Does the reading platform matter?

BackgroundDeficits in social cognition often develop during the prodromal stages of psychosis, remain stable over the course of the illness, and have a dramatic impact on daily functioning (Fett et al., 2011). Social cue processing, particularly face perception, plays a critical role in social cognitive functioning. Patients with schizophrenia struggle to extract information from faces and interpret facial expressions (Kohler et al., 2010). These deficits may be explained by restricted visual attention. Indeed, eye-tracking studies have demonstrated that people with schizophrenia show reduced exploratory behaviour (i.e. reduced number of fixations and longer fixation durations) in response to facial stimuli compared to healthy controls (e.g. Manor et al., 1999). Oxytocin has been demonstrated to exert pro-social effects on behaviour and modulate eye gaze during perception of faces. In the present study, we tested whether the neuropeptide, oxytocin, has a compensatory effect on visual processing of human faces.MethodsTwenty right-handed male subjects with schizophrenia (n = 16) or schizoaffective disorder (n = 4) were administered intranasal oxytocin 40UI or placebo in a double-blind, placebo-controlled, cross-over fashion during two visits separated by 7 days. Participants engaged in a free-viewing eye-tracking task, during which they were looking at 6 facial images of two Caucasian men displaying angry, happy, and neutral facial expressions, and 6 control images in a random order. Eye-tracking measures including 1) total number of fixations, 2) dispersion, 3) saccade amplitude, and 4) mean duration of fixations were captured using the EyeLink 1000 system (SR Research Ltd, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada). Four separate 2 x 4 repeated-measures analysis of variance (ANOVA) were carried out to evaluate the within-subject effects of treatment, stimuli, and the interactions between stimuli and treatment (p < .05, two-tailed).ResultsWe found a main effect of treatment (F1,17 = 16.139, p = .001), but not a main effect of stimuli (F3,51 = 1.479, p > .231) on total number of fixations. There was a main effect of treatment on duration of fixation, (F1,13 = 5.455, p = .036) but not a main effect of stimuli (F3,39 = 1.267, p = .299). For dispersion, there was a significant main effect of stimuli (F3,51 = 3.424, p = .024) but no main effect of treatment (F1,17 = 3.170, p = .093). Analysis of saccade amplitudes revealed no main effect of treatment (F1,17 = 2.666, p = .121) or stimuli (F3,51 = 0.289, p = .833). None of the interactions reached significance.DiscussionTo our knowledge, this is the first study to explore the effects of oxytocin on eye movements in individuals with schizophrenia. We found that oxytocin increased exploratory viewing behaviour in response to affective facial stimuli by significantly increasing the total number and duration of fixations compared to placebo. While previous findings regarding oxytocin have been inconsistent, our findings are in line with research showing that the intranasal administration of 40UI oxytocin may improve social cognitive deficits in schizophrenia (e.g. Davis et al., 2013). Future experiments may wish to explore the correlation between eye movement changes induced by oxytocin and facial affect recognition in larger samples.

Visual scanning of emotional faces in schizophrenia

ObjectiveTo explore and validate effective eye movement features related to motion sickness (MS) through closed-track experiments and to provide valuable insights for practical applications.BackgroundWith the development of autonomous vehicles (AVs), MS has attracted more and more attention. Eye movements have great potential to evaluate the severity of MS as an objective quantitative indicator of vestibular function. Eye movement signals can be easily and noninvasively collected using a camera, which will not cause discomfort or disturbance to passengers, thus making it highly applicable.MethodEye movement data were collected from 72 participants susceptible to MS in closed-track driving environments. We extracted features including blink rate (BR), total number of fixations (TNF), total duration of fixations (TDF), mean duration of fixations (MDF), saccade amplitude (SA), saccade duration (SD), and number of nystagmus (NN). The statistical method and multivariate long short-term memory fully convolutional network (MLSTM-FCN) were used to validate the effectiveness of eye movement features.ResultsSignificant differences were shown in the extracted eye movement features across different levels of MS through statistical analysis. The MLSTM-FCN model achieved an accuracy of 91.37% for MS detection and 88.51% for prediction in binary classification. For ternary classification, it achieved an accuracy of 80.54% for MS detection and 80.11% for prediction.ConclusionEvaluating MS through eye movements is effective. The MLSTM-FCN model based on eye movements can efficiently detect and predict MS.ApplicationThis work can be used to provide a possible indication and early warning for MS.

This paper presents a validation study of using eye tracking during a reading task with the aim to investigate reading processes in L2 and to detect errors in reading. I attempted to measure features of reading in L2 in terms of reading time, duration of fixations, and the total number of fixations with the help of the eye tracker. The paper starts with a theoretical overview of eye tracking and error detection in reading, indicating its growing popularity within linguistic circles. The participants of the study were 20 international university students studying in Hungary with their proficiency in English ranging between B2 and C2. The readers were given three texts on a screen to measure their reading performance: the standard text, a text with spelling mistakes, and a text with transpositions. Tobii Pro Lab eye-tracking software was used to conduct the experiment, visualise, and sort the data. As a validation study, this paper mainly uncovers how an eye-tracking instrument can be used for collecting subconscious data and analysing the cognitive processing of adult L2 users while reading, for further investigation of their reading behaviours. As a part of the validation process, it was possible to calibrate the settings of the eye tracking tool for each reader creating more precise data with data loss of a maximum of 6%. This and the findings of the validation study indicated that eye-tracking is instrumental in investigating reading performance. With the help of eye tracking, it was possible to establish that the content of the texts did not have a significant influence on participants' reading performance, nor did the order of the texts. However, there were significant changes in total reading time, total duration of fixations, and the total number of fixations after the mistakes were introduced in the texts.

This chapter analyzes what happens to media use when everyday life is suddenly disrupted, focusing on how the COVID-19 pandemic transformed work, socializing, communication and everyday living. The empirical case is changing media use in Norway during the pandemic, building on a qualitative questionnaire survey conducted in early lockdown, and follow-up interviews eight months later. Expanding on the ideas of destabilization of media repertoires developed in the former chapter, this analysis discusses transforming media repertoires as more digital, as less mobile (but still smartphone-centric) and as essentially social. The chapter further explains new concepts for pandemic media use practices, such as doomscrolling and Zoom fatigue. Can you remember when you first heard of COVID-19, and did you think it would change your life? 'They started talking about it on the news', said Inger, a Norwegian woman nearing 70, whom we interviewed in late 2020. She continued: 'I still found people were quite relaxed. Who would have thought such a thing could happen to the whole world? It is like science fiction'. 'We talked about it when they speed-built that hospital in China', said Einar, a man in his 40s working in the cultural sector, 'but no one thought it would come here. Former epidemics happened elsewhere'. He added: 'It is like that with a lot of things'. School employee Karla remembered a conversation at work about the need for kids to stay home at the smallest sign of cold symptoms: 'Parents would never get to work! We laughed about it, thinking it was impossible. And then it took three weeks, and the country shut down'.

The Digital India mission is a transformation of routine happenings and transactions to be made in digital mode using digital platforms and media. Beside this it’sa well known programme of the Indian Government with a mission so as to empower Indian societies and knowledge economy using digital media and platforms. As the transformation and revolution does not happen in just a moment of time, it requires a time to educate and literate people the trends of technology. Also followed by do’s and don'ts tips in view of using digital media and platforms. While considering the Indian societies and it’sin depth literacy of handling digital data and media is so limited and hence gives rise to be a victims of cyber crimes. Cyber Crimes are the forgery made using computer, networked devices that lead to committing fraud, stealing identities or violating privacy. In this regard, the Cyber Security branch which deals is a system that protects devices from digital attacks. It protects data from theft and damage. There is an immense need for cyber security awareness and it would be a great movement of Digital literacy towards making and transforming Digital India.

In the rapidly changing circumstances of our increasingly digital world, reading is also becoming an increasingly digital experience: electronic books (e-books) are now outselling print books in the United States and the United Kingdom. Nevertheless, many readers still view e-books as less readable than print books. The present study thus used combined EEG and eyetracking measures in order to test whether reading from digital media requires higher cognitive effort than reading conventional books. Young and elderly adults read short texts on three different reading devices: a paper page, an e-reader and a tablet computer and answered comprehension questions about them while their eye movements and EEG were recorded. The results of a debriefing questionnaire replicated previous findings in that participants overwhelmingly chose the paper page over the two electronic devices as their preferred reading medium. Online measures, by contrast, showed shorter mean fixation durations and lower EEG theta band voltage density – known to covary with memory encoding and retrieval – for the older adults when reading from a tablet computer in comparison to the other two devices. Young adults showed comparable fixation durations and theta activity for all three devices. Comprehension accuracy did not differ across the three media for either group. We argue that these results can be explained in terms of the better text discriminability (higher contrast) produced by the backlit display of the tablet computer. Contrast sensitivity decreases with age and degraded contrast conditions lead to longer reading times, thus supporting the conclusion that older readers may benefit particularly from the enhanced contrast of the tablet. Our findings thus indicate that people's subjective evaluation of digital reading media must be dissociated from the cognitive and neural effort expended in online information processing while reading from such devices.

This study examines effects of momentary changes in mental effort on cardiovascular and eye activity measures. A total of 19 male pilots performed an instrument flight task. Task load was manipulated by having the pilots perform flight manoeuvres of varying complexity. Multilevel analyses demonstrated clear effects of momentary changes in mental effort on both the cardiovascular and the eye activity measures. An increase in task load resulted in an increase of heart rate and a decrease in heart rate variability, mean dwell time and fixation duration. Heart rate differentiated between resting period and task execution. Heart rate variability from short data segments provided more insight in intermediate levels of mental effort. The eye activity measures were sensitive to intermediate levels of mental effort as well. Attitude changes resulted in an increase of mean dwell time and mean fixation duration. Task analysis is required to use eye measures as valid indices of mental effort. Having indications of the effects of changing mental demands during daily work of operators is of great importance nowadays. This paper presents an approach to estimate such effects on the basis of heart rate and eye activity measures. In particular, the use of averaged short-term heart rate variability measures is a relatively new aspect.

This study compared a single 8MP vs. dual 5MP displays for diagnostic accuracy, reading time, number of times the readers zoomed/panned images, and visual search. Six radiologists viewed 60 mammographic cases, once on each display. A sub-set of 15 cases was viewed in a secondary study using eye-tracking. For viewing time, there was significant difference (F = 13.901, p = 0.0002), with 8MP taking less time (62.04 vs. 68.99s). There was no significant difference (F = 0.254, p = 0.6145) in zoom/pan use (1.94 vs. 1.89). Total number of fixations was significantly (F = 4.073, p = 0.0466) lower with 8MP (134.47 vs. 154.29). Number of times readers scanned between images was significantly fewer (F = 10.305, p = 0.0018) with 8MP (6.83 vs. 8.22). Time to first fixate lesion did not differ (F = 0.126, p = 0.7240). It did not take any longer to detect the lesion as a function of the display configuration. Total time spent on lesion did not differ (F = 0.097, p = 0.7567) (8.59 vs. 8.39). Overall, the single 8MP display yielded the same diagnostic accuracy as the dual 5MP displays. The lower resolution did not appear to influence the readers' ability to detect and view the lesion details, as the eye-position study showed no differences in time to first fixate or total time on the lesions. Nor did the lower resolution result in significant differences in the amount of zooming and panning that the readers did while viewing the cases.

This study compared an 8MP vs dual-5MP displays for diagnostic accuracy, reading time, number of times readers zoomed/panned images, and visual search. Six radiologists viewed 60 mammographic cases, once on each display, 15 with eye-tracking. For viewing time, there was significant difference (F = 13.901, p = 0.0002), with 8MP taking less time (62.04 sec vs 68.99). There was no significant difference (F = 0.254, p = 0.6145) in zoom/pan use (1.94 vs 1.89). Total number of fixations was significantly (F = 4.073, p = 0.0466) lower with 8MP (134.47 vs 154.29). Number of times readers scanned between images was significantly fewer (F = 10.305, p = 0.0018) with single (6.83 vs 8.22). Time to first fixate lesion did not differ (F = 0.126, p = 0.7240). It did not take any longer to detect the lesion as a function of the display configuration. Total time spent on lesion did not differ (F = 0.097, p = 0.7567) (8.59 vs 8.39). Overall the single 8MP display yielded the same diagnostic accuracy as the dual 5MP displays. The lower resolution did not appear to influence the readers’ ability to detect and view the lesion details, as the eye-position study showed no differences in time to first fixate or total time on the lesions. Nor did the lower resolution result in significant differences in the amount of zooming and panning that the readers did while viewing the cases.

Although the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends parent-child joint engagement with digital media, recent evidence suggests this may be challenging when tablets contain interactive enhancements. To examine parent-toddler social reciprocity while reading enhanced (eg, with sound effects, animation) and basic tablet-based books compared with print books. This within-participants comparison included 37 parent-toddler dyads in a counterbalanced crossover, video-recorded laboratory design at the University of Michigan from May 31 to November 7, 2017. The volunteer sample was recruited from an online research registry and community sites. Dyads included children aged 24 to 36 months with no developmental delay or serious medical condition, parents who were the legal guardians and read English sufficiently for consent, and parents and children without uncorrected hearing or vision impairments. Data were analyzed from October 18, 2017, through April 30, 2018. Reading an enhanced tablet-based book, a basic tablet-based book, and a print book in counterbalanced order for 5 minutes each. Video recordings were coded continuously for nonverbal aspects of parent-toddler social reciprocity, including body position (child body posture limiting parental book access coded in 10-second intervals), control behaviors (child closing the book, child grabbing the book or tablet, parent or child pivoting their body away from the other), and intrusive behaviors (parent or child pushing the other's hand away). Coding intracorrelation coefficients were greater than 0.75. Poisson regression was used to compare each outcome by book format. Among the 37 parent-child dyads, mean (SD) parent age was 33.5 (4.0) years; 30 (81%) were mothers, and 28 (76%) had a 4-year college degree or greater educational attainment. Mean (SD) age of children was 29.2 (4.2) months, 20 (54%) were boys, 21 (57%) were white non-Hispanic, and 6 (16%) were black non-Hispanic. Compared with print books, greater frequency of child body posture limiting parental book access (mean [SD], 7.9 [1.9; P = .01] for enhanced; 8.4 [1.8; P = .006] for basic), child closing the book (mean [SD], 1.2 [0.4; P = .007] for enhanced; 1.2 [0.5; P < .001] for basic), parent pivoting (mean [SD], 0.4 [0.2; P = .05] for enhanced; 0.9 [0.4; P = .004] for basic), child pushing parent's hand (mean [SD], 0.6 [0.2; P < .001] for enhanced; 0.4 [0.2; P = .002] for basic), and parent pushing child's hand (mean [SD], 1.7 [0.3; P < .001] for enhanced; 2.4 [0.5; P < .001] for basic) occurred while reading enhanced and basic tablet-based books. Child pivots occurred more frequently while reading basic tablet-based books than print (mean [SD], 1.0 [0.3] vs 0.3 [0.1]; P = .005). In this study, toddlers and parents engaged in more frequent social control behaviors and less social reciprocity when reading tablet-based vs print books. These findings suggest that toddlers may have difficulty engaging in shared tablet experiences with their parents.

We approach the conference topic of industry through four studies that explore a new media landscape where value and power are increasingly produced through the operalisation of machinic and affective relations and subjectivities. We explore technologies of automation, artificial intelligence and algorithmic regimes and the new possibilities for enacting and imagining political futures that they afford. The papers focus on four case studies: WeChat posts related to the Australian referendum for Indigenous voice to Parliament; perceptions of bias in texts generated by ChatGPT; TikTok videos of affective time management through curated playlists, and time synchronisation protocols used in industrial warehouses. These four cases reveal the ways in which automated media technologies enable complex interactions between humans and machines that impact practices of political subjectification, trust and notions of truth, and weave a particular relationship between affect, aesthetics and temporalities of labour. The panel analyses the role of networks and algorithms in shaping the parameters of emerging forms of expression and participation that are enacted through the interrelation between users and digital platforms. The four papers adopt a platform- and infrastructure-specific research approach, building on research into the infrastructural turn in media studies (Plantin and Punathambekar 2019). Seeing media infrastructures as a complex arrangement of digital platforms, databases, algorithms and protocols, we look at the political effects produced by these infrastructures. These effects are analysed in their material situatedness in the logic of the particular digital platform. In their paper, Toija Cinque and Allan Jones illuminate the interplay between AI agency, human cognition, and digital media platforms, thereby contributing to discourse on ethical AI use, sociotechnical systems, and information integrity in the digital age. Their paper explores the interconnections between generative AI, digital platforms, and cognitive biases, striving to deepen our understanding of technology’s capacity to engender a truth-centric, empathetic digital society. By delineating ethical pathways for the coexistence of humans and machines within the information realm, the study aims to contribute significantly to the ongoing discourse surrounding ethical AI use, the development of sociotechnical systems, and the maintenance of information integrity in the digital era. Through its findings, it aspires to influence future technological developments, regulatory frameworks, and policy formulations, thus paving the way for a more balanced and equitable digital future. Fan Yang, Robbie Fordyce and Luke Heemsbergen analyse messages related to the recent referendum for political representation of Indigenous Australians posted on the Chinese-owned platform WeChat. The authors argue that, while posts largely follow the rhetoric of mainstream Australian media in their sentiments, the cases in which they divert, indicate the catalyzation of diaspora affects which influence the position towards race and Indigenous issues. Tsvetelina Hristova explores the technopolitical implications of network time synchronisation protocols in warehouse automation. The logic of digital infrastructures imposes a notion and practice of time that is radically different from the universalising time synchronisation of industrial capitalism. Instead, network time protocols rely on the exchange of messages and data packages through which a measure and notion of time is negotiated and agreed upon in a networked environment. This imposes a particular technopolitical context of technological interpellation where structures of time are constituted through the participation of nodes in the network. This technological context of temporality has important implications for how hierarchies and enclosures are enacted in industrial networks and, importantly, for the role of cloud computing platforms in organising new forms of privatised time. Alexandra Anikina analyses the assembly line aesthetics in videos that promote personal productivity and time management on Tik Tok, YouTube and Twitch. This panel is proposed by members of two research groups on critical infrastructure studies across the Atlantic that explore how new digital, automated and intelligent media technologies are impacting social and political life. Trying to understand criticality as both an analytical approach and a characteristic of the objects we research, we interrogate the aspects of digital media infrastructures that add new layers to how datafication acquires subtle cultural and technopolical inflections. Through the focus on affect in the panel, understood as both social emotional charge (Ahmed 2013) and as the potential for connection and interaction (Massumi 2002) in the network, we try to see the infrastructure of data systems and automated platforms as the product of different cultural, political and technological drives. These drives give rise to situated and embodied logics of automation that are platform-dependent but also dependent on cultural and social affects imbued through their provenance, producers and users. The panel blends different disciplinary perspectives and approaches, seeking a dialogue between media and communication studies, cultural studies and critical art research.

A Review of: Belvadi, M. (2021). Longevity of print book use at a small public university: A 30-year longitudinal study. Insights, 34(1), 26. http://doi.org/10.1629/uksg.562 Abstract Objective – To inform future collecting decisions by ascertaining the circulation longevity of print books within an academic library. Design – Longitudinal data analysis of two circulation datasets. Setting – Library catalogue of a small public university in Canada. Subjects – 10,002 print books acquired between 1991 and 1996 with a first circulation year between 1991 and 2000 (part 1); 4,060 print books acquired and with a first circulation year between 2008 and 2011 (part 2A); 35,860 print books acquired since 1991 with a first circulation year between 2008 and 2011 (parts 2B). Methods – The researcher established two datasets by selecting books with viable circulation data from the institution’s holdings. Using each book’s Library of Congress classification number, the researcher mapped each book to three other categorization schemes. The first scheme, Becher-Biglan typology, categorizes books as belonging to either applied or hard and pure or soft fields of study. The second scheme, called in the paper “major subjects,” uses a traditional broad subject categorization (e.g. arts, sciences, health, etc.), and the third scheme categorizes books by the academic programs at the researcher’s institution. The researcher then analyzed the circulation data through the lens of these three categorization schemes. Main Results – Part 1, which considered the collection’s older circulated books, found that books had an average circulation longevity of 10 years. About 14% of books circulated for only one year, and about 24% of books circulated for less than five years. Among the newer books considered in Part 2, 37% circulated for just one year and 64% had a circulation longevity of four years. Conclusion – Books in applied and hard fields generally have greater longevity compared to pure and soft fields. Books in professional and STEM fields generally have greater longevity than books in the humanities and arts, contrary to conventional library wisdom. Print book circulation longevity appears to be dropping. Subscription and on-demand acquisitions options may prove to be a more efficacious use of resources than ‘just-in-case’ print collecting.

Low Response Rate and Other Factors Render Academic Health Science Library System Study Ungeneralizable

The digital age is an era beginning in the 1980s in societies wherein the retrieval, management, and transmission of information using digital technology is a principal activity (Flewitt, Messer, &amp; Kucirkova, 2015). In recent years, digital technology has been rapidly incorporated into Canadian schools, inspiring a debate concerning how educators should use newly emerging digital technology in the classroom, and ultimately whether digital media platforms should be accepted as a replacement for print-based media platforms at all. This research project uses quantitative methods and a within-subjects research design to compare fifth grade Eastern Ontarian students’ frequency of dictionary-use and reading comprehension scores when reading a Chromebook and using an online dictionary, in contrast to when reading a printed book and using a printed dictionary. It was hypothesized that students would achieve higher reading comprehension scores and demonstrate more frequent dictionary-use when reading with a Chromebook and online dictionary than when reading a printed book and using a printed dictionary. This was due to the reportedly more ergonomic nature of digital media platforms (Dundar &amp; Akcayir, 2012), and to the unique set of skills acquired by many children growing up during the digital age (Steeves, 2014). It was found that the participants used the online dictionary significantly more frequently than the printed dictionary, but no significant difference was found between participants’ reading comprehension scores in the two conditions. The results of this research project may have implications for the pedagogical tools and practices used in local Eastern Ontarian elementary school classrooms.