Eye Movement Control Research Articles

Image analysis and error detection in source software code

Subject of study. We study cognitive mechanisms for the analysis of images of source software code and detection of errors in it by a human. Aim. The aim of this study is to determine the influence of the professional skill of visual error detection in a Python source code on the control over oculomotor processes to be used for the subsequent modeling of the identified principles in artificial intelligence systems. Method. The eye movement properties of a human during error detection in the images of software code were investigated using eye movement tracking technology by means of the Russian software–hardware suite “Neurobureau,” which enabled a complete set of psychophysiological studies to be conducted. The test subjects completed two tasks: explaining the software code and finding an error in it. Each task comprised 10 stimuli with software code in Python language normalized to length and complexity and with syntax highlighting. The task completion time was not limited. Eight programmers with different professional experience (from 1 to 13 years) participated in the study. Main results. With increasing professional skill in image analysis, humans develop eye movement strategies enabling more effective performance of tasks with minimum effort. These strategies entail division of an integral software code into individual units relevant for the analysis. We discovered that experienced programmers exhibited fewer fixations, shorter scanpath length, and larger saccade amplitudes than novice programmers. Notably, the speed of saccades, in particular the broad searching eye movements during the task of software code explanation, increases with professional experience. We demonstrated that visual error detection is mainly determined by recognition of the details in a text that can be found exclusively based on the semantics and grammar of the programming language. We established that reading of software code texts is different from both viewing visual scenes and reading texts written in a natural language. Professional experience minimizes the efforts in this work, similar to any other type of professional activity. Eye movement control during code reading is guided by the knowledge of the programming language, understanding of context, and knowledge of the semantics and grammar of the language, as well as the low-spatial-frequency description of the images of strings and words, which is used to develop the skill of reading and recognition of the general configuration of strings and words in a natural language. Practical significance. The conclusions obtained in this study can be used to describe the existing techniques and create new neuromorphic algorithms (based on the strategies developed during human evolution) for the generation and correction of software code.

A window into eye movement dysfunction following mTBI: A scoping review of magnetic resonance imaging and eye tracking findings.

Mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI), commonly known as concussion, is a complex neurobehavioral phenomenon affecting six in 1000 people globally each year. Symptoms last between days and years as microstructural damage to axons and neurometabolic changes result in brain network disruption. There is no clinically available objective biomarker to diagnose the severity of injury or monitor recovery. However, emerging evidence suggests eye movement dysfunction (e.g., saccades and smooth pursuits) in patients with mTBI. Patients with a higher symptom burden and prolonged recovery time following injury may show higher degrees of eye movement dysfunction. Likewise, recent advances in magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) have revealed both white matter tract damage and functional network alterations in mTBI patients, which involve areas responsible for the ocular motor control. This scoping review is presented in three sections: Section 1 explores the anatomical control of eye movements to aid the reader with interpreting the discussion in subsequent sections. Section 2 examines the relationship between abnormal MRI findings and eye tracking after mTBI based on the available evidence. Finally, Section 3 communicates gaps in our knowledge about MRI and eye tracking, which should be addressed in order to substantiate this emerging field.

Relationship between Cervicocephalic Kinesthetic Sensibility Measured during Dynamic Unpredictable Head Movements and Eye Movement Control or Postural Balance in Neck Pain Patients.

Cervical afferent input is believed to affect postural balance and oculomotor control in neck pain patients, but its relationship to cervicocephalic kinesthesia, describing movement sense, has not yet been studied. The aim of this study was to analyze the relationship of two aspects of cervicocephalic kinesthesia to postural balance and oculomotor control in neck torsion positions. Forty-three idiopathic neck pain patients referred from orthopedic outpatient clinics and forty-two asymptomatic controls were enrolled in the study. A force plate was used to measure center-of-pressure movements during parallel stances under neutral and neck torsion maneuvers. Video-oculography was used to assess eye movements during smooth pursuit neck torsion test (SPNTT), while kinesthetic awareness was measured using the Butterfly test and head-to-neutral relocation test. Multiple regression was used to describe relationships between tests. Body sway in the anterior–posterior direction was related to Butterfly parameters but less to the head-to-neutral test. A medium relationship between Butterfly parameters and gain during SPNTT, with less SPNT-difference, was observed, but not for the head-to-neutral test. It can be concluded that specific aspect of neck kinesthetic functions (i.e., movement sense) importantly contributes towards oculomotor and balance control, which is more evident under neck torsion positions in neck pain patients, but is less pronounced in asymptomatic individuals.

Reading spaced and unspaced Korean text: Evidence from eye-tracking during reading.

In written Korean, spaces appear between phrasal units ("eojeols"). In Experiment 1, participants read sentences in which space information had been manipulated. Results indicated that removing spaces or replacing them with a symbol hindered reading, but this effect was not as disruptive as previously found in English. Experiment 2 presented sentences varying in the proportion of eojeols that ended with postpositional particles as well as the presence/absence of spaces. Results showed that space removal interfered with reading, but its effects were weaker when the sentence contained more postpositional particles. This suggests that postpositional particles provide an extra cue to word segmentation in Korean texts. These findings are discussed in relation to the unique characteristics of the Korean writing system and to the models of eye-movement control during reading in different languages.

Increased Subthalamic Nucleus Deep Brain Stimulation Amplitude Impairs Inhibitory Control of Eye Movements in Parkinson's Disease

Background and ObjectivesBilateral subthalamic nucleus deep brain stimulation (STN DBS) in Parkinson's disease (PD) can have detrimental effects on eye movement inhibitory control. To investigate this detrimental effect of bilateral STN DBS, we examined the effects of manipulating STN DBS amplitude on inhibitory control during the antisaccade task. The prosaccade error rate during the antisaccade task, that is, directional errors, was indicative of impaired inhibitory control. We hypothesized that as stimulation amplitude increased, the prosaccade error rate would increase. Materials and MethodsTen participants with bilateral STN DBS completed the antisaccade task on six different stimulation amplitudes (including zero amplitude) after a 12-hour overnight withdrawal from antiparkinsonian medication. ResultsWe found that the prosaccade error rate increased as stimulation amplitude increased (p < 0.01). Additionally, prosaccade error rate increased as the modeled volume of tissue activated (VTA) and STN overlap decreased, but this relationship depended on stimulation amplitude (p = 0.04). ConclusionsOur findings suggest that higher stimulation amplitude settings can be modulatory for inhibitory control. Some individual variability in the effect of stimulation amplitude can be explained by active contact location and VTA-STN overlap. Higher stimulation amplitudes are more deleterious if the active contacts fall outside of the STN resulting in a smaller VTA-STN overlap. This is clinically significant as it can inform clinical optimization of STN DBS parameters. Further studies are needed to determine stimulation amplitude effects on other aspects of cognition and whether inhibitory control deficits on the antisaccade task result in a meaningful impact on the quality of life.

Ketidakmampuan Membaca (Disleksia) dan Dampaknya Terhadap Perkembangan Anak

The purpose of this study was to identify dyslexia disorders, and how to apply and treat them, so that they can help and reduce the impact of subsequent development. This research uses library research and the type of research is descriptive qualitative analysis. The data collection method is from the book "Innovations in Educational Psychology" by David Preiss and Robert J. Sternberg, as the main source (primary) and a review of other literatures that discuss the same research as this study as a second (secondary) source, to explore further opinions or views on dyslexia and its impact on development. The results of the study, dyslexia is one type of learning difficulty in children in the form of a reading disability, a symptom that is not caused by the ability of sight, hearing, intelligence, or language skills, but a disturbance in the brain's processing when receiving an information processing. Eye movement control, visual perception, understanding of orthographic, phonological, and semantic features of words, higher-order language and cognitive, storage, and concentration skills are all necessary for reading.

Video-oculographic measures of eye movement control in the smooth pursuit neck torsion test can classify idiopathic neck pain patients from healthy individuals: A datamining based diagnostic accuracy study

BackgroundIdiopathic neck pain patients frequently experience oculomotor disfunctions with deficits in eye movement control between neutral and neck torsion position (SPNT test) being commonly investigated in clinical and research settings. ObjectivesThe aim of the study was to determine accuracy of SPNT test in classifying idiopathic neck pain patients. Designa datamining based diagnostic accuracy study. MethodsThe study was conducted on a referred sample of 38 chronic neck pain patients from orthopaedic outpatient clinic and 40 healthy controls. Video-oculography was used to study gain and SPNTdiff during SPNT test under three target movement velocities and amplitudes and two different angles of neck torsion. A Naïve Bayesian predictive model was used to classify neck pain patients based on gain or SPNTdiff. ResultsGain during two target movement profiles at velocities of 30°s−1 and amplitudes of 30° and 40° under 45° of neck torsion presented with highest area under the curve (0.837), specificity (92%), sensitivity (94%), highest true positive and lowest false negative predicted value. Highest area under the curve (0.760), specificity (50%), sensitivity (71%), highest true positive and lowest false negative values were observed for SPNTdiff at velocities of 30°s−1 and amplitude of 30° applying 45° of neck torsion. ConclusionSPNT test provides useful diagnostic tool for classifying neck pain patients when using single or combination of two target movement profiles. Neck torsion of 45° as opposed to 30° should be used during SPNT test when investigating patients with neck pain disorders.

The facial emotion recognition deficit in Parkinson's disease: Implications of a visual scanning strategy.

We explored the relationship between a visual scanning strategy and a facial emotion recognition deficit in Parkinson's disease (PD). Thirty nondemented PD patients (balanced for symptom side at onset) and 20 age, education and gender-matched healthy controls (HC) were enrolled. The PD group underwent a comprehensive neuropsychological battery also exploring the executive functions. In both groups, eye movements were recorded while subjects categorized facial emotion from Ekman's 60-faces test. We were particularly interested in the location of fixations on facial pictures (top vs. bottom) and in emotional valence (positive vs. negative). We also compared performance of the two groups on a verbal emotion attribution task. Compared to HC, PD patients performed worse on visual recognition of negative emotions such as anger, fear, and sadness (where the upper part of the face is more informative than the lower part); the two groups did not differ on the verbal emotion attribution task. HC modified their visual scanning strategy (both number and overall time duration of fixations) according to the valence of the emotion; by contrast, PD showed the same pattern regardless of the valence. In the PD group, accuracy in the visual recognition of negative emotions and fixation pattern correlated with performance on tasks exploring executive functions; however, no associations were observed with severity of motor state. Our results suggest that visual scanning strategy contributes significantly to the facial emotion recognition deficit of PD patients, especially at a "high level" related to cognitive control of eye movements. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

Scaling patterns of cerebellar petrosal lobules in Euarchontoglires: Impacts of ecology and phylogeny.

The petrosal lobules (in whole or part homologous with the paraflocculi) of the cerebellum regulate functions associated with vision including smooth pursuit and velocity control of eye movements, suggesting a possible relationship between the petrosal lobules and behavioral adaptation. Previous studies have produced diverging conclusions regarding the lobules' ecological signal. The current study examines lobule scaling within an ecologically diverse but phylogenetically constrained sample of extant mammals to determine whether ecology influences relative petrosal lobule size. Using the endocasts of 140 Euarchontoglires (Primates, Scandentia, Dermoptera, Lagomorpha, Rodentia), petrosal lobule size was evaluated relative to endocranium and body size, accounting for phylogenetic relationships and ecology (locomotor behavior, diet, activity pattern). Results show a strong positive relationship between lobule size and both endocranial volume and body mass. Phylogeny is a major factor in the scaling of the petrosal lobules, with significant differences in relative size identified between orders and suborders. Concerning ecology, fossorial taxa were found to have significantly smaller petrosal lobules relative to body mass compared to other locomotor groups across Euarchontoglires. The small lobules possessed by this group may reflect an adaptation related to reduced visual reliance. In contrast to previous research, no relationship was identified between relative lobule size and any other ecological variables. While variation in relative lobule size may be adaptively significant in some groups (i.e., fossorial species), it is critical to study the evolution of petrosal lobule size within a narrow phylogenetic scope, with inclusion of fossil material to inform our understanding of evolutionary trajectories.

Inhibitory Control of Saccadic Eye Movements and Cognitive Impairment in Mild Cognitive Impairment.

BackgroundMild cognitive impairment (MCI) may occur due to several forms of neurodegenerative diseases and non-degenerative conditions and is associated with cognitive impairment that does not affect everyday activities. For a timely diagnosis of MCI to prevent progression to dementia, a screening tool of fast, low-cost and easy access is needed. Recent research on eye movement hints it a potential application for the MCI screening. However, the precise extent of cognitive function decline and eye-movement control alterations in patients with MCI is still unclear.ObjectiveThis study examined executive control deficits and saccade behavioral changes in patients with MCI using comprehensive neuropsychological assessment and interleaved saccade paradigms.MethodsPatients with MCI (n = 79) and age-matched cognitively healthy controls (HC) (n = 170) completed four saccadic eye-movement paradigms: prosaccade (PS)/antisaccade (AS), Go/No-go, and a battery of neuropsychological tests.ResultsThe findings revealed significantly longer latency in patients with MCI than in HC during the PS task. Additionally, patients with MCI had a lower proportion of correct responses and a marked increase in inhibition errors for both PS/AS and Go/No-go tasks. Furthermore, when patients with MCI made errors, they failed to self-correct many of these inhibition errors. In addition to the increase in inhibition errors and uncorrected inhibition errors, patients with MCI demonstrated a trend toward increased correction latencies. We also showed a relationship between neuropsychological scores and correct and error saccade responses.ConclusionOur results demonstrate that, similar to patients with Alzheimer’s dementia (AD), patients with MCI generate a high proportion of erroneous saccades toward the prepotent target and fail to self-correct many of these errors, which is consistent with an impairment of inhibitory control and error monitoring.SignificanceThe interleaved PS/AS and Go/No-go paradigms are sensitive and objective at detecting subtle cognitive deficits and saccade changes in MCI, indicating that these saccadic eye movement paradigms have clinical potential as a screening tool for MCI.

Making a saccade enhances Stroop and Simon conflict control

Cognitive control is an important ability instantiated in many situations such as conflict control (e.g., Stroop/Simon task) and the control of eye movements (e.g., saccades). However, it is unclear whether eye movement control shares a common cognitive control system with the conflict control. In Experiment 1, we asked participants to make a prosaccade or antisaccade and then to identify the color of a lateralized color word (i.e., a Stroop-Simon stimulus). The stimulus onset asynchrony (SOA) between the saccadic cue and the Stroop-Simon stimulus was manipulated to be either short (200 ms) or long (600 ms). Results showed that the Stroop effect at the response level and the (negative) Simon effect were smaller when the SOA was short than long, demonstrating a decline of response control over time after making a saccade. Moreover, this temporal change of the Simon effect was more pronounced in the antisaccade session than in the prosaccade session. Furthermore, individuals who had better performance in the antisaccade task performed better in the response control of Stroop interference. When the saccade task was removed in Experiment 2, the temporal declines of the response control observed in Experiment 1 were absent. Experiment 3 replicated the key results of Experiment 1 by replacing the Stroop-Simon task with a typical Simon task and separately testing the typical Stroop and Simon tasks. Overall, our findings suggest that a common system is shared between the control of eye movements and the conflict control at the response level.

Oculomotor performance in patients with neck pain: Does it matter which angle of neck torsion is used in smooth pursuit eye movement test and is the agreement between angles dependent on target movement amplitude and velocity?

BackgroundNeck torsion manoeuvre is thought to affect eye movement control via afferent sensory drive in neck pain disorders patients. Literature reports inconsistencies regarding the angle of neck torsion most commonly used across the studies. ObjectivesThe goal of this study was to determine the level of agreement in oculomotor performance between two most commonly used neck torsion angles during smooth pursuit neck torsion test (SPNT). DesignA cross-sectional design was used in thirty-two neck pain patients and thirty-two healthy individuals. MethodGain and SPNTdiff were measured during SPNT test at 30° and 45° of neck torsion angle, at 30°, 40° and 50° of target movement amplitudes and three different target movement velocities (20°s−1, 30°s−1 and 40°s−1) using eye tracking device. Bland-Altman plots and correlation analysis were used to study the agreement between the two angles. ResultsSmall to medium correlations and wide bias confidence intervals suggest medium level of agreement in gain or SPNTdiff between the two neck torsion angles for chronic neck pain patients, but higher in healthy individuals. Higher agreement in gain was observed at lager target movement amplitudes and at slower target movement velocities, however this trend was not observed for SPNTdiff. ConclusionLevel of agreement between the two angles in SPNT test depends on the amplitude and velocity of the moving target. In cases when subjects within the same study are not able to perform 45° of neck torsion, 50° amplitude and 20°s−1 velocity of target movement are more suitable to reach higher agreement between the angles.

Semantic object-scene inconsistencies affect eye movements, but not in the way predicted by contextualized meaning maps.

Semantic information is important in eye movement control. An important semantic influence on gaze guidance relates to object-scene relationships: objects that are semantically inconsistent with the scene attract more fixations than consistent objects. One interpretation of this effect is that fixations are driven toward inconsistent objects because they are semantically more informative. We tested this explanation using contextualized meaning maps, a method that is based on crowd-sourced ratings to quantify the spatial distribution of context-sensitive “meaning” in images. In Experiment 1, we compared gaze data and contextualized meaning maps for images, in which objects-scene consistency was manipulated. Observers fixated more on inconsistent versus consistent objects. However, contextualized meaning maps did not assign higher meaning to image regions that contained semantic inconsistencies. In Experiment 2, a large number of raters evaluated image-regions, which were deliberately selected for their content and expected meaningfulness. The results suggest that the same scene locations were experienced as slightly less meaningful when they contained inconsistent compared to consistent objects. In summary, we demonstrated that — in the context of our rating task — semantically inconsistent objects are experienced as less meaningful than their consistent counterparts and that contextualized meaning maps do not capture prototypical influences of image meaning on gaze guidance.

Controlling an effector with eye movements: The effect of entangled sensory and motor responsibilities.

Restoring arm and hand function has been indicated by individuals with tetraplegia as one of the most important factors for regaining independence. The overall goal of our research is to develop assistive technologies that allow individuals with tetraplegia to control functional reaching movements. This study served as an initial step toward our overall goal by assessing the feasibility of using eye movements to control the motion of an effector in an experimental environment. We aimed to understand how additional motor requirements placed on the eyes affected eye-hand coordination during functional reaching. We were particularly interested in how eye fixation error was affected when the sensory and motor functions of the eyes were entangled due to the additional motor responsibility. We recorded participants' eye and hand movements while they reached for targets on a monitor. We presented a cursor at the participant's point of gaze position which can be thought of as being similar to the control of an assistive robot arm. To measure eye fixation error, we used an offline filter to extract eye fixations from the raw eye movement data. We compared the fixations to the locations of the targets presented on the monitor. The results show that not only are humans able to use eye movements to direct the cursor to a desired location (1.04 ± 0.15 cm), but they can do so with error similar to that of the hand (0.84 ± 0.05 cm). In other words, despite the additional motor responsibility placed on the eyes during direct eye-movement control of an effector, the ability to coordinate functional reaching movements was unaffected. The outcomes of this study support the efficacy of using the eyes as a direct command input for controlling movement.

Preview frequency effects in reading: evidence from Chinese.

Studies about sentence reading have shown that visual and lexical information beyond the currently fixated word can be integrated across fixations. The gaze-contingent boundary paradigm has been used widely to explore the extent to which parafoveal information can be processed before a word is fixated on. However, a critical review of the current literature suggests that unrelated mask previews are an unlikely baseline control with zero lexical activation, blurring the nature of experimental effects observed in the paradigm. The present study, therefore, aimed at shedding light on the effect of parafoveal mask properties through a manipulation of preview word frequency. Low-frequency preview words that are unrelated to target words elicited a larger interference than high-frequency preview words. We discuss implications of the preview frequency effect for computational models of eye-movement control in reading.

A Case Report on Progressive Supranuclear Palsy

Progressive supranuclear palsy (PSP) is a quite rare neurodegenerative disease that affects mainly the brain stem, basal ganglia, and cerebellum in the central nervous system. PSP is classified in the rubric of parkinsonism plus syndromes, which causes progressive degeneration in the midbrain areas those controls eye movements. PSP often goes under diagnosed, hence making it essential for physicians to be well-known of this disorder. We present a case of PSP of a 65- year-old female, which came primarily with reiterative falls due to postural instability and speech disturbances. Radiodiagnosis with magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) of brain diagnosed a classical sign of PSP.

The function and phylogeny of eye movements.

Good vision requires images on the retina to be reasonably stable. However, motion of objects in the world, or motion of the eyes in space, can cause images to slip across the retina. If images move across the retina too fast or are too far from the area of greatest sensitivity, vision becomes degraded. Thus, the oculomotor systems serve vision by stabilizing images on the retina despite object or body movements. Control of eye movements is divided among several systems. Failure of these systems lead to specific clinical disorders.

Supplemental Material for A Cross-Linguistic Study of Spatial Parameters of Eye-Movement Control During Reading

Supplemental Material for A Cross-Linguistic Study of Spatial Parameters of Eye-Movement Control During Reading

Normal saccades but decreased fixation stability in a population of children with dyslexia

Developmental dyslexia affects around 5-15% of the population and has a heterogeneous aetiology. Optometric disorders are more prevalent in dyslexic populations but the relationship be- tween eye movement control and dyslexia is not well established. In this study, we investigated whether children with dyslexia show saccadic or fixation deficits and whether these deficits are related to deficits in visual acuity and/or accommodation. Thirty-four children with and without dyslexia were recruited for the project. All participants had an optometric examination and performed a saccade and fixation experiment. We used two eye movement paradigms: the step and the gap task. Eye movements were recorded by an infrared eye-tracker and saccade and fixation parameters were analysed separately. Saccadic latencies, premature saccades, and directional errors were similar between children with dyslexia and typically developing children. In contrast, fixations were significantly less stable in the dyslexic group. Neither saccades nor fixations were associated with deficits in accommodation or visual acuity. Children with dyslexia showed no difficulties in saccadic performance, but their fixation stability was reduced compared to the control group. The reduced fixation stability can be explained by general deficits in the cognitive processes that underpin eye movement control, that have also been found in other neuro-developmental disorders.

The letter position coding mechanism of second language words during sentence reading: Evidence from eye movements.

We conducted three eye movement experiments to investigate the mechanism for coding letter positions in a person's second language during sentence reading; we also examined the role of morphology in this process with a more rigorous manipulation. Given that readers obtain information not only from currently fixated words (i.e., the foveal area) but also from upcoming words (i.e., the parafoveal area) to guide their reading, we examined both when the targets were fixated (Exp. 1) and when the targets were seen parafoveally (Exps. 2 and 3). First, we found the classic transposed letter (TL) effect in Exp. 1, but not in Exp. 2 or 3. This implies that flexible letter position coding exists during sentence reading. However, this was limited to words located in the foveal area, suggesting that L2 readers whose L2 proficiency is not as high as skilled native readers are not able to extract and utilise the parafoveal letter identity and position information of a word, whether the word length is long (Exp. 2) or short (Exp. 3). Second, we found morphological information to influence the magnitude of the TL effect in Exp. 1. These results provide new eye movement evidence for the flexibility of L2 letter position coding during sentence reading, as well as the interactions between the different internal representations of words in this process. Future L2 reading frameworks should integrate word recognition and eye movement control models.