Face Masks Do Not Alter Gaze Cueing of Attention: Evidence From the COVID-19 Pandemic

Interacting with others wearing a face mask has become a regular worldwide practice since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. However, the impact of face masks on cognitive mechanisms supporting social interaction is still largely unexplored. In the present work, we focused on gaze cueing of attention, a phenomenon tapping the essential ability which allows individuals to orient their attentional resources in response to eye gaze signals coming from others. Participants from both a European (i.e., Italy; Experiment 1) and an Asian (i.e., China; Experiment 2) country were involved, namely two countries in which the daily use of face masks before COVID-19 pandemic was either extremely uncommon or frequently adopted, respectively. Both samples completed a task in which a peripheral target had to be discriminated while a task irrelevant averted gaze face, wearing a mask or not, acted as a central cueing stimulus. Overall, a reliable and comparable gaze cueing emerged in both experiments, independent of the mask condition. These findings suggest that gaze cueing of attention is preserved even when the person perceived is wearing a face mask.

Memory-Guided Saccades in Psychosis: Effects of Medication and Stimulus Location

The memory-guided saccade task requires the remembrance of a peripheral target location, whilst inhibiting the urge to make a saccade ahead of an auditory cue. The literature has explored the endophenotypic deficits associated with differences in target laterality, but less is known about target amplitude. The data presented came from Crawford et al. (1995), employing a memory-guided saccade task among neuroleptically medicated and non-medicated patients with schizophrenia (n = 31, n = 12), neuroleptically medicated and non-medicated bipolar affective disorder (n = 12, n = 17), and neurotypical controls (n = 30). The current analyses explore the relationships between memory-guided saccades toward targets with different eccentricities (7.5° and 15°), the discernible behaviour exhibited amongst diagnostic groups, and cohorts distinguished based on psychotic symptomatology. Saccade gain control and final eye position were reduced among medicated-schizophrenia patients. These metrics were reduced further among targets with greater amplitudes (15°), indicating greater deficit. The medicated cohort exhibited reduced gain control and final eye positions in both amplitudes compared to the non-medicated cohort, with deficits markedly observed for the furthest targets. No group differences in symptomatology (positive and negative) were reported, however, a greater deficit was observed toward the larger amplitude. This suggests that within the memory-guided saccade paradigm, diagnostic classification is more prominent in characterising disparities in saccade performance than symptomatology.

Cross-modal orienting of exogenous attention results in visual-cortical facilitation, not suppression

Attention may be oriented exogenously (i.e., involuntarily) to the location of salient stimuli, resulting in improved perception. However, it is unknown whether exogenous attention improves perception by facilitating processing of attended information, suppressing processing of unattended information, or both. To test this question, we measured behavioral performance and cue-elicited neural changes in the electroencephalogram as participants (N = 19) performed a task in which a spatially non-predictive auditory cue preceded a visual target. Critically, this cue was either presented at a peripheral target location or from the center of the screen, allowing us to isolate spatially specific attentional activity. We find that both behavior and attention-mediated changes in visual-cortical activity are enhanced at the location of a cue prior to the onset of a target, but that behavior and neural activity at an unattended target location is equivalent to that following a central cue that does not direct attention (i.e., baseline). These results suggest that exogenous attention operates via facilitation of information at an attended location.

The effect of distraction, response mode and age on peripheral target detection to inform studies of lighting for driving

It is expected that the detection of peripheral objects, a key visual task for safe driving, is affected by cognitive distraction, by observer age and by the manner in which action is undertaken following detection. An experiment was conducted to measure these effects, using a fixation cross and peripheral target discs displayed on a screen. The experiment was repeated with young (18–25 years) and old (60+years) age groups, with six distraction tasks, and with simple and choice response modes. The older group was found to respond more slowly than the younger group and detected fewer targets. The results suggest that distraction impairs detection, with the degree of impairment depending on the difficulty of the distraction task. Participants were generally slower at responding with choice response but this did not lead to a greater number of missed targets. Where lighting standards are informed by the ability to detect peripheral hazards, the research should represent older people, choice responses and impaired detection due to distraction.

Cross-modal orienting of exogenous attention results in visual-cortical facilitation, not suppression

Attention may be oriented exogenously (i.e., involuntarily) to the location of salient stimuli, resulting in improved perception. However, it is unknown whether exogenous attention improves perception by facilitating processing of attended information, suppressing processing of unattended information, or both. To test this question, we measured behavioral performance and cue-elicited neural changes in the electroencephalogram as participants (N = 19) performed a task in which a spatially non-predictive auditory cue preceded a visual target. Critically, this cue was either presented at a peripheral target location or from the center of the screen, allowing us to isolate spatially specific attentional activity. We find that both behavior and attention-mediated changes in visual-cortical activity are enhanced at the location of a cue prior to the onset of a target, but that behavior and neural activity at an unattended target location are equivalent to that following a central cue that does not direct attention (i.e., baseline). These results suggest that exogenous attention operates solely via facilitation of information at an attended location.

Crowding Effects across Depth Are Fixation-Centered for Defocused Flankers and Observer-Centered for Defocused Targets

Depth needs to be considered to understand visual information processing in cluttered environments in the wild. Since differences in depth depend on current gaze position, eye movements were avoided by short presentations in a real depth setup. Thus, allowing only peripheral vision, crowding was tested. That is, the impairment of peripheral target recognition by the presence of nearby flankers was measured. Real depth was presented by a half-transparent mirror that aligned the displays of two orthogonally arranged, distance-adjustable screens. Fixation depth was at a distance of 190 cm, defocused depth planes were presented either near or far, in front of or behind the fixation depth, all within the depth of field. In Experiments 1 and 2, flankers were presented defocused, while the to-be-identified targets were on the fixation depth plane. In Experiments 3–5, targets were presented defocused, while the flankers were kept on the fixation depth plane. Results for defocused flankers indicate increased crowding effects with increased flanker distance from the target at focus (near to far). However, for defocused targets, crowding for targets in front of the focus as compared to behind was increased. Thus, defocused targets produce decreased crowding with increased target distance from the observer. To conclude, the effects of flankers in depth seem to be centered around fixation, while effects of target depth seem to be observer-centered.

Intrinsic control of neuronal diversity and synaptic specificity in a proprioceptive circuit

Relay of muscle-derived sensory information to the CNS is essential for the execution of motor behavior, but how proprioceptive sensory neurons (pSNs) establish functionally appropriate connections is poorly understood. A prevailing model of sensory-motor circuit assembly is that peripheral, target-derived, cues instruct pSN identities and patterns of intraspinal connectivity. To date no known intrinsic determinants of muscle-specific pSN fates have been described in vertebrates. We show that expression of Hox transcription factors defines pSN subtypes, and these profiles are established independently of limb muscle. The Hoxc8 gene is expressed by pSNs and motor neurons (MNs) targeting distal forelimb muscles, and sensory-specific depletion of Hoxc8 in mice disrupts sensory-motor synaptic matching, without affecting pSN survival or muscle targeting. These results indicate that the diversity and central specificity of pSNs and MNs are regulated by a common set of determinants, thus linking early rostrocaudal patterning to the assembly of limb control circuits.

Giving the right direction: Predictive action cues during an attentional task reduce prejudice

The current work aims to investigate if social cueing during an attentional task is likely to influence prejudice. In three studies we adopted a Posner-like task whereby participants observed an outgroup (vs ingroup) member performing a reach-to-grasp movement. The individual’s action, oriented rightward or leftward toward an object, preceded a peripheral target stimulus requiring a simple categorization response. The action direction could be congruent or incongruent with target location. Unbeknownst to the participants, the action direction predicted the target location with different validities. We measured the identification with the ingroup (i.e., Italians) and the prejudice toward the outgroup (i.e., Iraqi). Results showed that, for highly identified participants, explicit prejudice toward Arabs was lower after predictive-congruent social cues provided by an outgroup member than after predictive-incongruent cues. Thus, these findings suggest that positive experience with an outgroup member, even when subtle, might be effective in changing attitudes toward the entire social category.