Catalyst: seeing through the eyes of a cat

In this paper we document a simulation of the cat visual system intended to convey four of the major differences between the human and cat visual systems. Learning about an animal's visual system is an important step in understanding how that type of animal perceives the world around them, and how they behave within it. The cat visual system, for example, has been studied extensively by neuroscientists [20, 14, 1, 6], but the results of their work are difficult to convey using traditional text displays that are common in zoos, museums, and classrooms. We achieve some of our effects using fragment shaders applied as post-processes, enabling real-time simulation in either a game engine or live video feed. We also present Catalyst, an educational game that uses our simulation to teach players about the differences between human and cat vision. The tasks in Catalyst are based on the principle of situated cognition, and require the player to switch repeatedly between the two visual systems, thus emphasizing the contrast between them. The results of a user study suggest that Catalyst is successful in stimulating the interest of the players with regard to the material being presented, making it a suitable edutainment application for classrooms, zoos, or other educational settings.