Florence, Italy)
  

• 12:30 End of session