Non-visual Stimuli Research Articles

Landscape and the rural tourism experience: identifying key elements, addressing potential, and implications for the future

Rural tourism is an important development strategy for some rural areas. Landscape is central to the visitor's tourism experience. While the literature suggests that some rural landscape features are likely to attract visitors, research on the impact of landscape on the rural tourism experience is rather limited, and often confined to studies supported by visual stimuli (e.g. photos), ignoring the impact of the direct contact of visitors with the territory. This study overcomes some of these limitations by assessing visitors’ perceptions of the rural landscapes based on two villages in Portugal, while visitors were still in the villages. Vegetation type and colour, and built heritage, emerge as key experience elements for tourists, but they were followed by a complex group of largely non-visual stimuli, including sounds, smells, tastes, people contact, “nature” in its wider sense, and the past. The potential for sustainable tourism development based on this rich array of key elements is addressed, along with the need for action at all levels to bring together tourism and landscape management in an integrated way for marketing, product development and conservation purposes. Differences among groups of visitors are noted, suggesting that different groups of visitors require different approaches.

The versatility of SpAM: a fast, efficient, spatial method of data collection for multidimensional scaling.

Although traditional methods to collect similarity data (for multidimensional scaling [MDS]) are robust, they share a key shortcoming. Specifically, the possible pairwise comparisons in any set of objects grow rapidly as a function of set size. This leads to lengthy experimental protocols, or procedures that involve scaling stimulus subsets. We review existing methods of collecting similarity data, and critically examine the spatial arrangement method (SpAM) proposed by Goldstone (1994a), in which similarity ratings are obtained by presenting many stimuli at once. The participant moves stimuli around the computer screen, placing them at distances from one another that are proportional to subjective similarity. This provides a fast, efficient, and user-friendly method for obtaining MDS spaces. Participants gave similarity ratings to artificially constructed visual stimuli (comprising 2-3 perceptual dimensions) and nonvisual stimuli (animal names) with less-defined underlying dimensions. Ratings were obtained with 4 methods: pairwise comparisons, spatial arrangement, and 2 novel hybrid methods. We compared solutions from alternative methods to the pairwise method, finding that the SpAM produces high-quality MDS solutions. Monte Carlo simulations on degraded data suggest that the method is also robust to reductions in sample sizes and granularity. Moreover, coordinates derived from SpAM solutions accurately predicted discrimination among objects in same-different classification. We address the benefits of using a spatial medium to collect similarity measures.

Neural Pathways Conveying Novisual Information to the Visual Cortex

The visual cortex has been traditionally considered as a stimulus-driven, unimodal system with a hierarchical organization. However, recent animal and human studies have shown that the visual cortex responds to non-visual stimuli, especially in individuals with visual deprivation congenitally, indicating the supramodal nature of the functional representation in the visual cortex. To understand the neural substrates of the cross-modal processing of the non-visual signals in the visual cortex, we firstly showed the supramodal nature of the visual cortex. We then reviewed how the nonvisual signals reach the visual cortex. Moreover, we discussed if these non-visual pathways are reshaped by early visual deprivation. Finally, the open question about the nature (stimulus-driven or top-down) of non-visual signals is also discussed.

Overcoming boundaries towards EFLit education in the digital era: EFL undergraduates’ reading habits in retrospect (Madeira, 1998-2008)

1 IntroductionGiven the scope of the current volume of this journal, the starting point of this paper revolves around the following issues: Have computers redefined English literacy? To what extent has the digital era changed present-day Humanities undergraduates' reading preferences and habits in a Foreign Language (FL) context? Do FL undergraduates actually read texts in the digital medium, now that even more information on literary production disseminated and retrieved in the electronic format? What sort of strategies should be devised to improve learning and research environments among Humanities undergraduates at university level, now that the ever-developing technological era with distance learning, Internet, new anthologies and digitised archives has gradually classroom / lecture settings, patterns of teaching, contexts of interaction and literacy practices. new knowledge being taught, acknowledged Diana Laurillard (also drawing on Noel Entwistle and Paul Ramsden) back in 1997 (p. 105), depends greatly on students' individual experiences for they necessarily affect how they deal with academic knowledge. Despite today's adolescents being rightly described by Jacques Barzun (1991: 46) as uncommonly intelligent and vigorous... worldly beyond their years, thanks perhaps to television, and I would add computer use, educational policies have reinforced paradoxical strands, for the last two decades: on the one hand a stress on innovation, on the other, mechanical instruction and assessment of knowledge about facts (Naciscione, 2001). Many researchers claim that this supposedly to be simply leading to immediate achievement, social success and accomplishment.2 Relevance and review of the literatureConcerning the review of literature section, a liminal discussion of new forms of virtual identities might bear some support, for example, in Bearne and Kress's grounding, right at the turn of the century (2001: 89)1, of a new relationship between the word, the image and non-visual stimuli as complementary rather than simply overlapping interpretations, which provide new ways of thinking beyond the theoretical and historical perspectives on the text. Both Internet Culture (Porter, 1996) and The Digital Classroom (Gordon, 2000) extend the realm of discussion into the pedagogical context by means of a balanced theoretical and practical analysis in as much as, in the arts, this complementary differentiation, to fall upon Suhor's claim2 (1984: 23),has diminished in favor of holistic, multimedia expression. Television and film, of course, are inherently multimedia; but the traditional arts have moved toward combinations of genre and the blurring of distinctions between the work, the performer, and the audience. Participatory drama, concrete poetry, aleatory music, and mobile sculptures are instances of totalistic approaches to artistic production and response.In fact, the industrial, scientific and technological developments seem to have been the cause for continuous change in the educational sphere, regarded by some as progress whilst by fierce opponents as a drawback, entailing a first focus on knowledge about facts and the learning of the basic R's (that reading, writing and arithmetic) so as to meet the needs of an increasingly less literate working class. For the common citizen the idea of literacy has been connected with schooling, and the literary representation has long raised the issue. Simultaneously, moves towards interdisciplinary and cross-disciplinary clines have been suggested because English studies should be reshaped not only by the literary and cultural developments but also by English as the international language-code of business and technological advancement (Weiss, 1999: 54). foremost challenge facing English studies today, adds Weiss, is the reconception of its identity within the university in such a way that it not only responds to economic globalization and technological change but also provides a new vision of the importance of interpretive, language and communication skills in the 21st century. …

Blind Photographers: A Quest into the Spatial Experiences of Blind Children

In the context of inclusive design, this paper reports on a photo-ethnographic study that is part of a wider inquiry into the haptic qualities of the built environment. To stimulate conversation with children born blind about their haptic spatial experiences, we invited them to take pictures of their daily living environment—a school for children with visual or hearing impairments or autism. The pictures taken by the blind children offer a unique perspective on how they experience the school environment. Non-visual triggers for taking pictures were both tangible (tactile, olfactory, auditory) and intangible (memories and knowledge) in nature. Besides offering insights into non-visual stimuli in the school, this study suggests that photo-ethnography may be a useful approach for communicating about sensory experience with children born blind and for overcoming a lack of vocabulary to articulate these experiences. Moreover, using the camera provoked sensory experiences and memories in general and revealed details on haptic perception in particular.

Blind Photographers: A Quest into the Spatial Experiences of Blind Children

In the context of inclusive design, this paper reports on a photo-ethnographic study that is part of a wider inquiry into the haptic qualities of the built environment. To stimulate conversation with children born blind about their haptic spatial experiences, we invited them to take pictures of their daily living environment—a school for children with visual or hearing impairments or autism. The pictures taken by the blind children offer a unique perspective on how they experience the school environment. Non-visual triggers for taking pictures were both tangible (tactile, olfactory, auditory) and intangible (memories and knowledge) in nature. Besides offering insights into non-visual stimuli in the school, this study suggests that photo-ethnography may be a useful approach for communicating about sensory experience with children born blind and for overcoming a lack of vocabulary to articulate these experiences. Moreover, using the camera provoked sensory experiences and memories in general and revealed details on haptic perception in particular.

Preserved Functional Specialization in Sensory Substitution of the Early Blind

It has long been established that the occipital cortex of early blind animals and humans is activated by nonvisual stimuli (Rauschecker 1995). Using functional magnetic resonance imaging, we have d...

Decoding the direction of auditory motion in blind humans

Accurate processing of nonvisual stimuli is fundamental to humans with visual impairments. In this population, moving sounds activate an occipito-temporal region thought to encompass the equivalent of monkey area MT+, but it remains unclear whether the signal carries information beyond the mere presence of motion. To address this important question, we tested whether the processing in this region retains functional properties that are critical for accurate motion processing and that are well established in the visual modality. Specifically, we focussed on the property of ‘directional selectivity’, because MT+ neurons in non-human primates fire preferentially to specific directions of visual motion. Recent neuroimaging studies have revealed similar properties in sighted humans by successfully decoding different directions of visual motion from fMRI activation patterns.Here we used fMRI and multivariate pattern classification to demonstrate that the direction in which a sound is moving can be reliably decoded from dorsal occipito-temporal activation in the blind. We also show that classification performance is at chance (i) in a control region in posterior parietal cortex and (ii) when motion information is removed and subjects only hear a sequence of static sounds presented at the same start and end positions. These findings reveal that information about the direction of auditory motion is present in dorsal occipito-temporal responses of blind humans. As such, this area, which appears consistent with the hMT+ complex in the sighted, provides crucial information for the generation of a veridical percept of moving non-visual stimuli.

Working memory for vibrotactile frequencies: Comparison of cortical activity in blind and sighted individuals

In blind, occipital cortex showed robust activation to nonvisual stimuli in many prior functional neuroimaging studies. The cognitive processes represented by these activations are not fully determined, although a verbal recognition memory role has been demonstrated. In congenitally blind and sighted (10 per group), we contrasted responses to a vibrotactile one-back frequency retention task with 5-s delays and a vibrotactile amplitude-change task; both tasks involved the same vibration parameters. The one-back paradigm required continuous updating for working memory (WM). Findings in both groups confirmed roles in WM for right hemisphere dorsolateral prefrontal (DLPFC) and dorsal/ventral attention components of posterior parietal cortex. Negative findings in bilateral ventrolateral prefrontal cortex suggested task performance without subvocalization. In bilateral occipital cortex, blind showed comparable positive responses to both tasks, whereas WM evoked large negative responses in sighted. Greater utilization of attention resources in blind were suggested as causing larger responses in dorsal and ventral attention systems, right DLPFC, and persistent responses across delays between trials in somatosensory and premotor cortex. In sighted, responses in somatosensory and premotor areas showed iterated peaks matched to stimulation trial intervals. The findings in occipital cortex of blind suggest that tactile activations do not represent cognitive operations for nonverbal WM task. However, these data suggest a role in sensory processing for tactile information in blind that parallels a similar contribution for visual stimuli in occipital cortex of sighted.

Imaging studies in congenital anophthalmia reveal preservation of brain architecture in ‘visual’ cortex

The functional specialization of the human brain means that many regions are dedicated to processing a single sensory modality. When a modality is absent, as in congenital total blindness, 'visual' regions can be reliably activated by non-visual stimuli. The connections underlying this functional adaptation, however, remain elusive. In this study, using structural and diffusion-weighted magnetic resonance imaging, we investigated the structural differences in the brains of six bilaterally anophthalmic subjects compared with sighted subjects. Surprisingly, the gross structural differences in the brains were small, even in the occipital lobe where only a small region of the primary visual cortex showed a bilateral reduction in grey matter volume in the anophthalmic subjects compared with controls. Regions of increased cortical thickness were apparent on the banks of the Calcarine sulcus, but not in the fundus. Subcortically, the white matter volume around the optic tract and internal capsule in anophthalmic subjects showed a large decrease, yet the optic radiation volume did not differ significantly. However, the white matter integrity, as measured with fractional anisotropy showed an extensive reduction throughout the brain in the anophthalmic subjects, with the greatest difference in the optic radiations. In apparent contradiction to the latter finding, the connectivity between the lateral geniculate nucleus and primary visual cortex measured with diffusion tractography did not differ between the two populations. However, these findings can be reconciled by a demonstration that at least some of the reduction in fractional anisotropy in the optic radiation is due to an increase in the strength of fibres crossing the radiations. In summary, the major changes in the 'visual' brain in anophthalmic subjects may be subcortical, although the evidence of decreased fractional anisotropy and increased crossing fibres could indicate considerable re-organization.

Preparatory Activity in Occipital Cortex in Early Blind Humans Predicts Auditory Perceptual Performance

Early onset blindness leads to a dramatic alteration in the way the world is perceived, a change that is detectable in the organization of the brain. Several studies have confirmed that blindness leads to functional alterations in occipital cortices that normally serve visual functions. These reorganized brain regions respond to a variety of tasks and stimuli, but their specific functions are unclear. In sighted individuals, several studies have reported preparatory activity in retinotopic areas, which enhances perceptual sensitivity. "Baseline shifts," changes in activity associated with a cue predicting an upcoming event, provides a marker for attentional modulation. Here we demonstrate that, in early blind subjects, medial occipital areas produced significant blood oxygenation level-dependent (BOLD) responses to a cue signaling an auditory discrimination trial but not to a cue indicating a no-trial period. Furthermore, the amplitude of the BOLD response in the anterior calcarine sulcus of early blind subjects correlated with their discrimination performance on the auditory backward masking task. Preparatory BOLD responses also were present in auditory cortices, although they were more robust in blind than sighted control subjects. The pattern of response in visual areas is similar to preparatory effects observed during visual selective attention in sighted subjects and consistent with the hypothesis that the mechanisms implicated in visual attention continue to modulate occipital cortex in the early blind. A possible source of this top-down modulation may be the frontoparietal circuits that retain their connectivity with the reorganized occipital cortex and as a result influence processing of nonvisual stimuli in the blind.

Development of place cells by a simple model in a closed loop context

Experiments on rats show that visual cues play an important role in the formation of place cells. Nevertheless, rats also rely on other allothetic non-visual stimuli such as auditory, olfactory and somatosensory stimuli. Most researchers have seen navigation in the dark as evidence for the importance of path integration as an additional input to place cells. Many place cell models have been developed by combining visual and self motion (path integration) information. However, Save et al. have shown that olfactory cues rather than self-motion information have been used to stabilize the place fields (PF) of rats in the dark [1]. Based on these findings we model place cells by combining visual and olfactory information in a feed-forward network. We also analyze the influence of the directionality of place cells on a goal navigation task.

Modeling spatial effects in visualtactile saccadic reaction time

Saccadic reaction time (SRT) to visual targets tends to be shorter when nonvisual stimuli are presented in close temporal or spatial proximity, even when subjects are instructed to ignore the accessory input. Here, we investigate visual-tactile interaction effects on SRT under varying spatial configurations. SRT to bimodal stimuli was reduced by up to 30 msec, in comparison with responses to unimodal visual targets. In contrast to previous findings, the amount of multisensory facilitation did not decrease with increases in the physical distance between the target and the nontarget but depended on (1) whether the target and the nontarget were presented in the same hemifield (ipsilateral) or in different hemifields (contralateral), (2) the eccentricity of the stimuli, and (3) the frequency of the vibrotactile nontarget. The time-window-of-integration (TWIN) model for SRT (Colonius & Diederich, 2004) is shown to yield an explicit characterization of the observed multisensory spatial interaction effects through the removal of the peripheral-processing effects of stimulus location and tactile frequency.

Back-to-front: Improved tactile discrimination performance in the space you cannot see

We investigated any differences in people's ability to reconstruct the appropriate spatiotemporal ordering of multiple tactile stimuli, when presented in frontal space (a region where visual inputs tend to dominate) versus in the space behind the back (a region of space that we rarely see) in professional piano players and in non-musicians. Even though tactile temporal order judgments were much better in the musicians overall, both groups showed a much reduced crossed-hands deficit when their hands were crossed behind their backs rather than at the front. These results suggest that because of differences in the availability of visual input, the spatiotemporal representation of non-visual stimuli in front versus rear space is different.

Effects of visual stimuli, substrate-borne vibrations and air current stimuli on escape reactions in insect prey of flush-pursuing birds and their implications for evolution of flush-pursuers

Insects use escape behaviors to avoid predators. Some insectivorous birds evolved a unique flush-pursue foraging technique that exploits their insect prey escape responses. Flush-pursers use visual stimulation from spreading of tails and wings and from pivoting body movements as well as plumage contrast to trigger escapes in prey. The escaping prey is subsequently pursued in aerial chases. By simulating approaches of one such flush-pursuer, the painted redstart (Myioborus pictus), to moths, flies, and homopteran insects we studied the effect of visual stimulation as well as possible effects of subtle air-currents from pivoting element of flush-displays and the effect of substrate borne vibrations that might be produced by moving bird. We confirm the importance of visual stimulation in triggering the prey escape behavior by flush-displaying birds. Effect of air currents was only important for relatively strong experimental air-puffs, which may approximate a situation of a bird displaying by moving its open tail and wings at a close distance to its prey. Substrate-borne vibrations positively contributed to the visually elicited escape reaction of moths. The results suggest that the visual predator-to-prey signal used by extant flush-pursuers for exploitative foraging could be aided in certain situations by substrate-borne vibrations or air currents produced by flush-displaying birds. Hypothetical role of non-visual stimuli in the initial evolution of flush-pursue strategy is discussed.

Specific activation of the V5 brain area by auditory motion processing: An fMRI study

Previous neuroimaging studies devoted to auditory motion processing have shown the involvement of a cerebral network encompassing the temporoparietal and premotor areas. Most of these studies were based on a comparison between moving stimuli and static stimuli placed at a single location. However, moving stimuli vary in spatial location, and therefore motion detection can include both spatial localisation and motion processing. In this study, we used fMRI to compare neural processing of moving sounds and static sounds in various spatial locations in blindfolded sighted subjects. The task consisted of simultaneously determining both the nature of a sound stimulus (pure tone or complex sound) and the presence or absence of its movement. When movement was present, subjects had to identify its direction. This comparison of how moving and static stimuli are processed showed the involvement of the parietal lobules, the dorsal and ventral premotor cortex and the planum temporale during auditory motion processing. It also showed the specific recruitment of V5, the visual motion area. These results suggest that the previously proposed network of auditory motion processing is distinct from the network of auditory localisation. In addition, they suggest that the occipital cortex can process non-visual stimuli and that V5 is not restricted to visual processing.

The face and communication

Although the basal ganglia are thought to be important in recognizing emotion, there is a contradictory evidence as to whether patients with Parkinson's disease (PD) have deficits in recognizing facial expressions. In addition, few studies have examined their ability to recognize emotion from nonvisual stimuli, such as voices. We examined the ability of PD patients and age-matched controls to recognize emotion in three different modalities: facial, prosodic, and written verbal stimuli. Compared to controls, PD patients showed deficits in recognizing fear and disgust in facial expressions. These impairments were not seen in their recognition of prosodic or written verbal stimuli. This modality-specific deficit suggests that the neural substrates for recognizing emotion from different modalities are not fully identical.

The dynamic effect of saccades in the visual cortex: evidence from fMRI, sTMS and EEG studies

While much has been learned about the role of frontal and parietal cortices in saccades and in visuospatial attention, the role of the visual cortex remains an enigma. Traditionally, the striate cortex was considered a way station to transmit static information about the features and retinotopical loci of elementary visual stimuli. Recent multielectrode studies in the monkey, however, established visual context dependent dynamic properties of the striate cortex, beyond retinotopy. Our studies evaluate eye movement related modulation of the visual cortex. We have studied the frontal, parietal and occipital cortex using functional MRI (fMRI) in normal observers. Our results show that in addition to the frontal cortex, the striate cortex and the precuneus are active in association with quick, darting eye movements called saccades (S) even in the dark without visual input. Single pulse Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (sTMS) reveals that the conscious perception of a visual cue is a prerequisite to execute a cued saccade, or antisaccade. Wavelet analysis of the perisaccadic EEG reveals a burst of high frequency components of the occipital cortex, both in light and in dark. Apparently, there is a non-visual stimulus dependent saccadic role of the striate cortex. Even though saccades are executed constantly by awake humans, we are not aware of a shifting visual scene by saccades. We propose that the visual maintenance of stability in association with saccades and blinks relies on dynamic modulation within the striate cortex.

Recognition Of Emotion From Facial, Prosodic And Written Verbal Stimuli In Parkinson'S Disease

Although the basal ganglia are thought to be important in recognizing emotion, there is contradictory evidence as to whether patients with Parkinson's disease (PD) have deficits in recognizing facial expressions. In addition, few studies have examined their ability to recognize emotion from non-visual stimuli, such as voices. We examined the ability of PD patients and age-matched controls to recognize emotion in three different modalities: facial, prosodic, and written verbal stimuli. Compared to controls, PD patients showed deficits in recognizing fear and disgust in facial expressions. These impairments were not seen in their recognition of prosodic or written verbal stimuli. This modality-specific deficit suggests that the neural substrates for recognizing emotion from different modalities are not fully identical.

Obstacle avoidance during human walking: learning rate and cross-modal transfer.

1. The aim of this study was to investigate the significance of specific afferent information during motor learning. Blindfolded subjects stepped over an obstacle on a treadmill while different stimuli (acoustic (ACU), somatosensory (SOM) and light flash (LED)) signalled the approaching obstacle. The effect of the above stimuli was then evaluated and compared to full vision (VIS) locomotion. In the non-visual conditions feedback information about the performance was provided by an acoustic signal. 2. Using each of the different stimuli for information the level of subject performance was assessed by noting foot clearance and analysing both leg muscle electromyographic activity and movement trajectories during three successive runs. Each of these runs consisted of 100 steps over the obstacle. 3. The best performance at the onset of the first run was achieved during the VIS condition. When the VIS condition (run 1 + 2) was followed by ACU or SOM information or when the ACU condition (run 1 + 2) was followed by LED, little cross-modal transfer (CMT) occurred, i.e. adaptation in run 3 started again at a low level of performance. In contrast, if adaptation started with ACU stimuli followed by SOM stimuli, almost full CMT occurred. The absolute level of performance achieved after the second or third runs was similar in the VIS and non-VIS conditions. 4. In conclusion, the course of motor learning depends on specific afferent information, and feedforward control has a special influence on the performance only at the onset of the experiment but not on the rate of learning. The fact that little CMT occurs from visual to non-visual stimuli and from ACU to LED suggests that visual afferent input is processed in a different way to non-visual stimuli.