Oculomotor Behavior Predict Professional Cricket Batting and Bowling Performance

Importance: A new, shorter version of cricket was introduced recently (Twenty20; T20). Since its inception, T20 cricket has rapidly become a popular and exciting format of cricket. However, there is little understanding of factors such as visual-motor control that influence expert performance.Objective: The purpose of this project is to determine if a series of oculomotor measures can predict batting and bowling performance in professional cricket players.Design: This study used a cross-sectional design. Each participant took part in a suite of eye-tracking tests to measure oculomotor behavior compared to their performance data.Participants: This study used a sample of 59 male T20 league professional cricket players (30 Bowlers and 29 Batsman).Results: One-way univariate analyses of variance examined the differences in oculomotor behavior between batsman and bowlers. A series of multiple regression analyses was conducted to evaluate how well the visual variables predict bowling and batting performance variables. Results demonstrate that several oculomotor eye tracking measures were good predictors of run performance and strike rate, including sports total score, sports on-field score, and sports functional score. Likewise, several of the same metrics predicted Runs and Wicket performance for bowlers. Overall, results provided further validation to a growing body of literature supporting the use of eye-tracking technology in performance evaluation.

Mini-Review: practice organization beyond memory processes

Background: The benefits of variable practice in motor learning have been traditionally explained by the increased demand for memory processes induced by trial-to-trial changes. Recently, a new perspective associating increased demand for perception with variable practice has emerged. Aim: This revision aims to present and discuss the findings in this exciting topic newly opened. Results / Interpretation: In the second half of 2010’s, a number of studies have pointed out differences in perceptual processing when compared variable and repetitive practices. Different levels of (a) hemodynamic activation, (b) electroencephalographic activity, (c) neurochemical activity, and (d) oculomotor behavior have provided evidence that perceptual processes are affected differently by variable and repetitive practices.

Driving With Distraction: Measuring Brain Activity and Oculomotor Behavior Using fMRI and Eye-Tracking

IntroductionDriving motor vehicles is a complex task that depends heavily on how visual stimuli are received and subsequently processed by the brain. The potential impact of distraction on driving performance is well known and poses a safety concern – especially for individuals with cognitive impairments who may be clinically unfit to drive. The present study is the first to combine functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and eye-tracking during simulated driving with distraction, providing oculomotor metrics to enhance scientific understanding of the brain activity that supports driving performance.Materials and MethodsAs initial work, twelve healthy young, right-handed participants performed turns ranging in complexity, including simple right and left turns without oncoming traffic, and left turns with oncoming traffic. Distraction was introduced as an auditory task during straight driving, and during left turns with oncoming traffic. Eye-tracking data were recorded during fMRI to characterize fixations, saccades, pupil diameter and blink rate.ResultsBrain activation maps for right turns, left turns without oncoming traffic, left turns with oncoming traffic, and the distraction conditions were largely consistent with previous literature reporting the neural correlates of simulated driving. When the effects of distraction were evaluated for left turns with oncoming traffic, increased activation was observed in areas involved in executive function (e.g., middle and inferior frontal gyri) as well as decreased activation in the posterior brain (e.g., middle and superior occipital gyri). Whereas driving performance remained mostly unchanged (e.g., turn speed, time to turn, collisions), the oculomotor measures showed that distraction resulted in more consistent gaze at oncoming traffic in a small area of the visual scene; less time spent gazing at off-road targets (e.g., speedometer, rear-view mirror); more time spent performing saccadic eye movements; and decreased blink rate.ConclusionOculomotor behavior modulated with driving task complexity and distraction in a manner consistent with the brain activation features revealed by fMRI. The results suggest that eye-tracking technology should be included in future fMRI studies of simulated driving behavior in targeted populations, such as the elderly and individuals with cognitive complaints – ultimately toward developing better technology to assess and enhance fitness to drive.

A distributed saccade-associated network encodes high velocity conjugate and monocular eye movements in the zebrafish hindbrain

Saccades are rapid eye movements that redirect gaze. Their magnitudes and directions are tightly controlled by the oculomotor system, which is capable of generating conjugate, monocular, convergent and divergent saccades. Recent studies suggest a mainly monocular control of saccades in mammals, although the development of binocular control and the interaction of different functional populations is less well understood. For zebrafish, a well-established model in sensorimotor research, the nature of binocular control in this key oculomotor behavior is unknown. Here, we use the optokinetic response and calcium imaging to characterize how the developing zebrafish oculomotor system encodes the diverse repertoire of saccades. We find that neurons with phasic saccade-associated activity (putative burst neurons) are most frequent in dorsal regions of the hindbrain and show elements of both monocular and binocular encoding, revealing a mix of the response types originally hypothesized by Helmholtz and Hering. Additionally, we observed a certain degree of behavior-specific recruitment in individual neurons. Surprisingly, calcium activity is only weakly tuned to saccade size. Instead, saccade size is apparently controlled by a push–pull mechanism of opposing burst neuron populations. Our study reveals the basic layout of a developing vertebrate saccade system and provides a perspective into the evolution of the oculomotor system.

Cognitive load influences oculomotor behavior in natural scenes

Cognitive neuroscience researchers have identified relationships between cognitive load and eye movement behavior that are consistent with oculomotor biomarkers for neurological disorders. We develop an adaptive visual search paradigm that manipulates task difficulty and examine the effect of cognitive load on oculomotor behavior in healthy young adults. Participants (N = 30) free-viewed a sequence of 100 natural scenes for 10 s each, while their eye movements were recorded. After each image, participants completed a 4 alternative forced choice task in which they selected a target object from one of the previously viewed scenes, among 3 distracters of the same object type but from alternate scenes. Following two correct responses, the target object was selected from an image increasingly farther back (N-back) in the image stream; following an incorrect response, N decreased by 1. N-back thus quantifies and individualizes cognitive load. The results show that response latencies increased as N-back increased, and pupil diameter increased with N-back, before decreasing at very high N-back. These findings are consistent with previous studies and confirm that this paradigm was successful in actively engaging working memory, and successfully adapts task difficulty to individual subject’s skill levels. We hypothesized that oculomotor behavior would covary with cognitive load. We found that as cognitive load increased, there was a significant decrease in the number of fixations and saccades. Furthermore, the total duration of saccades decreased with the number of events, while the total duration of fixations remained constant, suggesting that as cognitive load increased, subjects made fewer, longer fixations. These results suggest that cognitive load can be tracked with an adaptive visual search task, and that oculomotor strategies are affected as a result of greater cognitive demand in healthy adults.

133 The Effects of Chronic Sleep Restriction on Human Oculomotor Behavior

Introduction Oculomotor behavioral metrics change according to time awake and circadian phase following a distinct pattern of impairment. Acute sleep deprivation (ASD) causes large decreases in pursuit initiation and steady-state gain, and a compensatory increase in saccadic rate without any systematic change in saccadic size. It also causes large deficits in visual processing of direction and speed, and impaired saccade dynamics. Such deterioration likely reflects changes in both higher cortical and brainstem function, explaining in-part how sleep loss and circadian misalignment affect cognition. It is unclear how oculomotor behavior might change according to chronic sleep restriction (CSR). Here, we measured the same eye-movement metrics during CSR. Methods Twelve healthy participants (6 females) kept a fixed wake-time sleep-wake schedule, at home for four weeks (weeks 1 and 3 = 9h time in bed (TIB); weeks 2 and 4 randomized to 5h or 9h TIB; actigraphy confirmed). Following weeks two and four, participants completed a 13-hour laboratory visit under dim light (<15 lux), where they maintained a semi-recumbent posture and were provided with hourly isocaloric snacks. A visual tracking task was performed hourly to assess pursuit and saccadic responses and visual motion processing. Performance metrics were computed using MATLAB, including pursuit gain (eye speed/target speed), the rate and amplitude of catch-up saccades, and the accuracy and precision of direction and speed processing. Results As expected, we found a small but significant (t(11)=-2.17, p<0.03) reduction in pursuit gain (mean+/-SEM: -0.028 +/-0.013 with a large (t(11)=2.96, p<0.01) increase in saccadic rate (0.37 +/-0.13 Hz). However, surprisingly, we found a significant (t(11)=-2.52, p<0.03) decrease in the amplitude of catch-up saccades (-0.15 +/-0.06 deg). The only systematic alteration to visual motion processing was a small reduction in horizontal-vertical asymmetry, which was previously observed with ASD. Conclusion A week of CSR to 5h is associated with only mild impairment in smooth pursuit eye movements with little impact on visual motion processing. However, CSR caused a maladaptive decrease in saccade amplitude that was not observed during ASD. Eye-movement metrics reveal differential neurological effects of CSR versus ASD. Support (if any) Force Health Protection Program, ONR (SAA2402925-1), NASA Human Research Program, and agreement NNX17AE07A

Improving Debt Literacy by 2/3 Through Four Simple Infographics Requires Numeracy and Not Focusing on Negatives of Debt

Borrowing behavior may be more resistant to formal educational treatments than other financial behaviors. In order to study the process and results of infographics-based debt education, we used eye tracking technology (SMI RED 500 Hz) to monitor the oculomotor behavior of 108 participants (68 females) aged 18 to 60 who were shown 4 infographics. The study used an experimental design with repeated measures and an internal comparison group. We also used scales of debt literacy and a set of information literacy scales: numerical, graph, and linguistic. The results confirm that short-term infographics-based debt education can improve debt literacy significantly. The difference in processing the educational contents that were not known to participants before the educational session suggests that participants with better information literacy make more considerable debt literacy progress. Specifically, we found that numerical literacy is a significant mediator of debt education results, depending on the initial level of debt literacy; this relation is moderated by the focus of visual attention on negatives of debt. We found no significant relationship between debt literacy education results and those of graph and linguistic literacy.