scholarly journals Changes in the Spatial Distribution of Visual Attention after Early Deafness

2002 ◽  
Vol 14 (5) ◽  
pp. 687-701 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jason Proksch ◽  
Daphne Bavelier
Keyword(s):  
Visual Field ◽  
Visual Attention ◽  
Visual Information ◽  
Search Task ◽  
Peripheral Visual Field ◽  
Auditory Deprivation ◽  
Attentional Processing ◽  
Attentional Resources ◽  
Visual Skills ◽  
Visual Tasks

There is much anecdotal suggestion of improved visual skills in congenitally deaf individuals. However, this claim has only been met by mixed results from careful investigations of visual skills in deaf individuals. Psychophysical assessments of visual functions have failed, for the most part, to validate the view of enhanced visual skills after deafness. Only a few studies have shown an advantage for deaf individuals in visual tasks. Interestingly, all of these studies share the requirement that participants process visual information in their peripheral visual field under demanding conditions of attention. This work has led us to propose that congenital auditory deprivation alters the gradient of visual attention from central to peripheral field by enhancing peripheral processing. This hypothesis was tested by adapting a search task from Lavie and colleagues in which the interference from distracting information on the search task provides a measure of attentional resources. These authors have established that during an easy central search for a target, any surplus attention remaining will involuntarily process a peripheral distractor that the subject has been instructed to ignore. Attentional resources can be measured by adjusting the difficulty of the search task to the point at which no surplus resources are available for the distractor. Through modification of this paradigm, central and peripheral attentional resources were compared in deaf and hearing individuals. Deaf individuals possessed greater attentional resources in the periphery but less in the center when compared to hearing individuals. Furthermore, based on results from native hearing signers, it was shown that sign language alone could not be responsible for these changes. We conclude that auditory deprivation from birth leads to compensatory changes within the visual system that enhance attentional processing of the peripheral visual field.

scholarly journals The visual white matter connecting human area prostriata and the thalamus is retinotopically organized

2020 ◽  
Vol 225 (6) ◽  
pp. 1839-1853 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jan W. Kurzawski ◽  
Kyriaki Mikellidou ◽  
Maria Concetta Morrone ◽  
Franco Pestilli
Keyword(s):  
White Matter ◽  
Visual Field ◽  
Visual Information ◽  
Peripheral Visual Field ◽  
Wide Field ◽  
Central Visual Field ◽  
Field Representation ◽  
Computing Platform ◽  
Human Connectome Project ◽  
Plane Extraction

Abstract The human visual system is capable of processing visual information from fovea to the far peripheral visual field. Recent fMRI studies have shown a full and detailed retinotopic map in area prostriata, located ventro-dorsally and anterior to the calcarine sulcus along the parieto-occipital sulcus with strong preference for peripheral and wide-field stimulation. Here, we report the anatomical pattern of white matter connections between area prostriata and the thalamus encompassing the lateral geniculate nucleus (LGN). To this end, we developed and utilized an automated pipeline comprising a series of Apps that run openly on the cloud computing platform brainlife.io to analyse 139 subjects of the Human Connectome Project (HCP). We observe a continuous and extended bundle of white matter fibers from which two subcomponents can be extracted: one passing ventrally parallel to the optic radiations (OR) and another passing dorsally circumventing the lateral ventricle. Interestingly, the loop travelling dorsally connects the thalamus with the central visual field representation of prostriata located anteriorly, while the other loop travelling more ventrally connects the LGN with the more peripheral visual field representation located posteriorly. We then analyse an additional cohort of 10 HCP subjects using a manual plane extraction method outside brainlife.io to study the relationship between the two extracted white matter subcomponents and eccentricity, myelin and cortical thickness gradients within prostriata. Our results are consistent with a retinotopic segregation recently demonstrated in the OR, connecting the LGN and V1 in humans and reveal for the first time a retinotopic segregation regarding the trajectory of a fiber bundle between the thalamus and an associative visual area.

scholarly journals Seeing without the Occipito-Parietal Cortex: Simultagnosia as a Shrinkage of the Attentional Visual Field

2004 ◽  
Vol 15 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 3-13 ◽  
Author(s):  
François Michel ◽  
Marie-Anne Henaff
Keyword(s):  
Visual Field ◽  
Visual Attention ◽  
Parietal Cortex ◽  
Experimental Approach ◽  
Normal Subjects ◽  
Natural Scenes ◽  
Attentional Resources ◽  
Tunnel Vision ◽  
Attentional Visual Field ◽  
Striking Contrast

Following bi-parietal lesions patient AT showed a severe inability to relocate her attention within a visual field which perimetry proved to be near-normal. An experimental approach with tasks testing visuo-spatial attention demonstrated a shrinkage of A.T.’s attentional visual field. With her visual attention narrowed to a kind of functional tunnel vision, the patient exhibited simultanagnosia (Wolpert, 1924), a symptom previously described in 1909 by Balint under the label of Psychic paralysis of “Gaze”. In striking contrast AT showed an efficient and effortless perception of complex natural scenes, which, according to recent work in normal subjects, necessitate few if any attentional resources.

scholarly journals Electrophysiological evidence for temporal dynamics associated with attentional processing in the zoom lens paradigm

PeerJ ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 6 ◽  
pp. e4538 ◽  
Author(s):  
Qing Zhang ◽  
Tengfei Liang ◽  
Jiafeng Zhang ◽  
Xueying Fu ◽  
Jianlin Wu
Keyword(s):  
Search Task ◽  
Attentional Focus ◽  
Visuospatial Attention ◽  
Zoom Lens ◽  
Lens Model ◽  
Attentional Processing ◽  
Attentional Resources ◽  
Electrophysiological Evidence ◽  
Attentional Scope ◽  
Concentric Circles

BackgroundVisuospatial processing requires wide distribution or narrow focusing of attention to certain regions in space. This mechanism is described by the zoom lens model and predicts an inverse correlation between the efficiency of processing and the size of the attentional scope. Little is known, however, about the exact timing of the effects of attentional scaling on visual searching and whether or not additional processing phases are involved in this process.MethodElectroencephalographic recordings were made while participants performed a visual search task under different attentional scaling conditions. Two concentric circles of different sizes, presented to the participants at the center of a screen modulated the attentional scopes, and search arrays were distributed in the space areas indicated by these concentric circles. To ensure consistent eccentricity of the search arrays across different conditions, we limited our studies to the neural responses evoked by the search arrays distributed in the overlapping region of different attentional scopes.ResultsConsistent with the prediction of the zoom lens model, our behavioral data showed that reaction times for target discrimination of search arrays decreased and the associated error rates also significantly decreased, with narrowing the attentional scope. Results of the event-related potential analysis showed that the target-elicited amplitude of lateral occipital N1, rather than posterior P1, which reflects the earliest visuospatial attentional processing, was sensitive to changes in the scaling of visuospatial attention, indicating that the modulation of the effect of changes in the spatial scale of attention on visual processing occurred after the delay period of P1. The N1 generator exhibited higher activity as the attentional scope narrowed, reflecting more intensive processing resources within the attentional focus. In contrast to N1, the amplitude of N2pc increased with the expansion of the attentional focus, suggesting that observers might further redistribute attentional resources according to the increased task difficulty.ConclusionThese findings provide electrophysiological evidence that the neural activity of the N1 generator is the earliest marker of the zoom lens effect of visual spatial attention. Furthermore, evidence from N2pc shows that there is also a redistribution of attentional resources after the action of the zoom lens mechanism, which allows for better perform of the search task in the context of low attentional resolution. On the basis of the timing of P1, N1, and N2pc, our findings provide compelling evidence that visuospatial attention processing in the zoom lens paradigm involves multi-stage dynamic processing.

scholarly journals Examining the Effects of Clutter and Target Salience in an E-Commerce Visual Search Task

2019 ◽  
Vol 63 (1) ◽  
pp. 1761-1765
Keyword(s):  
Visual Search ◽  
Visual Field ◽  
Visual Information ◽  
Search Task ◽  
Visual Search Task ◽  
Visual Salience ◽  
Web Page ◽  
Attentional Guidance ◽  
Two Factors ◽  
Trial Participants

For web page designers it is important to consider how the visual components of a page affect how easy it is to use. Visual salience and clutter are two bottom-up factors of stimuli that have been shown to affect attentional guidance. Visual salience is a measure of how much a given item or region in the visual field stands out relative to its surroundings, and clutter is a measure of how much visual information is present and how well it is organized. In this study, we examined the effects of visual salience and clutter in a visual search task in e-commerce pages. Clutter was manipulated by adding grids of varying densities to the background of stimuli. On each trial, participants searched for an item that was either the most or least salient of the items on the page as determined by a computational model of visual salience (Itti, Koch, & Niebur, 1998). The results showed that the high salient targets were found faster than the low salient targets and search times also increased as clutter increased, but these two factors did not interact. We conclude that designers should consider both factors when possible.

scholarly journals Effects of visual attention on depth discrimination in the peripheral visual field

2010 ◽  
Vol 6 (6) ◽  
pp. 307-307
Author(s):  
K. Segawa ◽  
D. Kobayashi ◽  
K. Uchikawa
Keyword(s):  
Visual Field ◽  
Visual Attention ◽  
Peripheral Visual Field ◽  
Depth Discrimination

scholarly journals The visual white matter connecting human area prostriata and the thalamus is retinotopically organized

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jan W. Kurzawski ◽  
Kyriaki Mikellidou ◽  
Maria Concetta Morrone ◽  
Franco Pestilli
Keyword(s):  
White Matter ◽  
Visual Field ◽  
Visual Information ◽  
Peripheral Visual Field ◽  
Wide Field ◽  
Field Stimulation ◽  
Central Visual Field ◽  
Field Representation ◽  
First Time ◽  
Optic Radiations

AbstractThe human visual system is capable of processing visual information from fovea to the far peripheral visual field. Recent fMRI studies have shown a full and detailed retinotopic map in area prostriata, located ventro-dorsally and anterior to the calcarine sulcus along the parietooccipital sulcus with strong preference for peripheral and wide-field stimulation. Here, we report the anatomical pattern of white-matter connections between area prostriata and the thalamus encompassing the lateral geniculate nucleus (LGN). We observe a continuous and extended bundle of white matter fibers from which two subcomponents can be extracted: one passing ventrally parallel to the optic radiations (OR) and another passing dorsally circumventing the lateral ventricle. Interestingly, the loop travelling dorsally connects the thalamus with the central visual field representation of prostriata, while the other loop travelling more ventrally connects the LGN with the more peripheral visual field representation. This is consistent with a retinotopic segregation recently demonstrated in the OR, connecting the LGN and V1 in humans. Our results demonstrate for the first time a retinotopic segregation regarding the trajectory of a fiber bundle between the thalamus and an associative visual area.

scholarly journals Visual Attention in The Fovea and The Periphery during Visual Search

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jie Zhang ◽  
Xiaocang Zhu ◽  
Shanshan Wang ◽  
Hossein Esteky ◽  
Yonghong Tian ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Visual Cortex ◽  
Visual Search ◽  
Visual Field ◽  
Visual Attention ◽  
Search Task ◽  
Visual Search Task ◽  
Common View ◽  
Serial Process ◽  
Feature Attention ◽  
Task Feature

Visual search depends on both the foveal and peripheral visual system, yet the foveal attention mechanisms is still lack of insights. We simultaneously recorded the foveal and peripheral activities in V4, IT and LPFC, while monkeys performed a category-based visual search task. Feature attention enhanced responses of Face-selective, House-selective, and Non-selective foveal cells in visual cortex. While foveal attention effects appeared no matter the peripheral attention effects, paying attention to the foveal stimulus dissipated the peripheral feature attentional effects, and delayed the peripheral spatial attentional effects. When target features appeared both in the foveal and the peripheral, feature attention effects seemed to occur predominately in the foveal, which might not distribute across the visual field according to common view of distributed feature attention effects. As a result, the parallel attentive process seemed to occur during distractor fixations, while the serial process predominated during target fixations in visual search.

EXPRESS: Framing the area: An efficient approach for avoiding visual interference and optimizing visual search in adolescents

2021 ◽  
pp. 174702182110650
Author(s):  
Sabrina Bouhassoun ◽  
Christian Gerlach ◽  
Grégoire Borst ◽  
Nicolas Poirel
Keyword(s):  
Visual Search ◽  
Visual Information ◽  
Search Task ◽  
Visual Search Task ◽  
Local Level ◽  
Critical Role ◽  
Attentional Resources ◽  
Visual Interference ◽  
Visual Searches ◽  
Educational Field

Attentional resources are limited, and resistance to interference plays a critical role during cognitive tasks and learning. Previous studies have shown that participants find it difficult to avoid being distracted by global visual information when processing local details. In this study, we investigated an innovative approach for enhancing the processing of local visual details by middle-school adolescents. Two groups completed a classic global/local visual search task in which a predefined target could appear at the global or local level, either with or without a frame. The results from the no-frame display group provided a direct replication in adolescents of previous findings in adults, with increasing number of interferent stimuli presented in the display adversely affecting detection of local targets. Additionally, by varying the numbers of distractors inside and outside the frame, we showed that distractors only interfered with the processing of local information inside the frame, while the deleterious impact of increases in distracting information was prevented when the distractors were outside the frame. These findings suggest that when a frame delimits an attentional area, the influence of an increasing number of distractors present outside the frame is eliminated. We assume that application of a frame allows for efficient delimitation of attention deployment to a restricted topographical visual area in adolescents. These results evidence that processing of local details can be improved without modifying the structure of the stimuli, and provide promising clues for optimizing attentional resources during time-absorbing visual searches. Applicable implications in the educational field are discussed.

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