scholarly journals Blinded by magic: Electrophysiological correlates of change blindness

2019 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 85-86
Author(s):  
Monique Yuan ◽  
Sarah Sheldon ◽  
Kyle Mathewson

Magicians can often hide their method for a trick in plain sight by effecting a phenomenon known as change blindness. The purpose of this study was to find the reason for why an individual is induced with change blindness. Alpha oscillations are known to impair detection of visual stimuli, but it is unclear if this is due to increased guess rate or decreased fidelity of the mental representation. Here we estimated fidelity and guess rate as a function of pre-stimulus alpha oscillations using a change blindness task. In this study, each trial began with an array of 6 Gabor patches with a fixated dot that subjects were instructed to keep their eyes on. As the array traveled to the center of the screen, it either changed direction vertically at 90 degrees or continued horizontally. When the array switched direction, one of the Gabor patches rotated 30 degrees simultaneously. Subjects were then asked to identify which patch rotated. EEG (electroencephalography) data was simultaneously recorded with eye-tracking as subjects performed the task. Twenty-eight participants performed this task, which included six blocks of forty-eight trials. There were two different types of trials: flexion, in which the array changed direction, and control, in which the array did not change direction. Reaction time tended to be slower in flexion trials, and we found that the change in direction affected the subject’s ability to see the Gabor patch rotation. Based on the event-related potential results, which are an average of EEG signals aligned to the start of a trial, we could see that the P300 differed between correct flexion, incorrect flexion, and control trials. The P300 can be interpreted as a marker of consciousness. This difference demonstrates that the subject’s attention is automatically drawn to a larger change in stimuli.

Author(s):  
Ton Dijkstra ◽  
Walter J. B. van Heuven

This chapter on the reading of words by multilinguals considers how retrieving words in two or more languages is affected by the lexical properties of the words, the sentence context in which they occur, and the language to which they belong. Reaction time and event-related potential (ERP) studies are discussed that investigate the processing of cognates, interlingual homographs, and words with different numbers of neighbors, both in isolation and in sentence context. After reviewing different models for multilingual word retrieval, it is concluded that multilingual word recognition involves a language-independent, context-sensitive, and interactive pattern recognition routine, with temporal properties that can be determined not only by “classical” reaction time techniques, but even better by up-to-date research techniques such as eye-tracking and ERP recordings.


Author(s):  
Dionysia Filiopoulou ◽  
Maria Rigou ◽  
Evanthia Faliagka

The average web user receives numerous advertising messages while browsing online and the formats of such digital marketing stimuli are constantly increasing in number and degree of intrusiveness. This chapter investigates the effectiveness of different types of display advertising by means of an eye-tracking study combined with a pre- and a post-test questionnaire with the purpose of collecting quantitative and qualitative data concerning ad visibility and interaction. Eye gaze data are particularly revealing when examining visual stimuli and they become more valuable when associated with asking users to recall seeing an advertising message we know they fixated on. Moreover, the study aimed to look into whether banner blindness still applies regardless of the type of display ad used, whether the visual pattern remains F-shaped, the effect of placing ads below the fold, how effective trick banners are, and which types of ads are annoying to users.


2018 ◽  
Vol 25 (1) ◽  
pp. 91-104 ◽  
Author(s):  
Giorgia Michelini ◽  
Celeste H. M. Cheung ◽  
Viryanaga Kitsune ◽  
Daniel Brandeis ◽  
Tobias Banaschewski ◽  
...  

Objective: Previous studies in children with ADHD identified two partially separable familial factors underlying cognitive dysfunction, but evidence in adolescents and adults is lacking. Here, we investigate the etiological structure of cognitive-neurophysiological impairments in ADHD in adolescents and young adults. Method: Factor analyses and multivariate familial models were run in 356 participants from ADHD and control sibling pairs aged 11 to 27 years on data on IQ, digit span forward (DSF) and backward (DSB), and cognitive-performance and event-related potential (ERP) measures from three cognitive tasks. Results: Three familial factors (cF1-3), showing substantial familial overlap with ADHD, captured the familial covariation of ADHD with nine cognitive-ERP measures. cF1 loaded on IQ, mean reaction time (MRT), and reaction-time variability (RTV); cF2 on DSF and DSB; and cF3 on number of errors and ERPs of inhibition and error processing. Conclusion: These results identify three partially separable etiological pathways leading to cognitive-neurophysiological impairments in adolescent and adult ADHD.


Medicina ◽  
2012 ◽  
Vol 48 (4) ◽  
pp. 31 ◽  
Author(s):  
Saulė Sipavičienė ◽  
Audronė Dumčienė ◽  
Irina Ramanauskienė ◽  
Albertas Skurvydas

The aim of this study was to determine the effect of a single physical load of different duration and intensity on cognitive function. Material and Methods. The study population comprised 90 male soldiers. The subjects were randomly divided into two groups: experimental (n=60) and control group (n=30). The soldiers in the experimental group undertook 3 specific loads of different types, durations, and intensities. Attention concentration and tapping tests were carried out, and the reaction time was measured. Results. After the physical load, the soldiers in the experimental group performed the attention concentration test faster, the number of committed mistakes decreased, and the rate of processing information increased as compared to the corresponding values before physical load (all P<0.05). However, the indices of fatigue, such as the tapping test score and reaction time, in the experimental group were found to be worse than before physical loads (P<0.05). No significant changes were observed in the control group of soldiers. Conclusion. Despite fatigue, a single physical load of different duration and intensity improved the cognitive function.


Author(s):  
Gianpaolo Zammarchi ◽  
Giulia Contu ◽  
Luca Frigau

Every tourist website employs images to attract potential tourists. In particular, destination tourism websites use environmental images, such as landscapes, to attract the attention of tourists and to address their purchase choice. Nowadays the effectiveness of these tools has been enhanced by the use of eye-tracking technology. That allows measuring the exact eye position during the visualization of images, texts, or other visual stimuli. Consequently, eye-tracking data can be processed to obtain quantitative measures of viewing behavior that can be analyzed for several purposes in many fields such as to cluster consumers, to improve the effectiveness of a website and for neuroscience studies. This work is aimed to use eye-tracking technology to investigate user behavior according to different types of images (e.g. natural landscapes, city landscapes). Specifically, we compare different statistical descriptive tools with supervised and unsupervised models. Furthermore, we discuss the effectiveness of their results and their capacity to provide satisfactory and interpretable solutions that can be used by decision-makers.


2021 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-14
Author(s):  
Rachel Dykstra ◽  
Panagiotis Koutakis ◽  
Nicholas Hanson

eSports gaming requires quick and accurate reactions in response to complex visual stimuli for optimal performance. The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between components of physical fitness and reaction time (RT) in eSports gamers. 27 eSports gamers participated. Visit 1 included physical fitness assessments. Visit 2 included a familiarization with the Stroop Task. During Visit 3, subjects completed the Stroop Task again; data from this visit was used for analyses. For congruent, incongruent and control trials, an inverse efficiency score (IES) was calculated. Pearson correlations were used to determine the relationship between components of physical fitness and mean RT. There was a significant correlation between mean RT and cardiorespiratory fitness (r=-.338, p=.043). IES was significantly related to cardiorespiratory fitness in incongruent (r=-.373, p=.028) and control (r=-.333, p=.045) trials. Results suggest that increased cardiorespiratory fitness can improve reaction time and also induce greater efficiency.


2010 ◽  
Vol 24 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-6 ◽  
Author(s):  
Oscar H. Hernández ◽  
Muriel Vogel-Sprott

A missing stimulus task requires an immediate response to the omission of a regular recurrent stimulus. The task evokes a subclass of event-related potential known as omitted stimulus potential (OSP), which reflects some cognitive processes such as expectancy. The behavioral response to a missing stimulus is referred to as omitted stimulus reaction time (RT). This total RT measure is known to include cognitive and motor components. The cognitive component (premotor RT) is measured by the time from the missing stimulus until the onset of motor action. The motor RT component is measured by the time from the onset of muscle action until the completion of the response. Previous research showed that RT is faster to auditory than to visual stimuli, and that the premotor of RT to a missing auditory stimulus is correlated with the duration of an OSP. Although this observation suggests that similar cognitive processes might underlie these two measures, no research has tested this possibility. If similar cognitive processes are involved in the premotor RT and OSP duration, these two measures should be correlated in visual and somatosensory modalities, and the premotor RT to missing auditory stimuli should be fastest. This hypothesis was tested in 17 young male volunteers who performed a missing stimulus task, who were presented with trains of auditory, visual, and somatosensory stimuli and the OSP and RT measures were recorded. The results showed that premotor RT and OSP duration were consistently related, and that both measures were shorter with respect to auditory stimuli than to visual or somatosensory stimuli. This provides the first evidence that the premotor RT is related to an attribute of the OSP in all three sensory modalities.


Author(s):  
Y. Arockia Suganthi ◽  
Chitra K. ◽  
J. Magelin Mary

Dengue fever is a painful mosquito-borne infection caused by different types of virus in various localities of the world. There is no particular medicine or vaccine to treat person suffering from dengue fever. Dengue viruses are transmitted by the bite of female Aedes (Ae) mosquitoes. Dengue fever viruses are mainly transmitted by Aedes which can be active in tropical or subtropical climates. Aedes Aegypti is the key step to avoid infection transmission to save millions of people in all over the world. This paper provides a standard guideline in the planning of dengue prevention and control measures. At the same time gives the priorities including clinical management and hospitalized dengue patients have to address essentially.


Author(s):  
Feifei Xin ◽  
Xiaobo Wang ◽  
Chongjing Sun

In recent years, conflicts between crossing pedestrians and right-turning vehicles have become more severe at intersections in China, where right-turning vehicles are usually not controlled by traffic signals. This study proposes a quantitative method for evaluating the conflict risk between pedestrians and right-turning vehicles at intersections based on micro-level behavioral data obtained from video detection. A typical intersection in Shanghai was selected as the study site. In total, 670 min of video were recorded during the peak hours from 7:30 a.m. to 9:30 p.m on one day. After processing the video information, vehicle and pedestrian tracking data were obtained, including the velocity, acceleration, deceleration, time, and location coordinates. Based on these data, several conflict indicators were proposed and these indicators were extracted automatically using MATLAB to identify pedestrian–right-turning vehicle conflicts and to determine the severity of the conflicts identified. This process identified 93 examples of such conflicts. The conflict risks were quantitatively classified using the K-means fuzzy clustering method and all of the conflicts were assigned to five grades. The characteristics of the conflict distribution and the severity of different types of conflict were also analyzed, which showed that conflicts on different areas on the crosswalk differed in their severity. Based on the conclusions, practical traffic management and control measures are proposed to reduce the risk on pedestrian crossings.


2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 39
Author(s):  
Álvaro Fernández-Rodríguez ◽  
Ricardo Ron-Angevin ◽  
Ernesto J. Sanz-Arigita ◽  
Antoine Parize ◽  
Juliette Esquirol ◽  
...  

Studies so far have analyzed the effect of distractor stimuli in different types of brain–computer interface (BCI). However, the effect of a background speech has not been studied using an auditory event-related potential (ERP-BCI), a convenient option when the visual path cannot be adopted by users. Thus, the aim of the present work is to examine the impact of a background speech on selection performance and user workload in auditory BCI systems. Eleven participants tested three conditions: (i) auditory BCI control condition, (ii) auditory BCI with a background speech to ignore (non-attentional condition), and (iii) auditory BCI while the user has to pay attention to the background speech (attentional condition). The results demonstrated that, despite no significant differences in performance, shared attention to auditory BCI and background speech required a higher cognitive workload. In addition, the P300 target stimuli in the non-attentional condition were significantly higher than those in the attentional condition for several channels. The non-attentional condition was the only condition that showed significant differences in the amplitude of the P300 between target and non-target stimuli. The present study indicates that background speech, especially when it is attended to, is an important interference that should be avoided while using an auditory BCI.


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