Young skilled deaf readers have an enhanced perceptual span in reading

2018 ◽  
Vol 71 (1) ◽  
pp. 291-301 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nathalie N Bélanger ◽  
Michelle Lee ◽  
Elizabeth R Schotter
Keyword(s):  
Visual Attention ◽  
Attentional Control ◽  
Time Course ◽  
Visual Stimuli ◽  
Reading Level ◽  
Deaf Children ◽  
Moving Window ◽  
Perceptual Span ◽  
Deaf Readers ◽  
Deaf Adults

Recently, Bélanger, Slattery, Mayberry and Rayner showed, using the moving-window paradigm, that profoundly deaf adults have a wider perceptual span during reading relative to hearing adults matched on reading level. This difference might be related to the fact that deaf adults allocate more visual attention to simple stimuli in the parafovea. Importantly, this reorganization of visual attention in deaf individuals is already manifesting in deaf children. This leads to questions about the time course of the emergence of an enhanced perceptual span (which is under attentional control) in young deaf readers. The present research addressed this question by comparing the perceptual spans of young deaf readers (age 7-15) and young hearing readers (age 7-15). Young deaf readers, like deaf adults, were found to have a wider perceptual span relative to their hearing peers matched on reading level, suggesting that strong and early reorganization of visual attention in deaf individuals goes beyond the processing of simple visual stimuli and emerges into more cognitively complex tasks, such as reading.

Visual disgust-elicitors produce an attentional blink independent of contextual and trait-level pathogen avoidance

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paola Perone ◽  
David Vaughn Becker ◽  
Joshua M. Tybur
Keyword(s):  
Individual Differences ◽  
Visual Attention ◽  
Attentional Blink ◽  
Attentional Bias ◽  
Visual Stimuli ◽  
Attentional Biases ◽  
Attentional Processing ◽  
Trait Level ◽  
Task Irrelevant ◽  
Pathogen Avoidance

Multiple studies report that disgust-eliciting stimuli are perceived as salient and subsequently capture selective attention. In the current study, we aimed to better understand the nature of temporal attentional biases toward disgust-eliciting stimuli and to investigate the extent to which these biases are sensitive to contextual and trait-level pathogen avoidance motives. Participants (N=116) performed in an Emotional Attentional Blink (EAB) task in which task-irrelevant disgust-eliciting, fear-eliciting, or neutral images preceded a target by 200, 500, or 800 milliseconds (i.e., lag two, five and eight respectively). They did so twice - once while not exposed to an odor, and once while exposed to either an odor that elicited disgust or an odor that did not - and completed a measure of disgust sensitivity. Results indicate that disgust-eliciting visual stimuli produced a greater attentional blink than neutral visual stimuli at lag two and a greater attentional blink than fear-eliciting visual stimuli at both lag two and at lag five. Neither the odor manipulations nor individual differences measures moderated this effect. We propose that visual attention is engaged for a longer period of time following disgust-eliciting stimuli because covert processes automatically initiate the evaluation of pathogen threats. The fact that state and trait pathogen avoidance do not influence this temporal attentional bias suggests that early attentional processing of pathogen cues is initiated independent from the context in which such cues are perceived.

The Neurobiology of Reading Differs for Deaf and Hearing Adults

2020 ◽  
pp. 346-359
Author(s):  
Karen Emmorey
Keyword(s):  
Semantic Processing ◽  
Event Related Potentials ◽  
Coarse Grained ◽  
Reading Success ◽  
Deaf Readers ◽  
Electrophysiological Studies ◽  
Deaf Adults ◽  
Related Potentials ◽  
Reading System ◽  
New Evidence

Recent neuroimaging and electrophysiological studies reveal how the reading system successfully adapts when phonological codes are relatively coarse-grained due to reduced auditory input during development. New evidence suggests that the optimal end-state for the reading system may differ for deaf versus hearing adults and indicates that certain neural patterns that are maladaptive for hearing readers may be beneficial for deaf readers. This chapter focuses on deaf adults who are signers and have achieved reading success. Although the left-hemisphere-dominant reading circuit is largely similar in both deaf and hearing individuals, skilled deaf readers exhibit a more bilateral neural response to written words and sentences than their hearing peers, as measured by event-related potentials and functional magnetic resonance imaging. Skilled deaf readers may also rely more on neural regions involved in semantic processing than hearing readers do. Overall, emerging evidence indicates that the neural markers for reading skill may differ for deaf and hearing adults.

scholarly journals Saliency-Based Gaze Visualization for Eye Movement Analysis

Sensors ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 21 (15) ◽  
pp. 5178
Author(s):  
Sangbong Yoo ◽  
Seongmin Jeong ◽  
Seokyeon Kim ◽  
Yun Jang
Keyword(s):  
Eye Movements ◽  
Visual Attention ◽  
Eye Movement ◽  
Visual Stimuli ◽  
Saliency Map ◽  
Gaze Behavior ◽  
The Gaze ◽  
Movement Data ◽  
Visual Clues ◽  
Human Visual Attention

Gaze movement and visual stimuli have been utilized to analyze human visual attention intuitively. Gaze behavior studies mainly show statistical analyses of eye movements and human visual attention. During these analyses, eye movement data and the saliency map are presented to the analysts as separate views or merged views. However, the analysts become frustrated when they need to memorize all of the separate views or when the eye movements obscure the saliency map in the merged views. Therefore, it is not easy to analyze how visual stimuli affect gaze movements since existing techniques focus excessively on the eye movement data. In this paper, we propose a novel visualization technique for analyzing gaze behavior using saliency features as visual clues to express the visual attention of an observer. The visual clues that represent visual attention are analyzed to reveal which saliency features are prominent for the visual stimulus analysis. We visualize the gaze data with the saliency features to interpret the visual attention. We analyze the gaze behavior with the proposed visualization to evaluate that our approach to embedding saliency features within the visualization supports us to understand the visual attention of an observer.

scholarly journals Cochlear implantation: a review of the literature and the Nijmegen results

1997 ◽  
Vol 111 (11) ◽  
pp. 1008-1017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mohammad Jamal A. Makhdoum ◽  
Ad F. M. Snik ◽  
Paul van den Broek
Keyword(s):  
Cochlear Implant ◽  
Hearing Aids ◽  
Cochlear Implantation ◽  
Sensorineural Deafness ◽  
Deaf Children ◽  
Subject Selection ◽  
Profound Deafness ◽  
Deaf Adults ◽  
Adults And Children ◽  
To Receive

AbstractThe field of cochlear implantation is developing rapidly. In subjects with bilateral profound deafness who gain no benefit from conventional hearing aids the aim of cochlear implantation is to provide a means for them to receive auditory sensations. Throughout the world, most cochlear implant centres are still continuing their research efforts to improve the results with this technique. Although it is still difficult to predict how an individual will perform with a cochlear implant, the success of cochlear implantation can no longer be denied. In this paper, we review some recent papers and reports, and the results of the various Nijmegen cochlear implant studies. Data about subject selection, examinations, surgery and the outcome are discussed. Our results were in good agreement with those of other authors. It can be concluded once again that cochlear implantation is an effective treatment for postlingually deaf adults and children, and for prelingually (congenital or acquired) deaf children with profound bilateral sensorineural deafness.

scholarly journals Multisensory Spatial Attention Deficits Are Predictive of Phonological Decoding Skills in Developmental Dyslexia

2010 ◽  
Vol 22 (5) ◽  
pp. 1011-1025 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrea Facoetti ◽  
Anna Noemi Trussardi ◽  
Milena Ruffino ◽  
Maria Luisa Lorusso ◽  
Carmen Cattaneo ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Spatial Attention ◽  
Developmental Dyslexia ◽  
Time Course ◽  
Reading Performance ◽  
Reading Level ◽  
Decoding Skills ◽  
Attentional Processing ◽  
Phonological Decoding ◽  
Decoding Accuracy ◽  
Deficit Theory

Although the dominant approach posits that developmental dyslexia arises from deficits in systems that are exclusively linguistic in nature (i.e., phonological deficit theory), dyslexics show a variety of lower level deficits in sensory and attentional processing. Although their link to the reading disorder remains contentious, recent empirical and computational studies suggest that spatial attention plays an important role in phonological decoding. The present behavioral study investigated exogenous spatial attention in dyslexic children and matched controls by measuring RTs to visual and auditory stimuli in cued-detection tasks. Dyslexics with poor nonword decoding accuracy showed a slower time course of visual and auditory (multisensory) spatial attention compared with both chronological age and reading level controls as well as compared with dyslexics with slow but accurate nonword decoding. Individual differences in the time course of multisensory spatial attention accounted for 31% of unique variance in the nonword reading performance of the entire dyslexic sample after controlling for age, IQ, and phonological skills. The present study suggests that multisensory “sluggish attention shifting”—related to a temporoparietal dysfunction—selectively impairs the sublexical mechanisms that are critical for reading development. These findings may offer a new approach for early identification and remediation of developmental dyslexia.

Drawn to Distraction: Anxiety Impairs Neural Suppression of Known Distractor Features in Visual Search

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-13
Author(s):  
Christine Salahub ◽  
Stephen M. Emrich
Keyword(s):  
Visual Search ◽  
Attentional Control ◽  
Template Matching ◽  
Time Course ◽  
High Anxiety ◽  
Guided Search ◽  
Distractor Processing ◽  
Search And Destroy

Abstract When searching for a target, it is possible to suppress the features of a known distractor. This suppression may prevent distractor processing altogether or only after the distractor initially captures attention (i.e., search and destroy). However, suppression may be impaired in individuals with attentional control deficits, such as in high anxiety. In this study (n = 48), we used ERPs to examine the time course of attentional enhancement and suppression when participants were given pretrial information about target or distractor features. Consistent with our hypothesis, we found that individuals with higher levels of anxiety had lower neural measures of suppressing the template-matching distractor, instead showing enhanced processing. These findings indicate that individuals with anxiety are more likely to use a search-and-destroy mechanism of negative templates—highlighting the importance of attentional control abilities in distractor-guided search.

scholarly journals Left-Hemispheric Asymmetry for Object-Based Attention: an ERP Study

2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (11) ◽  
pp. 315 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrea Orlandi ◽  
Alice Mado Proverbio
Keyword(s):  
Visual Attention ◽  
Hemispheric Asymmetry ◽  
Time Course ◽  
Electrophysiological Study ◽  
Target Selection ◽  
Neural Correlates ◽  
Specific Stimulus ◽  
Object Categories ◽  
Object Based ◽  
Stimulus Features

It has been shown that selective attention enhances the activity in visual regions associated with stimulus processing. The left hemisphere seems to have a prominent role when non-spatial attention is directed towards specific stimulus features (e.g., color, spatial frequency). The present electrophysiological study investigated the time course and neural correlates of object-based attention, under the assumption of left-hemispheric asymmetry. Twenty-nine right-handed participants were presented with 3D graphic images representing the shapes of different object categories (wooden dummies, chairs, structures of cubes) which lacked detail. They were instructed to press a button in response to a target stimulus indicated at the beginning of each run. The perception of non-target stimuli elicited a larger anterior N2 component, which was likely associated with motor inhibition. Conversely, target selection resulted in an enhanced selection negativity (SN) response lateralized over the left occipito-temporal regions, followed by a larger centro-parietal P300 response. These potentials were interpreted as indexing attentional selection and categorization processes, respectively. The standardized weighted low-resolution electromagnetic tomography (swLORETA) source reconstruction showed the engagement of a fronto-temporo-limbic network underlying object-based visual attention. Overall, the SN scalp distribution and relative neural generators hinted at a left-hemispheric advantage for non-spatial object-based visual attention.

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