Visual Nature Research Articles

Visual hallucinations in psychosis: What do people actually see?

AbstractBackgroundOne in three people with psychosis experience visions. However, little is known about what people see, and current treatments have limited benefits.ObjectivesTo improve the understanding and treatment of visions, this study explored the phenomenology of visions in people with psychosis.MethodsTwelve people with psychosis participated in semi‐structured interviews. Reflective thematic analysis was used.ResultsThree main themes were generated covering important aspects of phenomenology: ‘Content’, ‘Coherence’ and ‘Quality’. The first theme ‘Content: People see people’, demonstrated that the most distressing visions were of people. The second theme ‘Coherence: Visions of people who behave like people’, captured how visions were coherent with real human behaviour, often by being multimodal experiences that spoke to and touched the observer. The third theme, ‘Quality: They look too real’ highlighted the compelling sense of authenticity of the visions, making them indistinguishable from reality.ConclusionVisions represent what we expect to see in everyday life: people, who act and look real. This powerful combination provides insight into the absorbing and all‐encompassing nature of visions and their impact on participant's lives. The framework of ‘Content’, ‘Coherence’ and ‘Quality’ provides guidance to support clinicians and researchers to better explore the phenomenology of visions in psychosis.

The algorithm of diagnosis and surgical treatment of Brown’s syndrome

Introduction. Brown’s syndrome (BS) is a rare type of unconcomitant strabismus, which is often interpreted by practicing ophthalmologists as a paralytic form. The difficulty of diagnosis is due to the similarity of clinical manifestations with a number of other oculomotor disorders. This leads to a late, and most importantly, tactically incorrect choice of surgical treatment method. Purpose: Development of an algorithms for differential diagnosis and surgical treatment of Brown syndrome. Materials and methods. The authors analyzed the experience of diagnosing and treating 99 patients with Brown’s syndrome. The follow-up period was 13 years, from May 2010 to May 2023. Among the examined patients, 35 (35 %) were male and 64 (65 %) were female. The median age was 7.19 ± 0.87 years, the oldest at the time of the study was 45 years old, and the youngest was 1.5 years old. All patients underwent standard ophthalmologic and strabismal examinations. In patients of verbal age, the nature of vision was examined (Worth test, Bagolini test, double Maddox test). All operated patients underwent a cyclotorsion test intraoperatively under general anesthesia to confirm the diagnosis and choose a surgical method. Surgical treatment was carried out in 60 cases of unilateral and 5 cases of bilateral BS (a total of 65 patients aged 2 to 45 years; 69 eyes). Tenotomy and tenectomy of the superior oblique muscle (ECM) were performed in 53 cases, prolongation and recession with prolongation of the ECM in 16 cases. Results. Clinical signs have been systematized, algorithms for differential diagnosis and surgical treatment have been developed, which make it possible to timely identify Brown’s syndrome and carry out stage-by-stage pathogenetically based surgical treatment. The results are presented in the form of sequential action schemes (algorithms) that will help practitioners in making a diagnosis and determining the correct tactics of surgical treatment. Conclusions. Brown syndrome has characteristic differential features and requires staged surgical treatment. Developed algorithms to obtain high functional and cosmetic results.

Directional Scopaesthesia and Its Implications for Theories of Vision

The sense of being stared at, or scopaesthesia, is very common, and its existence is supported by experimental evidence. However, it contravenes the standard scientific assumption, dating back to Kepler’s discovery of retinal images in 1604, that vision involves only the inward movement of light – intromission – but not the outward movement of images or attention – extramission. From this point of view, scopaesthesia is impossible. Yet, paradoxically, the conventional explanation of virtual images in mirrors is still based on Euclid’s (c. 300 BC) extramission theory, and most people implicitly believe in visual extramission, which could help provide a basis for scopaesthesia. If scopaesthesia depends only on the detection of another’s attention, it could conceivably be a scalar phenomenon, with a magnitude but not direction, analogous to telephone telepathy, in which people feel who is calling but do not know where they are. In this case, scopaesthesia would tell us little about the nature of vision. But if scopaesthesia is normally directional, enabling those stared at to detect the direction from which the look is coming, it would be more like a vector phenomenon, with both magnitude and direction and would provide evidence for visual extramission. Experimental tests of scopaesthesia have so far been devoted to establishing its existence and have not looked at its directionality. Here, we examine the natural history of the phenomenon based on a collection of 960 case histories collected over 25 years involving both humans and non-human animals. This collection includes more than 80 interviews with surveillance officers, detectives, martial arts teachers, celebrity photographers, wildlife photographers, and hunters who have extensive experience of watching people or non-human animals. In 466 (49%) of the cases, directional effects were explicit, in that the person or animal looked at responded by turning and looking directly back at the looker rather than searching at random for the source of attention. In 186 (19%) of the cases directional effects were implicit. In most of the other cases, directional effects were not mentioned, usually because they were general statements lacking detail. In online surveys, including a survey of a group of skeptics, the great majority of respondents said they had experienced directional scopaesthesia. We conclude that directionality is a normal feature of scopaesthesia in real-life situations and suggest that this finding supports the idea that minds are extended beyond brains and that this extension involves some kind of visual extramission. We quote from more than 40 case histories and, in the online Supplementary Material make the entire collection of 960 cases available to those who would like to look at the data for themselves.

EVALUATION OF STEREOVISION FINDINGS USING THE TITMUS TEST IN CHILDREN AND ADOLESCENTS WITH REFRACTIVE ERRORS

The purpose of the study: to evaluate the indicators of stereovision using the Titmus test for an accurate assessment of stereovision and its correction in children and adolescents. Materials and methods. The study was carried out in 143 patients (286 eyes), including 73 girls (51.0%) and 70 boys (49.9 %). The participants were divided into two groups: the first group involved 6 children with myopia and 11 children with hypermetropia; the second group included 126 people with astigmatism. The second group with astigmatism (252 eyes) included 24 children with myopic astigmatism (19.04 %), 92 children with hypermetropic astigmatism (73.01 %) and 10 people (7.93 %) with mixed astigmatism. All patients of the two groups underwent advanced testing of visual functions that involved a series of the following procedures: visiometry with distance correction, autorefractometry (assessment of spherical refraction and astigmatism using an autorefractometer) before and after cycloplegia, assessment of binocular vision by four-point color test, Worthtest test, (assessment of the nature of vision), heterophoria measurements (cover test), ophthalmoscopy with a dilated pupil (diagnosis of the retina and optic nerve). Results. All 143 patients (286 eyes) were examined by using the Titmus test. The findings obtained showed that gross changes were observed in 14 (5.6 %) patients with astigmatism in the first group and pronounced changes were found in 81 (45.0 %) patients with hypermetropic astigmatism in the second subgroup. In this study, the Titmus test was carried out at medium distances that should be taken into account when assessing stereovision by graded tests. Conclusion. The use of the Titmus test can significantly improve the accuracy of measuring stereovision indicators; it makes screening procedures more comfortable and increases the effectiveness of timely diagnosis of binocular vision disorders. Screening examination of stereovision is promising, as it will significantly improve the quality of screening diagnostics of stereoscopic perception.
 Overall conclusions show that the Titmus test is reliable and valid, and can be used to improve the accuracy of measuring stereovision, make screening procedures more comfortable and enhance the effectiveness of timely diagnosis of binocular vision disorders. Screening examination of stereospecies is promising as it will significantly improve the quality of eye health monitoring.
 Prospects for further research imply the development of methods for correcting the most common functional disorders.

Modern approaches to visual rehabilitation of patients with neuromotor disorde

Background. Approximately 50 % of children with cerebral palsy have vision problems, manifested in strabismus, impaired eye mobility, refractive errors, nystagmus development and partial atrophy of the optic nerve.The aim: to present a clinical case of combined correction of myopia and divergent strabismus in a patient with cerebral palsy (CP).Materials and methods. A clinical case of combined correction of myopia and divergent strabismus in a patient with cerebral palsy is presented. General anesthesia was used to perform a two-stage treatment under one anesthesia: the first stage – laser myopia correction by femtosecond extraction of the lenticule through a small access (SMILE) to both eyes, the second stage was the strabismus correction by performing tenoscleroplasty of the external rectus muscle and resection of the internal rectus muscle of both eyes. The sequence of stages is due to the relative traumatism of strabismus surgery, in some cases, accompanied by a reaction from the bulbar conjunctiva and the cornea in the form of edema, which, during subsequent femtosecond vision correction, can affect the refractive result and worsen visual acuity in the postoperative period.Results. The performed treatment let significantly increase uncorrected visual acuity, achieve a correct and stable eye position, which became the basis for changing the vision nature from monocular to binocular.Conclusion. Thus, modern laser and surgical technologies in combination with an adequate anesthesia allow rehabilitating patients as much as possible in a short time, even with severe forms of cerebral palsy, and significantly improving the quality of life.

Motivational Currents of Indonesian Postgraduate Students Studying Abroad

Motivational currents, a relatively new concept in the field of language learning, has contributed to understanding how long-term motivational energy can be sustained among learners. Despite such critical contribution, little is known on how one of its core elements called vision, a vivid image of one’s future self, can be sustainable in such a long period. This has resulted in the difficulty for teachers to create motivational currents among their learners. This article aims at contributing to the understanding of the dynamic nature of vision in the phenomena of motivational currents. It reports on a Retrodictive Qualitative Modelling (RQM) study conducted using complex dynamic system’s frame. The data were gathered from Indonesian postgraduate students studying in a university in the United Kingdom using introspective, semi-structured interview and self-assessed motivational trajectory. They were then analyzed using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA). The findings show that the participants experienced motivational currents although their visions or images of their future selves were slightly changing during the period. The findings will then be discussed with regards to the nature of interconnectedness between the motivational currents system and the self-system. The article is ended by outlining some pedagogical implications as well as recommendations for future research.Keywords: Motivational currents; vision; complex dynamic system.

On the Spatiotemporal Nature of Vision, as Revealed by Covered Bridges and Puddles: A Dispatch from Vermont.

Retinal painting, anorthoscopic perception and amodal completion are terms to describe visual phenomena that highlight the spatiotemporal integrative mechanisms that underlie primate vision. Although commonly studied using simplified lab-friendly stimuli presented on a computer screen, this is a report of observations made in a novel real-world context that highlight the rich contributions the mechanisms underlying these phenomena make to naturalistic vision.

Комбинированное лечение тяжелой амблиопии, сочетанной с несодружественной эзотропией (клинический случай)

Purpose - to evaluate the effectiveness of a joint method for the treatment of severe amblyopia, combined with uncomfortable esotropia, including chemodenervation of the extraocular muscle and subsequent pleoptic treatment using the «Ambliokor» medical complex. Material and methods. The patient is 3 years old. Diagnosis: unfriendly non-paralytic esohypertropia with a prevalence of OD; amblyopia, severe OD, moderate OS, mixed astigmatism OU. The treatment was carried out in 2 stages. At the first stage in order to eliminate the dysbinocular factor of amblyopia, chemodenervation of the internal rectus muscle of the right eye with the preparation of botulinum toxin type A «Botox» was performed by the intraoperative technique. After 1 month, at the second stage, a complex pleoptic treatment was carried out. Results. After chemodenervation, 1 month later, orthotropy in the primary gaze position without glasses and with glasses was achieved. The vertical deviation significantly decreased to 5 degrees in the position of adduction of the eyeballs. The right lead was restored fully. The forced turn of the head was eliminated. After the third course of complex pleoptic treatment, visual acuity with correction was 0.7 on the right and 0.8 on the left. Restoration of central visual fixation in the right eye was noted. The simultaneous nature of vision was revealed. The deviation angle of the eyes in the primary gaze position without glasses and with glasses to the nose did not exceed +7 degrees according to Hirshberg. Hypertropia persisted in adduction up to 10 degrees according to Hirschberg (hyperfunction of the inferior oblique muscle) in both eyes. «V»-syndrome persisted. The patient is planned to surgically weaken the hyperfunction of the inferior oblique muscle of both eyes, followed by the continuation of a complex of pleopto-orthoptic treatment. Conclusion. The existing extensive base of various methods of influencing the functions of the amblyopic eye allows for successful treatment of even severe amblyopia. Key words: amblyopia, unfriendly esotropia, chemodenervation, pleoptic treatment.

Spectrality in Plutarch, Shakespeare, Freud and Derrida

Cassius’s exposition on the self-induced nature of visions, as presented in North’s Plutarch, is akin to Freud’s rational understanding of spectral visitations. Cassius’s consequent fall into superstitious thought is all the more notable. Shakespeare’s Brutus, in Julius Caesar, if not at the mercy of such mental swings as Cassius, is subject at one point in the play to a different type of indeterminacy, that regarding the nature of the future. On the day of the final battle he says: “O that a man might know/The end of this day’s business ere it come” (5.1.122–23). This “end”, however, is connected with the promised appearance of Caesar’s ghost. What does this future, containing both anticipated and unknown elements, mean to Brutus? Unlike the predictable future of everyday, this future (though involving the return of the ghost) cannot be prepared for, must remain unforeseen, as it depends on the fortunes of war. My article draws on Freud’s understanding of spectrality and Derrida’s linking of this to his sense of the unforeseen future, to examine Brutus’s relation to it, from the point of view of both classical antiquity’s daimonic lore and the dramatic sensibility of Shakespeare.

What Deafness Tells Us About the Nature of Vision

What Deafness Tells Us About the Nature of Vision

Amblyopia and associated problems

Both earlier and now amblyopia associated with strabismus, remains a significant problem in pediatric ophthalmology, as evidenced by the large number of works, dedicated to this question, and not very high efficiency of treatment of patients with this disease. In our view, the current definition of amblyopia is very vague, as not clearly indicate its origin and distinctive clinical features. Different views on the essence of amblyopia has caused the emergence of several different classifications. So, E.S. Avetisov (1968), for example, proposes to assess the severity of amblyopia according to the reduction of central vision, and E.E. Somov (1997) – saving the character of his vision. And it is, as you know, is an integral indicator of the functional status of the visual analyzer. This is a really important point, because, as a rule, an essential companion of amblyopia of any origin are violations detected in binocular vision. Thus, good results of held pleoptic, that physicians usually evaluate the treatment outcomes of children with strabismus, should not be considered as final. We evaluated the functional status of the organ of vision of 91 children with amblyopia, associated with strabismus. In addition to the standard for such cases methods, we also used others – new or in our modification: the determine the of the nature of vision with Bagolini glasses, indication of the nature of visual fixation, of critical flicker fusion frequency (CFFF), evaluation the nature of visual fixation, optic coherence tomography (OCT) of the macular zone of the retina. Identified in the visual status of examined children of this age specialties allowed to develop for those who have a central visual fixation, adequate therapeutic algorithms, presented below.

"With the eie of Faith": Aemilia Lanyer's Religious and Feminine Sight in Context

Against the background of the traditional scholarly portrayals of Aemilia Lanyer's Salve Deus Rex Judaeorum as the religious gesture of a woman writer in early 17th-century England, whether sincerely spiritual or socially motivated, this essay complicates the understanding of the poet's range of intentions and stock of concepts for the expression of her ideas. Lanyer's conceptions of sympathetic sight and communion-based vision are presented as a probable poetic interaction with contemporary male-centered discourses of objectivity. In the context of early 17th-century philosophical disputes over the nature of vision and optics—with the publication of Johannes Kepler's Ad Vitellionem Paralipomena in 1604 and of Galileo Galilei's Sidereus Nuncius in 1610—Lanyer's poetry presents sight in religious terms as the glorious means through which a woman could aspire to gain an essential understanding of things and acquire a clear perception of Christic truth. While Kepler and Galileo promoted a model of vision which separated the physical perception of things from their subjective understanding, making the act of seeing imprecise at best and deformed at worst, impersonal and absolutely unrelated to the observer's consciousness, Lanyer's religious poetry presents sight as the means for the reader to internalize the perceived and attain a state of Eucharistic communion with it. While vision was becoming the passive and impersonal reception of light rays, and the mind's conceits of things were believed to be the result of a deception of the sense of vision, Lanyer wrote and published her poetry as a moment of Eucharistic perception: the perception of Christ's "perfect picture," hidden behind the aenigmata of her poetry, was attainable, for Lanyer, solely through the "eie of Faith."

Ways of (Virtual) Seeing: Applying a Bergerian Lens in a Multi-User Virtual Environment (MUVE)

Ways of (Virtual) Seeing: Applying a Bergerian Lens in a Multi-User Virtual Environment (MUVE)

Speculations on Spectacles: Jane Austen’s Eyeglasses, Mrs. Bates’s Spectacles, and John Saunders in Emma

Speculations on Spectacles: Jane Austen’s Eyeglasses, Mrs. Bates’s Spectacles, and John Saunders in <i>Emma</i>

Physiological response of locusts to eye stimulation by spectral illumination for phototactic pest control

To provide theoretical support for study of locust phototactic vision nature, the locust phototactic physiology and visual spectrum effects were investigated by stimulating the visual system using light from an AvaSpec fiber-optic spectrometer and Flir thermal imaging system. When light stimulated the locust visual system, the biological photoelectric transformation effect of the visual system caused by photon energy, presented with the higher physiological temperature on the forehead, as tested by the Flir thermal system. After stimulation with light, the different absorption degrees of the vision system on the spectral photons, as tested by the AvaSpec spectrometer, showed that the phototactic response to light had the simultaneous requirements of lighting intensity and time. The absorbing differences of spectral photons by the vision system demonstrated the absorption selectivity under light stimulation, as exhibited by the sensitive absorption of spectral energy at 430 nm, 545 nm and 615 nm. Moreover, the higher forehead temperature increment indicated and induced the stronger physiology activity which was the reason that causing the good phototactic response degree of locusts with 30 min light stimulation, and the adaption time was about 60 min. Therefore, only when the visual reaction effect was stimulated to absorb sensitive spectral energy and generate the physiological exciting response could cause the phototactic behavior. Keywords: Phototactic pest control, physiological response, Locusta migratoria, spectral illumination, phototactic vision, spectrum absorption, light simulation DOI: 10.3965/j.ijabe.20160902.1249 Citation: Liu Q H, Zhou Q. Physiological response of locusts to eye stimulation by spectral illumination for phototactic pest control. Int J Agric & Biol Eng, 2016; 9(2): 186－194.

A Breath of Fresh Air: Absence and the Structure of Olfactory Perception

AbstractThe question of whether we can perceive absences, in addition to ‘positives’, has received recent attention in the literature on the nature of vision and audition. The aim is to demonstrate that there can be objectless forms of perceptual consciousness; specifically, to show that such episodes can be distinguished from those in which there is merely no perception at all. The current article explores this question for the domain of olfaction, and argues that there can be experiences of the absence of odours, in addition to positive smell perception. Doing so sheds light upon the structure and spatial content of olfaction.

The Founding of the International Neuro-Ophthalmology Society

The Founding of the International Neuro-Ophthalmology Society

“Literally or figuratively?”: Embodied Perception and Figurative Prospect in Mansfield Park

When the mischievous Henry Crawford teases Maria Bertram about her “prospects” as they stand looking over the grounds of Sotherton, the estate of her betrothed, James Rushworth, she responds with a question: “Do you mean literally or figuratively?” (78). Beyond participating in the novel's contrast between the principled literalism of Fanny Price and the anarchic figurativeness of the Crawfords, Maria's question suggests that the prospect itself is a privileged site of intersection between material givenness and the figural power of the eye. Erasmus Darwin's account of the figurative nature of vision in Zoonomia (1794–1796), where the eye serves as his first and prime example of the mobile nature of both perceptual organs and their percepts, underwrites Austen's own optical experiments in representing this estate prospect, as do current cognitive accounts (Mark Johnson's, for instance) of the embodied qualities of perceptual situations. In addition, then, to the sexual and moral transgressions depicted in the scene, as Henry and Maria wriggle through the gate and head to the horizon, even the boundaries between literal and figurative are finally rendered porous in Austen's focus on an act of seeing.

Sin and Redemption in the Hours of François I (1539–40) by the Master of François de Rohan

Sin and Redemption in the <i>Hours of François I</i> (1539–40) by the Master of François de Rohan

Ophthalmology, Popular Physiology, and the Market Revolution in Vision, 1800–1850

It cannot have escaped the notice of every medical observer that an unusual prevalence of diseases of the eye marks the period in which we live. Indeed, they are so prevalent, that they may be considered one of its common and peculiar trials.Edward Reynolds, Hints to Students on the Use of the Eyes, 1835In America the purely practical side of science is cultivated admirably, and trouble is taken about the theoretical side immediately necessary to application.Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America, 1835The scopic regime of modernity may best be understood as a contested terrain, rather than a harmoniously integrated complex of visual theories and practices.Martin Jay, Scopic Regimes of Modernity, 19881The practice of ophthalmology experienced tremendous growth in the first half of the nineteenth century. At least five eye hospitals opened in American cities between 1820 and 1850, offering venues for the practice of a burgeoning field of surgeons increasingly devoted to ophthalmic pursuits that included medicinal and surgical treatment, experimentation, publication, and the education of others. Outside this increasingly codified arena of practice, opticians, reform physiologists, and others concerned with matters of vision published a spate of treatises explaining in lay terms the eye's basic mechanisms and capacities. These works also instructed readers, already well versed in homespun methods of eye care, in diagnosing a wide range of ocular maladies and in caring for their eyes in order to maintain properly functioning sight, which had become crucial for navigating a cultural terrain significantly altered by market revolution.Amid vast technological, economic, and social change, new trades sprang up around the exchange of printed information - typesetters and printers, newspaper editors and journalists, clerks and copyists, to name but a few. But as this expanded culture of print proliferated, new perceptual problems loomed. As a result of the profusion of texts - printed ledgers and billheads, cheap newspapers and broadsides - and the dense visual nature of their myriad forms, antebellum culture registered the early stages of overstimulation, a phenomenon typically associated with the urban culture of the later nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. In response to this wave of new media, the viewing practices they formed, and the peculiar conditions of seeing in densely populated urban environments, ophthalmologists, opticians, reform physiologists, and their publics voiced a range of concerns regarding the toll these phenomena and practices were taking on human vision. Taken together, these constituents established standards and practices concerning the properties and maintenance of the eyes that delineated ways of seeing particular to this time and place. They suggested ways to defend the eyes against disease and debilitation and posited a model of vision that coalesced around the needs of production and consumption in the antebellum decades.The second half of the nineteenth century has been hailed as ophthalmology's golden age, initiated by Herman von Helmholtz's introduction of the ophthalmoscope and marked by increasing specialization, clinical sophistication, and institutional codification. The development of ophthalmology and the dissemination of ophthalmic principles in the first half of the century, however, situated them as integral segments of the social, cultural, and economic transformations that historians have associated with the market revolution. Ophthalmology's professional development in the early republic, set in relation to the growth and spread of reform physiology and other popular measures for maintaining properly functioning vision, illuminates the formation of ideas about the nature of vision and the changing status of observing subjects in ways that shed light on the role of this noblest of senses amid the new chaos of market life. …