Three experiments examined how bottom-up and top-down processes interact when people view and make inferences from complex visual displays (weather maps). Bottom-up effects of display design were investigated by manipulating the relative visual salience of task-relevant and task-irrelevant information across different maps. Top-down effects of…

The demand for pervasive access of location-related information (e.g., local traffic, restaurant locations, navigation maps, weather conditions, pollution index, etc.) fosters a tremendous application base of "Location Based Services (LBSs)". Without loss of generality, we model location-related information as "spatial objects" and the accesses…

An inexpensive and easily implemented device to measure wind velocity is proposed. This prototype has the advantage of being able to measure both the speed and the direction of the wind in two dimensions. The device utilizes a computational interface commonly referred to as a "mouse." The mouse proposed for this prototype contains an…