Target Letter Research Articles

Game learning analytics for understanding reading skills in transparent writing system

AbstractSerious games are designed to improve learning instead of providing only entertainment. Serious games analytics can be used for understanding and enhancing the quality of learning with serious games. One challenge in developing the computerized support for learning is that learning of skills varies between players. Appropriate algorithms are needed for analyzing the performance of individual players. This paper presents a novel clustering‐based profiling method for analyzing serious games learners. GraphoLearn, a game for training connections between the speech sounds and letters, serves as the game‐based learning environment. The proposed clustering method was designed to group the learners into profiles based on game log data. The obtained profiles were statistically analyzed. For instance, the results revealed one profile consisting of 136 players who had difficulties with connecting most of the target sounds and letters, whereas learners in the other profiles typically had difficulties with specific sound‐letter pairs. The results suggest that this profiling method can be useful for identifying children with a risk of reading disability and the proposed approach is a promising new method for analyzing serious game log data. Practitioner NotesWhat is already known about this topic Serious games are used to improve learning and to tailor learning environments for people with various difficulties in learning. Learning analytics and serious games analytics are growing research fields, applying and developing data analysis methods to analyze, profile and understand learning using serious games. GraphoLearn is a learning game for training reading skills. The game provides preventive support for learners with varying skill levels including individuals who are struggling with reading. What this paper adds The paper develops and presents a novel approach for serious games analytics to analyze GraphoLearn players. The proposed data analysis approach produces an interpretable set of error profiles, which characterize the learning difficulties in a unique way. The profiling method can be used for longitudinal studies and applied to analyzing logs of other serious games. Implications for practice and/or policy It is possible to reveal and understand profiles of serious game players. The proposed data analysis method can be used to identify players who have a potential risk for reading difficulties or disabilities. Even though the proposed method provides only limited information about players' future skills, it offers a good starting point for other studies in which players' development can be monitored more accurately.

Intrusions into the shadow of attention: A new take on illusory conjunctions.

We present new evidence about illusory conjunctions (ICs) suggesting that their current explanation requires revision. According to Feature Integration Theory (FIT; Treisman & Gelade Cognitive Psychology, 12, 97-136, 1980), focal attention to a single stimulus is required to bind its features into an integrated percept. FIT predicts that if attention is spread over multiple stimuli, features of these different stimuli can be combined into a single percept and produce ICs. Treisman and Schmidt (Cognitive Psychology, 14, 107-141, 1982) and Cohen & Ivry (Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 15(4), 650-663, 1989) supported this prediction. In the latter study, participants viewed brief displays containing two digits and two colored letters. Digit locations were pre-cued, and participants were instructed to prioritize the digits and to spread their attention across the region encompassed by the digits. Cohen & Ivry found that reports of one letter (the 'target') produced ICs when both letters appeared between the digits. Expanding on Cohen & Ivry's paradigm, we find that both letters do not need to appear between the digits to produce ICs. While the target letter was highly susceptible to ICs if the target appeared inside the position of a nearby digit, the position of the other letter was largely irrelevant. Our experimental results also argue that these ICs were not due to mnemonic errors occurring while the digits are being reported. Based on our findings, we propose that attention to the digits casts an attentional 'shadow' projecting towards fixation, interfering with processing of target letters in that shadow and allowing color information from elsewhere in the display to be included in the resulting percept.

Altered neural oscillations and connectivity in the beta band underlie detail-oriented visual processing in autism

Sensory and perceptual anomalies may have a major impact on basic cognitive and social skills in humans. Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) represents a special perspective to explore this relationship, being characterized by both these features. The present study employed electroencephalography (EEG) to test whether detail-oriented visual perception, a recognized hallmark of ASD, is associated with altered neural oscillations and functional connectivity in the beta frequency band, considering its role in feedback and top-down reentrant signalling in the typical population. Using a visual crowding task, where participants had to discriminate a peripheral target letter surrounded by flankers at different distances, we found that detail-oriented processing in children with ASD, as compared to typically developing peers, could be attributed to anomalous oscillatory activity in the beta band (15–30 Hz), while no differences emerged in the alpha band (8–12 Hz). Altered beta oscillatory response reflected in turn atypical functional connectivity between occipital areas, where the initial stimulus analysis is accomplished, and infero-temporal regions, where objects identity is extracted. Such atypical beta connectivity predicted both ASD symptomatology and their detail-oriented processing. Overall, these results might be explained by an altered feedback connectivity within the visual system, with potential cascade effects in visual scene parsing and higher order functions.

Explicitly versus implicitly driven temporal expectations: No evidence for altered perceptual processing due to top-down modulations.

Learning the statistical regularities of environmental events is a powerful tool for enhancing performance. However, it remains unclear whether this often implicit type of behavioral facilitation can be proactively modulated by explicit knowledge about temporal regularities. Only recently, Menceloglu and colleagues (Attention, Perception & Psychophysics, 79(1), 169-179, 2017) tested for differences between implicit versus explicit statistical learning of temporal regularities by using a within-paradigm manipulation of metacognitive temporal knowledge. The authors reported that temporal expectations were enhanced if participants had explicit knowledge about temporal regularities. Here, we attempted to replicate and extend their results, and to provide a mechanistic framework for any effects by means of computational modelling. Participants performed a letter-discrimination task, with target letters embedded in congruent or incongruent flankers. Temporal predictability was manipulated block-wise, with targets occurring more often after either a short or a long delay period. During the delay a sound was presented in half of the trials. Explicit knowledge about temporal regularities was manipulated by changing instructions: Participants received no information (implicit), information about the most likely cue-target delay (explicit), or received 100% valid cues on each trial (highly explicit). We replicated previous effects of target-flanker congruence and sound presence. However, no evidence was found for an effect of explicit knowledge on temporal expectations using Bayesian statistics. Concordantly, computational modelling suggested that explicit knowledge may only influence non-perceptual processing such as response criteria. Together, our results indicate that explicit metacognitive knowledge does not necessarily alter sensory representations or temporal expectations but rather affects response strategies.

Linguistic Factors and the Spelling Ability of Spanish Heritage Language Learners

Spelling is an aspect of literacy that causes significant difficulties for Spanish heritage language (HL) learners. Because little is known about how spelling skills are developed in this population, instructors of HL courses often struggle when attempting to teach spelling rules, leading to frustration among both teachers and students in heritage language courses. (Beaudrie, 2012). The current research study targets one of the most problematic areas of Spanish orthography: substitution of ‘s’ and ‘c’ letters to represent /s/. An experimental dictation task was designed in order to test two linguistic factors hypothesized to impact spelling accuracy: target letter (‘s’ vs. ‘c’) and cognate status of the word (cognate vs. non-cognate). Participants (n=72) were young adults, Spanish HL learners, who completed the dictation task in addition to a standardized measure of proficiency. The results indicate a main effect for cognate status (suggesting facilitative transfer from English), but no effect for letter. These results suggest that ‘s’ is not the default letter for representing /s/, contrary to what had been found in a number of previous studies. We discuss the data in the broader context of pedagogical proposals for targeting spelling among college-aged HL learners.

The influence of nicotine metabolic rate on working memory over 6 hours of abstinence from nicotine

BackgroundA faster rate of nicotine metabolism has been associated with smoking more cigarettes, greater nicotine withdrawal symptoms, and lower smoking quit rates. However, the association between nicotine metabolic rate (NMR) and cognitive functioning during withdrawal has not been determined. MethodsWe compared cognitive function in 121 fast or slow nicotine metabolizers after smoking, and at 3 and 6 h of nicotine abstinence. Cognitive functioning was assessed using N-back working memory tests with outcomes of accuracy and processing speed. Participants smoked two cigarettes and then abstained from smoking for 6 h. N-back tests were administered after smoking (0 h) and at 3 and 6 h of nicotine abstinence. ResultsAn effect of processing speed was found over time on the 2-back, in that participants had significantly longer average reaction times when the stimuli presented did not match the target letter. NMR was not significantly associated with the processing speed change over time. Within-race differences in working memory were evident in that Caucasian fast metabolizers had significantly poorer accuracy and processing speed. ConclusionsMinimal change in working memory over 6 h of nicotine abstinence was observed. Overall, NMR was not significantly associated with the change in processing speed, however Caucasian fast metabolizers displayed poorer accuracy and processing speed at discrete time points.

Saccadic selection does not eliminate attribute amnesia.

Attribute amnesia (Chen & Wyble, 2015, 2016) demonstrates that we may not always be able to spontaneously retrieve a simple attribute of a visual object (e.g., its color) for conscious report, even though the object had just been the target in a visual task. Attribute amnesia has been suggested to reflect a lack of consolidation of the task-irrelevant attribute in visual working memory. Here we tested whether saccadic selection eliminates or attenuates attribute amnesia. Saccade targets have been shown to be preferentially encoded into visual working memory and may therefore be spared. We used simple color pop-out displays, asking participants to indicate the location of the color singleton letter target on each trial either by keypress or by making a saccade toward it. After a couple of trials and unannounced to the participants, we asked for the color and identity of the last target letter on a surprise trial. We found that saccade targets were not spared from attribute amnesia: Participants were as bad in correctly reporting the color in the saccade as in the keypress condition. For letter identity, the effect was attenuated but not abolished when the target was foveated for a short period of time. We argue that the current results do not refute an obligatory coupling between saccadic selection and encoding in visual working memory. However, the encoded information may not necessarily be stored in a manner that is robust enough to persist in the face of a surprise question. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).

Enhancement and Suppression Flexibly Guide Attention

Previous research suggests that observers can suppress salient-but-irrelevant stimuli in a top-down manner. However, one question left unresolved is whether such suppression is, in fact, solely due to distractor-feature suppression or whether it instead also reflects some degree of target-feature enhancement. The present study (N = 60) addressed this issue. On search trials (70% of trials), participants searched for a shape target when an irrelevant color singleton was either present or absent; performance was better when a color singleton was present. On interleaved probe trials (30% of trials), participants searched for a letter target. Responses were faster for the letter on a target-colored item than on a neutral-colored item, whereas responses were slower for the letter on a distractor-colored item than on a neutral-colored item. The results demonstrate that target-feature enhancement and distractor-feature suppression contribute to attentional guidance independently; enhancement and suppression flexibly guide attention as the occasion demands.

BLAST: A short computerized test to measure the ability to stay on task. Normative behavioral data and detailed cortical dynamics.

This article provides an exhaustive description of a new short computerized test to assess on a second-to-second basis the ability of individuals to « stay on task », that is, to apply selectively and repeatedly task-relevant cognitive processes. The task (Bron/Lyon Attention Stability Test, or BLAST) lasts around 1 min, and measures repeatedly the time to find a target letter in a two-by-two letter array, with an update of all letters every new trial across thirty trials. Several innovative psychometric measures of attention stability are proposed based on the instantaneous fluctuations of reaction times throughout the task, and normative data stratified over a wide range of age are provided by a large (>6000) dataset of participants aged 8 to 70. We also detail the large-scale brain dynamics supporting the task from an in-depth study of 32 participants with direct electrophysiological cortical recordings (intracranial EEG) to prove that BLAST involves critically large-scale executive attention networks, with a marked activation of the dorsal attention network and a deactivation of the default-mode network. Accordingly, we show that BLAST performance correlates with scores established by ADHD-questionnaires.

Scene semantics involuntarily guide attention during visual search.

During scene viewing, is attention primarily guided by low-level image salience or by high-level semantics? Recent evidence suggests that overt attention in scenes is primarily guided by semantic features. Here we examined whether the attentional priority given to meaningful scene regions is involuntary. Participants completed a scene-independent visual search task in which they searched for superimposed letter targets whose locations were orthogonal to both the underlying scene semantics and image salience. Critically, the analyzed scenes contained no targets, and participants were unaware of this manipulation. We then directly compared how well the distribution of semantic features and image salience accounted for the overall distribution of overt attention. The results showed that even when the task was completely independent from the scene semantics and image salience, semantics explained significantly more variance in attention than image salience and more than expected by chance. This suggests that salient image features were effectively suppressed in favor of task goals, but semantic features were not suppressed. The semantic bias was present from the very first fixation and increased non-monotonically over the course of viewing. These findings suggest that overt attention in scenes is involuntarily guided by scene semantics.

Disentangling the effects of reward value and probability on anticipatory event-related potentials

Optimal decision-making requires humans to predict the value and probability of prospective (rewarding) outcomes. The aim of the present study was to evaluate and dissociate the cortical mechanisms activated by information on an upcoming potentially rewarded target stimulus with varying probabilities. Electro-cortical activity was recorded during a cued Go/NoGo experiment, during which cue letters signaled upcoming target letters to which participants had to respond. The probability of target letter appearance after the cue letter and the amount of money that could be won for correct and fast responses were orthogonally manipulated across four task blocks. As expected, reward availability affected a prefrontally distributed reward-related positivity, and a centrally distributed P300-like event-related potential (ERP). Moreover, a late prefrontally distributed ERP was affected by probability information. These results show that information on value and probability, respectively, activates separate mechanisms in the cortex. These results contribute to a further understanding of the neural underpinnings of normal and abnormal reward processing.

Contrasting left/right codes for response selection must not be necessarily associated with contrasting numerical features to get the SNARC

The SNARC effect consists of faster reaction times to small numerical magnitudes when manual responses are delivered in the left-side of space and to large magnitudes when responses are delivered in the right-side. This spatial compatibility effect points at the interaction between the representations of space and that of numbers. Several studies have highlighted that an important determinant for the production of the SNARC is the use of contrasting left/right spatial codes in the selection of motor responses. In these studies, one spatial code for response selection, e.g. “left”, is usually associated with one number feature, e.g. “lower than 5”, while the contrasting spatial code, e.g. “right”, is associated with the contrasting number feature, e.g. “higher than 5”. Using a task with intermixed number and letter targets, here we show that significant and reliable SNARC effects are also produced when: a) one spatial response is associated with the intra-categorical discrimination of a number feature (i.e. magnitude or parity) and the contrasting response with the simple detection of letter targets; b) or when one spatial response is associated with the intra-categorical discrimination of the position of a letter in the alphabet (i.e. before or after “m”) and the contrasting spatial response with the simple detection of numerical targets (Experiments 1 and 2). In contrast, no reliable SNARC is found when no intra-categorical number or letter discrimination is required and contrasting left/right spatial response codes are simply associated with the discrimination between numbers and letters, e.g. “push left if the target is a number/push right if it is a letter” (Experiment 3). In a final control test (Experiment 4), we found no SNARC when the magnitude or parity classification of Arabic digits presented at central fixation was made unimanually with a left side or a right side-key and no left/right contrast was present in response selection. These results show that the use of contrasting left/right spatial response codes elicits reliable SNARC effects independently of their assignment to contrasting number features and confirm the important role played by the use of spatial codes in the genesis of the number-space interaction.

Evaluation of a New Clinical Test of Fusion Status: A Pilot Study

Background Suppression is associated with binocular vision conditions such as amblyopia and strabismus. Commercial methods of testing fusion often only measure central fusion or suppression at near. The purpose of this pilot study was to assess a new iPad picture fusion test that assesses foveal and central fusion at near. Methods Participants aged 5 years and older presenting for eye examination at The Ohio State University College of Optometry were enrolled. Results from visual acuity, dry and wet refraction/retinoscopy, stereopsis and cover testing were recorded from the patient chart. The iPad picture fusion test, Worth four-dot, Worth type test with foveal letter targets, and Polarized four-dot were performed by one examiner in a randomized order at 40 cm. Testing was repeated with the anaglyphic filters reversed. Crosstabulation and McNemar chi-square analysis were used to compare the results between fusion testing devices. Results Of the fifty participants (mean age = 17.5), twelve reported suppression and one reported diplopia. Testability was excellent for all tests (98% to 100%). There were no significant differences between tests in reported results (P ≥ 0.22 for all comparisons). No difference in reported fusion or suppression status was observed with change in orientation of the anaglyphic filters. Six participants reported foveal suppression alone at near which was not identified with Worth four-dot at near. Conclusion The iPad picture fusion test provided excellent testability and agreement with commonly used tests of fusion and allowed testing of both central and foveal fusion at near. Nearly half (46%) of participants with suppression reported foveal suppression, supporting the importance of testing for foveal suppression.

Disrupting uniformity: Feature contrasts that reduce crowding interfere with peripheral word recognition

Peripheral word recognition is impaired by crowding, the harmful influence of surrounding objects (flankers) on target identification. Crowding is usually weaker when the target and the flankers differ (for example in color). Here, we investigated whether reducing crowding at syllable boundaries improved peripheral word recognition. In Experiment 1, a target letter was flanked by single letters to the left and right and presented at 8° in the lower visual field. Target and flankers were either the same or different in regard to contrast polarity, color, luminance, and combined color/luminance. Crowding was reduced when the target differed from the flankers in contrast polarity, but not in any of the other conditions. Using the same color and luminance values as in Experiment 1, we measured recognition performance (speed and accuracy) for uniform (e.g., all letters black), congruent (e.g., alternating black and white syllables), and incongruent (e.g., alternating black and white non-syllables) words in Experiment 2. Participants verbally reported the target word, briefly displayed at 8° in the lower visual field. Congruent and incongruent words were recognized slower compared to uniform words in the opposite contrast polarity condition, but not in the other conditions. Our results show that the same feature contrast between the target and the flankers that yielded reduced crowding, deteriorated peripheral word recognition when applied to syllables and non-syllabic word parts. We suggest that a potential advantage of reduced crowding at syllable boundaries in word recognition is counteracted by the disruption of word uniformity.

Visual Search for Letters in the Right Versus Left Visual Hemifields.

The current study investigated the relationships between attention, word processing, and visual field asymmetries. There is a discussion on whether each brain hemisphere possesses its own attentional resources and on how attention allocation depends on hemispheric lateralization of functions. We used stimuli with lateralized processing in an attentional task presented across the two visual hemifields. Three experiments investigated the visual search for a prespecified letter in displays containing words or nonwords, placed left and right to fixation, with a variable target letter position within the strings. In Experiment 1, two letter strings of the same type (words or nonwords) were presented to both visual hemifields. In Experiment 2, there was only one letter string presented right or left to fixation. In Experiment 3, two letter strings of different type were presented to both hemifields. Response times and accuracy data were collected. The results of Experiment 1 provide evidence for letter-by-letter search within a word in the left visual field (LVF), within a nonword in the right visual field (RVF), and for position-independent access to letters within a nonword in LVF and within a word in RVF. Experiment 3 produced similar results except for letter-by-letter search within words in RVF. In Experiment 2, for all types of letter strings in both hemifields, we observed the same letter-by-letter search. These results demonstrate that presence of stimuli in both one or two hemifields and the readiness to process a certain string type might contribute to the search for a letter within a letter string.

Frequency effects on spelling in Hebrew-speaking younger and older adults

AbstractPrevious research has documented conflicting findings regarding the effect of word frequency on spelling in older adults. The current study examines spelling in Hebrew, in which it is easier to define the type of likely misspellings in each word. Younger and older Hebrew speakers spelled 120 single words that differed in word and letter frequency. Results show that all participants made more phonological substitutions of target letters on low-frequency words and on words with low-frequency letters. Yet, younger adults had a lower percentage of correct responses than did older adults, especially on low-frequency words. Vocabulary knowledge eliminated this age effect. We suggest that aging leads to greater reliance on full lexical retrieval of spelling instead of on sublexical phoneme-to-grapheme processing, due to years of exposure to written language, increase in vocabulary, and consolidation of orthographic representations.

Letters Lost: Capturing Appearance in Crowded Peripheral Vision Reveals a New Kind of Masking

Peripheral vision is strongly limited by crowding, the deleterious influence of flanking items on target perception. Distinguishing what is seen from what is merely inferred in crowding is difficult because task demands and prior knowledge may influence observers’ reports. Here, we used a standard identification task in which participants were susceptible to these influences, and to minimize them, we used a free-report-and-drawing paradigm. Three letters were presented in the periphery. In Experiment 1, 10 participants were asked to identify the central target letter. In Experiment 2, 25 participants freely named and drew what they saw. When three identical letters were presented, performance was almost perfect in Experiment 1, but it was very poor in Experiment 2, in which most participants reported only two letters. Our study reveals limitations of standard crowding paradigms and uncovers a hitherto unrecognized effect that we call redundancy masking.

Contingent capture during search for alphanumerical characters: A case of feature-based capture or of conceptual category membership?

To distinguish if search for alphanumerical characters is based on features or on conceptual category membership, we conducted two experiments where we presented upright and inverted characters as cues in a contingent-capture protocol. Here, only cues matching the top-down search template (e.g., a letter cue when searching for target letters) capture attention and lead to validity effects: shorter search times and fewer errors for validly than invalidly cued targets. Top-down nonmatching cues (e.g., a number cue when searching for target letters) do not capture attention. To tell a feature-based explanation from one based on conceptual category membership, we used both upright (canonical) and inverted characters as cues. These cues share the same features, but inverted cues cannot be conceptually categorized as easily as upright cues. Thus, we expected no difference between upright and inverted cues when search is feature-based, whereas inverted cues would elicit no or at least considerably weaker validity effects if search relies on conceptual category membership. Altogether, the results of both experiments (with overlapping and with separate sets of characters for cues and targets) provide evidence for search based on feature representations, as among other things, significant validity effects were found with upright and inverted characters as cues. However, an influence of category membership was also evident, as validity effects of inverted characters were diminished.

Spatially Specific Attention Mechanisms Are Sensitive to Competition during Visual Search.

Extensive studies have focused on selection mechanisms during visual search. One important influence on these mechanisms is the perceptual characteristics of the stimuli. We investigated the impact of perceptual similarity between targets and nontargets (T-N similarity) in a visual search task using EEG. Participants searched for a predefined target letter among five nontargets. The T-N similarity was manipulated with three levels: high, middle, and low. We tested for the influences of T-N similarity on an ERP (e.g., N2pc) and alpha oscillations. We observed a significant N2pc effect across all levels of similarity. The N2pc amplitude was reduced and occurred later for high similarity relative to low and middle similarities. We also showed that the N2pc amplitude was inversely correlated with the RTs across all similarities. Importantly, we found a significant alpha phase adjustment about the same time as the N2pc for high similarity; by contrast, no such effect was observed for middle and low similarities. Finally, we showed a positive correlation between the phase-locking value and the N2pc-the stronger the alpha phase-locking value, the larger the N2pc, when the T-N similarity was high. In conclusion, our results provide novel evidence for multiple competitive mechanisms during visual search.

Motor Memory: Revealing Conditioned Action Tendencies Using Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation.

Action tendencies can be elicited by motivationally salient stimuli (e.g., appetitive rewards) or objects that support utilization behaviors. These action tendencies can benefit behavioral performance through speeded RTs in response tasks and improve detection accuracy in attentional capture tasks. However, action tendencies can be counterproductive when goals change (e.g., refraining from junk foods or abstaining from alcohol). Maintaining control over cue-elicited action tendencies is therefore critical for successful behavior modification. To better understand this relationship, we used transcranial magnetic stimulation to investigate the neural signatures of action tendencies in the presence of previously trained response cues. Participants were presented with a continuous letter stream and instructed to respond quickly to two target letters using two different response keys. Following this training phase, the target letters were embedded in a new task (test phase), and we applied transcranial magnetic stimulation to the motor cortex and measured motor evoked potentials as an index of corticospinal excitability (CSE). We found that CSE could be potentiated by a former response cue trained within a single experimental session, even when participants were instructed to withhold responses during the test phase. Critically, attention to the previously trained response cue was required to elicit the primed modulation in CSE, and successful control of this activity was accompanied by CSE suppression. These findings suggest that well-trained response cues can come to prime a conditioned action tendency and provide a model for understanding how the implementation of cognitive control can override action automaticity.