scholarly journals A Multimodal Approach to Investigate the Neural Mechanisms of Real World Social Vision

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Arish Alreja ◽  
Michael James Ward ◽  
Qianli Ma ◽  
Mark Richardson ◽  
Brian Russ ◽  
...  

Eye tracking and other behavioral measurements collected from patient-participants in their hospital rooms afford a unique opportunity to study immersive natural behavior for basic and clinical-translational research, and also requires addressing important logistical, technical, and ethical challenges. Hospital rooms provide the opportunity to richly capture both clinically relevant and ordinary natural behavior. As clinical settings, they add the potential to study the relationship between behavior and physiology by collecting physiological data synchronized to behavioral measures from participants. Combining eye-tracking, other behavioral measures, and physiological measurements enables clinical-translational research into understanding the participants' disorders and clinician-patient interactions, as well as basic research into natural, real world behavior as participants eat, read, converse with friends and family, etc. Here we describe a paradigm in individuals undergoing surgical treatment for epilepsy who spend 1-2 weeks in the hospital with electrodes implanted in their brain to determine the source of their seizures. This provides the unique opportunity to record behavior using eye tracking glasses customized to address clinically-related ergonomic concerns, synchronized direct neural recordings, use computer vision to assist with video annotation, and apply multivariate machine learning analyses to multimodal data encompassing hours of natural behavior. We discuss the acquisition, quality control, annotation, and analysis pipelines to study the neural basis of real world social and affective perception during natural conversations with friends and family in participants with epilepsy. We also discuss clinical, logistical, and ethical and privacy considerations that must be addressed to acquire high quality multimodal data in this setting.

2014 ◽  
Vol 2 (3) ◽  
pp. 343-359 ◽  
Author(s):  
O. Kaminska ◽  
T. Foulsham
Keyword(s):  

2015 ◽  
Vol 38 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Eva C. Winkler ◽  
Christoph Schickhardt

Abstract:The use of whole genome sequencing in translational research not only holds promise for finding new targeted therapies but also raises several ethical and legal questions. The four main ethical and legal challenges are as follows: (1) the handling of additional or incidental findings stemming from whole genome sequencing in research contexts; (2) the compatibility and balancing of data protection and research that is based on broad data sharing; (3) the responsibility of researchers, particularly of non-physician researchers, working in the field of genome sequencing; and (4) the process of informing and asking patients or research subjects for informed consent to the sequencing of their genome. In this paper, first, these four challenges are illustrated and, second, concrete solutions are proposed, as elaborated by the interdisciplinary Heidelberg EURAT project group, as guidelines for the use of genome sequencing in translation research and therapy in Heidelberg.


1998 ◽  
Vol 353 (1377) ◽  
pp. 1801-1818 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
N. K. Logothetis

Figures that can be seen in more than one way are invaluable tools for the study of the neural basis of visual awareness, because such stimuli permit the dissociation of the neural responses that underlie what we perceive at any given time from those forming the sensory representation of a visual pattern. To study the former type of responses, monkeys were subjected to binocular rivalry, and the response of neurons in a number of different visual areas was studied while the animals reported their alternating percepts by pulling levers. Perception–related modulations of neural activity were found to occur to different extents in different cortical visual areas. The cells that were affected by suppression were almost exclusively binocular, and their proportion was found to increase in the higher processing stages of the visual system. The strongest correlations between neural activity and perception were observed in the visual areas of the temporal lobe. A strikingly large number of neurons in the early visual areas remained active during the perceptual suppression of the stimulus, a finding suggesting that conscious visual perception might be mediated by only a subset of the cells exhibiting stimulus selective responses. These physiological findings, together with a number of recent psychophysical studies, offer a new explanation of the phenomenon of binocular rivalry. Indeed, rivalry has long been considered to be closely linked with binocular fusion and stereopsis, and the sequences of dominance and suppression have been viewed as the result of competition between the two monocular channels. The physiological data presented here are incompatible with this interpretation. Rather than reflecting interocular competition, the rivalry is most probably between the two different central neural representations generated by the dichoptically presented stimuli. The mechanisms of rivalry are probably the same as, or very similar to, those underlying multistable perception in general, and further physiological studies might reveal a much about the neural mechanisms of our perceptual organization.


2014 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 12-24
Author(s):  
Michael Comerford

The plethora of new data sources, combined with a growing interest in increased access to previously unpublished data, poses a set of ethical challenges regarding individual privacy. This paper sets out one aspect of those challenges: the need to anonymise data in such a form that protects the privacy of individuals while providing sufficient data utility for data users. This issue is discussed using a case study of Scottish Government’s administrative data, in which disclosure risk is examined and data utility is assessed using a potential ‘real-world’ analysis.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anna Kosovicheva ◽  
Abla Alaoui-Soce ◽  
Jeremy Wolfe

Many real-world visual tasks involve searching for multiple instances of a target (e.g., picking ripe berries). What strategies do observers use when collecting items in this type of search? Do they wait to finish collecting the current item before starting to look for the next target, or do they search ahead for future targets? We utilized behavioral and eye tracking measures to distinguish between these two possibilities in foraging search. Experiment 1 used a color wheel technique in which observers searched for T shapes among L shapes while all items independently cycled through a set of colors. Trials were abruptly terminated, and observers reported both the color and location of the next target that they intended to click. Using observers’ color reports to infer target-finding times, we demonstrate that observers found the next item before the time of the click on the current target. We validated these results in Experiment 2 by recording fixation locations around the time of each click. Experiment 3 utilized a different procedure, in which all items were intermittently occluded during the trial. We then calculated a distribution of when targets were visible around the time of each click, allowing us to infer when they were most likely found. In a fourth and final experiment, observers indicated the locations of multiple future targets after the search was abruptly terminated. Together, our results provide converging evidence to demonstrate that observers can find the next target before collecting the current target and can typically forage 1-2 items ahead.


Author(s):  
Shannon R. Zentall ◽  
Angela G. Junglen

Although the influence of mindsets on motivation has been investigated using behavioral measures or verbal responses (e.g., Cimpian et al., 2007), only a handful of studies have used physiological measures, such as eye-tracking, to understand this process beyond explicit responses. Physiological measures are needed to understand thoughts and feelings that children are unable or unwilling to express verbally (e.g., Nisbett & Wilson, 1977). Physiological measures provide the opportunity to identify and quantify possible contributing causes to motivational mindsets (e.g., level of stress or anxiety) that can be compared across settings. Understanding the implicit thoughts and emotions that underlie observable behaviors (e.g., persistence) allow us to better understand mechanism.


Author(s):  
Helene Gelderblom ◽  
Funmi Adebesin ◽  
Jacques Brosens ◽  
Rendani Kruger

In this article the authors describe how they incorporate eye tracking in a human-computer interaction (HCI) course that forms part of a postgraduate Informatics degree. The focus is on an eye tracking assignment that involves student groups performing usability evaluation studies for real world clients. Over the past three years the authors have observed how this experience positively affected students' attitude towards usability and user experience (UX) evaluation. They therefore believe that eye tracking is a powerful tool to convince students of the importance of user centered design. To investigate the soundness of their informal observations, the authors conducted a survey amongst 2016 HCI students and analysed student course evaluation results from 2014 to 2016. The findings confirm that students regard the eye tracking assignment as a mind altering experience and that it is potentially an effective tool for convincing future IT professionals of the importance of usability, UX and user centered design.


Author(s):  
Na Chen ◽  
Ming Zhao ◽  
Kun Gao ◽  
Jun Zhao

Safety signs play a very important role in people’s evacuation during emergencies. In order to explore the appropriate color for subway safety signs, four safety signs of different color combinations are designed, and the virtual reality, eye-tracking technology, and physiological indicator measurement are used in a virtual subway fire escape experiment. A total of 96 participants with equal distribution in gender and four different color combination groups were recruited. Participants’ eye-tracking and physiological data (heart rate, skin conductance) were real-time recorded through ErgoLAB V3.0 in the whole experiment. The relationship between Color_of_safety_sign and escape performance, eye-tracking indicators, and physiological indicators is discussed respectively through SPSS. The results show that “Green and black” group has the best evacuation escape performance, low cognitive load, high search efficiency on safety signs, and the highest stress level and immersion and “Green and black” can be the most appropriate color for safety sign. This research is of certain significance for improving the function of subway fire-fighting infrastructure and the resilience of the metro system. Moreover, it can provide references and advice on risk management, emergency evacuation, and so on.


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