Does language proficiency modulate oculomotor control? Evidence from Hindi–English bilinguals

2012 ◽  
Vol 15 (4) ◽  
pp. 771-781 ◽  
Author(s):  
NIHARIKA SINGH ◽  
RAMESH KUMAR MISHRA
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Control ◽  
Eye Movement ◽  
Inhibitory Control ◽  
Language Proficiency ◽  
Stroop Task ◽  
Strong Evidence ◽  
Stroop Interference ◽  
Oculomotor Control ◽  
Saccadic Latency ◽  
Colour Patch

Though many previous studies have reported enhanced cognitive control in bilinguals, few have investigated if such control is modulated by language proficiency. Here, we examined the inhibitory control of high and low proficient Hindi–English bilinguals on an oculomotor Stroop task. Subjects were asked to make a saccade as fast as possible towards the appropriate colour patch among competitors and distractors suppressing an eye movement evoked by the meaning of the word. High proficient bilinguals quickly oriented their attention towards the correct colour patch while effectively controlling the Stroop interference compared with low proficient subjects, on both colour and direction words. High proficient bilinguals also had fewer saccadic errors and demonstrated overall faster saccadic latency on all trial types. The results provide strong evidence for enhanced oculomotor control in proficient bilinguals compared with the less proficient ones.

scholarly journals A dynamic, imperturbable link between midbrain activity and saccade velocity

2020 ◽  
Vol 123 (2) ◽  
pp. 451-453
Author(s):  
Joshua A. Seideman
Keyword(s):  
Eye Movement ◽  
Strong Evidence ◽  
Neural Control ◽  
Oculomotor Control ◽  
Saccadic Eye Movement ◽  
Saccade Velocity ◽  
Midbrain Structure ◽  
Instantaneous Control ◽  
Dynamic Moment

We make a saccadic eye movement once every few hundred milliseconds; however, the neural control of saccade execution is not fully understood. Dynamic, moment-by-moment variations in saccade velocity are typically thought to be controlled by neurons in the lower, but not the upper regions of the brainstem. In a recent report, Smalianchuk et al. (Smalianchuk I, Jagadisan UK, Gandhi NJ. J Neurosci 38: 10156–10167, 2018) provided strong evidence for a role of the superior colliculus, a midbrain structure, in the instantaneous control of saccade velocity, suggesting the revision of long-standing models of oculomotor control.

Do Young Children Modulate Their Cognitive Control?

2016 ◽  
Vol 63 (2) ◽  
pp. 117-126 ◽  
Author(s):  
Solène Ambrosi ◽  
Patrick Lemaire ◽  
Agnès Blaye
Keyword(s):  
Young Children ◽  
Cognitive Control ◽  
Inhibitory Control ◽  
Age Range ◽  
Stroop Tasks ◽  
And Task

Abstract. Dynamic, trial-by-trial modulations of inhibitory control are well documented in adults but rarely investigated in children. Here, we examined whether 5-to-7 year-old children, an age range when inhibitory control is still partially immature, achieve such modulations. Fifty three children took flanker, Simon, and Stroop tasks. Above and beyond classic congruency effects, the present results showed two crucial findings. First, we found evidence for sequential modulations of congruency effects in these young children in the three conflict tasks. Second, our results showed both task specificities and task commonalities. These findings in young children have important implications as they suggest that, to be modulated, inhibitory control does not require full maturation and that the precise pattern of trial-by-trial modulations may depend on the nature of conflict.

Searching for O: Evidence for cognitive control in eye-movement behavior

2009 ◽  
Author(s):  
Polina M. Vanyukov ◽  
Erik D. Reichle ◽  
Tessa Warren
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Control ◽  
Eye Movement ◽  
Movement Behavior

Abstract W P140: Post-stroke Oculomotor Abnormalities evident during Objective Eye Tracking but Not under Clinical Assessment

Stroke ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 46 (suppl_1) ◽  
Author(s):  
John-Ross Rizzo ◽  
Todd Hudson ◽  
Briana Kowal ◽  
Michal Wiseman ◽  
Preeti Raghavan
Keyword(s):  
Motor Control ◽  
Eye Movements ◽  
Eye Movement ◽  
Oculomotor Control ◽  
Healthy Controls ◽  
Visually Guided ◽  
Stroke Patients ◽  
Movement Execution ◽  
Post Stroke ◽  
Control Post

Introduction: Visual abnormalities and manual motor control have been studied extensively after stroke, but an understanding of oculomotor control post-stroke has not. Recent studies have revealed that in visually guided reaches arm movements are planned during eye movement execution, which may contribute to increased task complexity. In fact, in healthy controls during visually guided reaches, the onset of eye movement is delayed, its velocity reduced, and endpoint errors are larger relative to isolated eye movements. Our objective in this experiment was to examine the temporal properties of eye movement execution for stroke patients with no diagnosed visual impairment. The goal is to improve understanding of oculomotor control in stroke relative to normal function, and ultimately further understand its coordination with manual motor control during joint eye and hand movements. We hypothesized that stroke patients would show abnormal initiation or onset latency for saccades made in an eye movement task, as compared to healthy controls. Methods: We measured the kinematics of eye movements during point-to-point saccades; there was an initial static, fixation point and the stimulus was a flashed target on a computer monitor. We used a video-based eye tracker for objective recording of the eye at a sampling frequency of 2000 Hz (SR Research, Eyelink). 10 stroke subjects, over 4 months from injury and with no diagnosed visual impairment, and 10 healthy controls completed 432 saccades in a serial fashion. Results: Stroke patients had significantly faster onset latencies as compared to healthy controls during saccades (99.5ms vs. 245.2ms, p=0.00058). Conclusion: A better understanding of the variations in oculomotor control post-stroke, which may go unnoticed during clinical assessment, may improve understanding of how eye control synchronizes with arm or manual motor control. This knowledge could assist in tailoring rehabilitative strategies to amplify motor recovery. For next steps, we will perform objective eye and hand recordings during visually guided reaches post-stroke to better understand the harmonization or lack thereof after neurologic insult.

Visually guided saccade versus eye-hand reach: contrasting neuronal activity in the cortical supplementary and frontal eye fields

1996 ◽  
Vol 75 (5) ◽  
pp. 2187-2191 ◽  
Author(s):  
H. Mushiake ◽  
N. Fujii ◽  
J. Tanji
Keyword(s):  
Eye Movement ◽  
Neuronal Activity ◽  
Motor Task ◽  
Oculomotor Control ◽  
Frontal Eye Field ◽  
Frontal Eye Fields ◽  
Saccadic Eye Movement ◽  
Visually Guided ◽  
Supplementary Eye Field ◽  
Eye Field

1. We studied neuronal activity in the supplementary eye field (SEF) and frontal eye field (FEF) of a monkey during performance of a conditional motor task that required capturing of a target either with a saccadic eye movement (the saccade-only condition) or with an eye-hand reach (the saccade-and-reach condition), according to visual instructions. 2. Among 106 SEF neurons that showed presaccadic activity, more than one-half of them (54%) were active preferentially under the saccade-only condition (n = 12) or under the saccade-and-reach condition (n = 45), while the remaining 49 neurons were equally active in both conditions. 3. By contrast, most (97%) of the 109 neurons in the FEF exhibited approximately equal activity in relation to saccades under the two conditions. 4. The present results suggest the possibility that SEF neurons, at least in part, are involved in signaling whether the motor task is oculomotor or combined eye-arm movements, whereas FEF neurons are mostly related to oculomotor control.

scholarly journals On the interrelation of 1/f neural noise and norepinephrine system activity during motor response inhibition

2019 ◽  
Vol 121 (5) ◽  
pp. 1633-1643 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maik Pertermann ◽  
Moritz Mückschel ◽  
Nico Adelhöfer ◽  
Tjalf Ziemssen ◽  
Christian Beste
Keyword(s):  
Information Processing ◽  
Cognitive Control ◽  
Inhibitory Control ◽  
Response Inhibition ◽  
Pupil Diameter ◽  
Human Information Processing ◽  
System Activity ◽  
Neural Noise ◽  
Control Processes ◽  
Norepinephrine System

Several lines of evidence suggest that there is a close interrelation between the degree of noise in neural circuits and the activity of the norepinephrine (NE) system, yet the precise nexus between these aspects is far from being understood during human information processing and cognitive control in particular. We examine this nexus during response inhibition in n = 47 healthy participants. Using high-density EEG recordings, we estimate neural noise by calculating “1/ f noise” of those data and integrate these EEG parameters with pupil diameter data as an established indirect index of NE system activity. We show that neural noise is reduced when cognitive control processes to inhibit a prepotent/automated response are exerted. These neural noise variations were confined to the theta frequency band, which has also been shown to play a central role during response inhibition and cognitive control. There were strong positive correlations between the 1 /f neural noise parameter and the pupil diameter data within the first 250 ms after the Nogo stimulus presentation at centro-parietal electrode sites. No such correlations were evident during automated responding on Go trials. Source localization analyses using standardized low-resolution brain electromagnetic tomography show that inferior parietal areas are activated in this time period in Nogo trials. The data suggest an interrelation of NE system activity and neural noise within early stages of information processing associated with inferior parietal areas when cognitive control processes are required. The data provide the first direct evidence for the nexus between NE system activity and the modulation of neural noise during inhibitory control in humans. NEW & NOTEWORTHY This is the first study showing that there is a nexus between norepinephrine system activity and the modulation of neural noise or scale-free neural activity during inhibitory control in humans. It does so by integrating pupil diameter data with analysis of EEG neural noise.

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