Priority Map Research Articles

Guided Search 6.0: An updated model of visual search.

This paper describes Guided Search 6.0 (GS6), a revised model of visual search. When we encounter a scene, we can see something everywhere. However, we cannot recognize more than a few items at a time. Attention is used to select items so that their features can be "bound" into recognizable objects. Attention is "guided" so that items can be processed in an intelligent order. In GS6, this guidance comes from five sources of preattentive information: (1) top-down and (2) bottom-up feature guidance, (3) prior history (e.g., priming), (4) reward, and (5) scene syntax and semantics. These sources are combined into a spatial "priority map," a dynamic attentional landscape that evolves over the course of search. Selective attention is guided to the most active location in the priority map approximately 20 times per second. Guidance will not be uniform across the visual field. It will favor items near the point of fixation. Three types of functional visual field (FVFs) describe the nature of these foveal biases. There is a resolution FVF, an FVF governing exploratory eye movements, and an FVF governing covert deployments of attention. To be identified as targets or rejected as distractors, items must be compared to target templates held in memory. The binding and recognition of an attended object is modeled as a diffusion process taking > 150 ms/item. Since selection occurs more frequently than that, it follows that multiple items are undergoing recognition at the same time, though asynchronously, making GS6 a hybrid of serial and parallel processes. In GS6, if a target is not found, search terminates when an accumulating quitting signal reaches a threshold. Setting of that threshold is adaptive, allowing feedback about performance to shape subsequent searches. Simulation shows that the combination of asynchronous diffusion and a quitting signal can produce the basic patterns of response time and error data from a range of search experiments.

The Contribution of Village Fund Management for Creating More Prosperous Society: an Empirical Study at Central Java

The purposes of this research are first to explain the readiness of villages in managing the village fund. Second, to generate a mapping of priorities for the use of village fund. Third, to analyze the implementations of financial management of the village fund. This research uses a case study. The main data sources of this research are the village chiefs, village secretaries, village treasurers, and society in Central Java. The results show the villages are ready to manage the village fund originating from the national budget. The village fund is used to finance physical and non-physical development and empower the society. The implementation of the use of the village fund have been by certain procedures and can be justified so that transparency and accountability can be realized well. The business activities of Village-Owned Enterprises originating from the village fund have proven to be able to move the economy of the village community forward

Seismic risk priorities of site and mid-rise RC buildings in Turkey

Especially, the large-scale loss of life and property caused by the significant earthquakes in recent years has brought the importance of research and measures to be taken on this issue. Determining and analysing the ever-increasing building stock of the cities and detecting and managing all information related to buildings are important in terms of spatial planning and urban transformation. This study aims to determine tectonic characteristics calculating a and b values of Gutenberg- Richter magnitude-frequency relation which forms the basis of earthquake statistics for all cities in Turkey and the reinforced-concrete buildings which are primarily risky in terms of urban transformation. For this purpose, a total of 1620, 5-storey buildings from all provinces of Turkey were assessed. Twenty reinforced concrete buildings from each province were taken into consideration which has 5-stories. The first stage evaluation method specified in the principles regarding the identification of risky buildings issued in 2013 by the Republic of Turkey, Ministry of Environment and Urbanization was used in this study. The performance scores for 1620 buildings were calculated by using this method. A risk priority map was created for the provinces, taking into account for these buildings. The study aims to determine risk priorities of site and mid-rise reinforced-concrete buildings among the cities. The results obtained were interpreted and recommendations were made.

Distractor suppression leads to reduced flanker interference

Recent studies using the additional singleton paradigm have shown that regularities in distractor locations can cause biases in the spatial priority map, such that attentional capture by salient singletons is reduced for locations that are likely to contain distractors. It has been suggested that this type of suppression is proactive (i.e., occurring before display onset). The current study replicated the original findings using an online version of the task. To further assess the suppression of high-probability locations, we employed a congruence manipulation similar to the traditional flanker effect, where distractors could be either congruent or incongruent with the response to the target. Experiment 1 shows that through statistical learning distractor suppression reduces the interference from incongruent distractors, as participants made less errors in high-probability versus low-probability conditions. In Experiment 2, participants were forced to search for a specific target feature (the so-called feature-search mode), which is assumed to allow participants to ignore distractors in a top-down manner. Yet even when this “top-down” search mode was employed, there was still a congruence effect when the distractor singleton was presented at the low-probability but not at the high-probability location. The absence, but not reversal, of a congruence effect at the high-probability location also further indicates that this distractor suppression mechanism is proactive. The results indicate that regardless of the search mode used, there is suppression of the high-probability location indicating that this location competes less for attention within the spatial priority map than all other locations.

Performance on a visual search task using random dot motion stimuli

The priority map hypothesis posits that visual attention is allocated according to the priority of objects in the visual scene. We and others have suggested that activity in priority maps during visual search might explain behavior based on the accumulation of evidence at each stimulus location (Purcell et al, 2012; Arcizet et al, 2018; Servant et al, 2019), however these studies have utilized simple stimuli that require little temporal integration of information. In this study, we use random dot stimuli in visual search to quantify how the accumulation of evidence changes under distinctive conditions within visual search. Two adult animals were trained on a visual search task in which 1, 2 or 4 random moving dot stimuli were presented. One subject indicated the presence of a target (a stimulus with rightwards motion) by making a saccade to the target. The other subject indicated the presence of a target by releasing one of two bars. The number of stimuli and the coherence of the stimuli were changed on each trial, such that all stimuli had the same coherence. Targets were present on 50% of trials for set size 1, 66% of trials for set size 2, 80% of trials for set size 4 in the saccade task and 66% of trials for set size 4 in the bar release task. In a subset of trials with a set size of 4, we also had a spatial cue condition and a feature-based cue condition. We found a decrease in performance, hit rate, and correct rejections for the greater set sizes. In the spatial cue and feature-based cue conditions, we found an increase in hit rates and decrease in reaction times. These behavioral data show that our task should allow us to measure the neural accumulation of evidence in a visual search task.

Multi-criteria photovoltaic potential assessment using fuzzy logic in decision-making: A case study of Iran

The potential assessment studies provide a comprehensive overview and result in a better organization of investment resources. However, the analysis showed that studying technical conditions alone can be misleading. Therefore, to enhance the accuracy of the potential analysis, social and eco-environmental indicators should also be considered. The present work provides an innovative multi-criteria photovoltaic potential assessment study using fuzzy logic in decision making. Regarding the favorable conditions and lack of through studies, Iran was considered as a case study to apply the proposed method. Fourteen indicators, under three main categories of social, technical, and eco-environmental, were defined as the effective criteria. The effectiveness of each indicator was also defined using related literature and interviews with local experts. Using fuzzy logic in decision making, all the provinces within the country were scored and ranked. Moreover, the priority maps of Iran provinces considering social, technical, and eco-environmental aspects, as well as the final standing of them, were provided. The results indicated that equal photovoltaic development supportive policies throughout the country lessen their effectiveness. Therefore, the energy strategies should be codified, considering local circumstances to organized the investment resources, which then leads to achieving greater legislation efficiencies and faster development in a country.

Human electrophysiology reveals delayed but enhanced selection in inhibition of return

Visual environment tends to be stable over the short run. An immediately visited location often doesn't provide new information and can be safely inhibited, as exemplified by inhibition of return (IOR)—attention takes longer to return to a previously cued location. Attention selection at this inhibited location has been widely characterized as inferior, in which the target at the cued location has diminished salience, with lower rate of accumulation in the priority map for attention selection. We demonstrate here that an electrophysiology index of visual selection—the N2pc component—is delayed but enhanced at the cued than uncued location, and this enhancement in the N2pc amplitude predicts reduction in the behavioral IOR effect. By isolating a pure target N2pc, these results reveal an active attention enhancement mechanism that facilitates adaptive allocation of attention when a target appears at a previously cued location, potentially acting as a compensation mechanism for inhibition.

Penerapan Importance Performance Analysis (IPA) Untuk Mengukur Kualitas Indeks Kepuasan Masyarakat (IKM) Layanan Balai Besar Inseminasi Buatan Singosari-Malang

This study aims to (1) know and analyze the quality and service satisfaction on Artificial Insemination (AIC) Singosari based application Importance Performance Analysis (IPA), (2) to determine the quality of people's satisfaction on service Center for Artificial insemination (AIC) Singosari by Community Satisfaction Index (HPI). The study used a descriptive quantitative survey methods. The population is at BBIB Singosari service users. Acidental samples using sampling techniques with the number of respondents 150 people. Mechanical data using questionnaires and interviews. The analysis is IKM, Gap Analysis and IPA. The results showed: (1) Elements of SME value interests quality levels; A conversion 3,946 SMEs; 98.65, very high SME category means satisfactory service. The level of quality performance IKM value; 4.256 conversions; 106.4, category Very important, so the intervals above 100.00 on a performance level of "A" / Very Good. (2) The results of the study of Interest and Performance with priority mapping IPA there are aspects that need to be improved to make it better. That is; realiability, performance conformity -1.1, -0.1 tangibles, empathy suitability -0.4 performance. To obtain follow-priority repairs by BBIB Singosari.

Adult learning and education in Spain and Portugal: an interpretative study of doctoral theses (2006-2018)

ABSTRACT This article presents a cartography of the field of research in adult learning and education (ALE) via a comparative study of academic production at doctoral level in Spain and Portugal based on a systematic documentary analysis of the summaries of doctoral theses concluded between 2006 and 2018. The aim is to advance the state of the art of research on ALE in recent doctoral theses in both Countries and highlight trends of contemporary knowledge construction in the field of continuing education of adults. Two analytical strategies are applied: i) a characterisation of the doctoral theses’ abstracts by a constructed grid with general and specific categories; and ii) a quantitative strategy of identifying frequencies in the grid for 18 keywords, 6 frameworks and paradigms and 12 associated to concepts. The mapping of priorities and absences in doctoral research at Higher Education Institutions (HEI) demonstrate that in Spain, there is a tendency to present the role of ALE closely related to assisting individuals and groups to adapt to the educational system, to society and to labour demands. In Portugal an unresolved tension between the adaptation of adults to society through ALE and the conscientization of adults by ALE to transform society remains.

Independent effects of statistical learning and top-down attention

It is well known that spatial attention can be directed in a top-down way to task-relevant locations in space. In addition, through visual statistical learning (VSL), attention can be biased towards relevant (target) locations and away from irrelevant (distractor) locations. The present study investigates the interaction between the explicit task-relevant, top-down attention and the lingering attentional biases due to VSL. We wanted to determine the contribution of each of these two processes to attentional selection. In the current study, participants performed a search task while keeping a location in spatial working memory. In Experiment 1, the target appeared more often in one location, and appeared less often in other location. In Experiment 2, a color singleton distractor was presented more often in location than in all other locations. The results show that when the search target matched the location that was kept in working memory, participants were much faster at responding to the search target than when it did not match, signifying top-down attentional selection. Independent of this top-down effect, we found a clear effect of VSL as responses were even faster when target (Experiment 1) or the distractor (Experiment 2) was presented at a more likely location in visual field. We conclude that attentional selection is driven by implicit biases due to statistical learning and by explicit top-down processing, each process individually and independently modulating the neural activity within the spatial priority map.

Here's to sound action on global hearing health through public health approaches

PurposeA global pandemic, non-occupational noise-induced hearing loss (NIHL) is a completely preventable public health problem, which receives limited air time. This study has dual purposes: to contribute to scholarly literature that puts non-occupational NIHL on the global priority map and to effect change in the City of Vancouver's policies toward noise.Design/methodology/approachExperts in public health and hearing health were contacted in addition to a scoping literature search on PubMed. Information pertaining to both developed and developing countries was obtained, and comparison was made to Canada where possible. The authors met with elected officials at the City of Vancouver to inform them of the win–win aspects of policies that promoted better hearing.FindingsNon-occupational NIHL is an underappreciated issue in Canada and many other countries, as seen by the lack of epidemiological data and public health initiatives. Other countries, such as Australia, have more robust research and public health programs, but most of the world lags behind. Better hearing health is possible through targeted campaigns addressing root causes of non-occupational, recreational noise – positive associations with loud noise. By redefining social norms so that soft to moderate sounds are associated with positive values and loud sounds are negatively attributed, the societies will prevent leisure NIHL. The authors recommend widespread national all-age campaigns that benefit from successful public health campaigns of the past, such as smoking cessation, safety belts and others. Soft Sounds are Healthy (SSH) is a suggested name for a campaign that would take many years, ample resources and sophisticated understanding of behavior change to be effective.Research limitations/implicationsA gap exists in the collection of non-occupational NIHL data. Creating indicators and regularly collecting data is a high priority for most nations. Beyond data collection, prevention of non-occupational NIHL ought to be a high priority. Studies in each region would propel understanding, partly to discern the cultural factors that would predispose the general population to change favorable attitudes toward loud sounds to associations of moderate sounds with positivity. Evaluations of these campaigns would then follow.Practical implicationsEveryday life for many people around the world, particularly in cities, is loud. Traffic, construction, loudspeakers, music and other loud sounds abound. Many people have adapted to these loud soundscapes, and others suffer from the lack of peace and quiet. Changing cultural attitudes toward loud sound will improve human and animal health, lessen the burden on healthcare systems and positively impact the economy.Social implicationsIndustries that create loud technologies and machinery ought to be required to find ways to soften noise. Regulatory mechanisms that are enforced by law and fines ought to be in place. When governments take up the banner of hearing health, they will help to set a new tone toward loud sounds as undesirable, and this will partially address the root causes of the problem of non-occupational NIHL.Originality/valueVery little public health literature addresses NIHL. It is a relatively ignored health problem. This project aims to spurn public health campaigns, offering our own infographic with a possible title of Soft Sounds are Healthy (SSH) or Soft Sounds are Sexy (SSS). The study also aimed to influence city officials in the authors’ home, Vancouver, and they were able to do this.

Statistical regularities across trials bias attentional selection.

Previous studies have shown that attentional selection can be biased toward locations that are likely to contain a target and away from locations that are likely to contain a distractor. It is assumed that through statistical learning, participants are able to extract the regularities in the display, which in turn biases attentional selection. The present study employed the additional singleton task to examine the ability of participants to extract regularities that occurred across trials. In four experiments, we found that participants were capable of picking up statistical regularities concerning target positions across trials both in the absence and presence of distracting information. It is concluded that through statistical learning, participants are able to extract intertrial statistical associations regarding subsequent target location, which in turn biases attentional selection. We argue here that the weights within the spatial priority map can be dynamically adapted from trial to trial such that the selection of a target at a particular location increases the weights of the upcoming target location within the spatial priority map, giving rise to a more efficient target selection. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

Putting the Nonsocial Into Social Neuroscience: A Role for Domain-General Priority Maps During Social Interactions

Whether on a first date or during a team briefing at work, people’s daily lives are inundated with social information, and in recent years, researchers have begun studying the neural mechanisms that support social-information processing. We argue that the focus of social neuroscience research to date has been skewed toward specialized processes at the expense of general processing mechanisms with a consequence that unrealistic expectations have been set for what specialized processes alone can achieve. We propose that for social neuroscience to develop into a more mature research program, it needs to embrace hybrid models that integrate specialized person representations with domain-general solutions, such as prioritization and selection, which operate across all classes of information (both social and nonsocial). To illustrate our central arguments, we first describe and then evaluate a hybrid model of information processing during social interactions that (a) generates novel and falsifiable predictions compared with existing models; (b) is predicated on a wealth of neurobiological evidence spanning many decades, methods, and species; (c) requires a superior standard of evidence to substantiate domain-specific mechanisms of social behavior; and (d) transforms expectations of what types of neural mechanisms may contribute to social-information processing in both typical and atypical populations.

Proactively location-based suppression elicited by statistical learning.

Recently, Wang and Theeuwes used the additional singleton task and showed that attentional capture was reduced for the location that was likely to contain a distractor [1]. It is argued that due to statistical learning, the location that was likely to contain a distractor was suppressed relative to all other locations. The current study replicated these findings and by adding a search-probe condition, we were able to determine the initial distribution of attentional resources across the visual field. Consistent with a space-based resource allocation ("biased competition") model, it was shown that the representation of a probe presented at the location that was likely to contain a distractor was suppressed relative to other locations. Critically, the suppression of this location resulted in more attention being allocated to the target location relative to a condition in which the distractor was not suppressed. This suggests that less capture by the distractor results in more attention being allocated to the target. The results are consistent with the view that the location that is likely to contain a distractor is suppressed before display onset, modulating the first feed-forward sweep of information input into the spatial priority map.

The architecture of working memory: Features from multiple remembered objects produce parallel, coactive guidance of attention in visual search.

Theories of working memory (WM) differ in their claims about the number of items that can be maintained in a state that directly interacts with other, ongoing cognitive operations (termed the focus of attention). A similar debate has arisen in the literature on visual working memory (VWM), focused on the number of items that can simultaneously interact with attentional priority. In 3 experiments, we used a redundancy-gain paradigm to provide a comprehensive test of the latter question. Participants searched for 2 cued features (e.g., a color and a shape) within a search array. The cued feature values changed on a trial-by-trial basis, requiring VWM. The target (when present) could match 1 of the cued features (single-target trials) or both cued features (redundant-target trials). We tested whether response time distributions contained a substantial proportion of trials with redundant-target responses that were faster than predicted by 2 independent guidance processes operating in parallel (i.e., violations of the race-model inequality). Violations are consistent with a coactive architecture in which both cued values guide attention in parallel and sum on the priority map. Robust violations were observed in all cases predicted by the hypothesis that multiple items in VWM can guide attention simultaneously, and these results were inconsistent with the hypothesis that guidance is limited to a single item simultaneously. When considered in the larger context of the literature on VWM and attention, the present results are consistent with a model of WM architecture in which the focus of attention can maintain multiple, independent representations. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

Implicit attentional biases in a changing environment

The current study investigates whether statistical regularities that change over time affect attentional selection. While searching for a target singleton, the distractor singleton was presented much more often in one location than in all other locations. Crucially, the location that had a distractor much more often, changed to new locations during the course of the experiment. Here we established exactly how the bias of attention followed these changes in the display. Unlike previous studies, we show that selection was remarkably flexible as the attentional bias followed the changes in the environment incorporating contributions of previous contingencies to the current attentional bias. Importantly, the initial learning experience had a lingering and enduring effect on subsequent attentional biases. We argue that the weights within the spatial priority map of selection are adjusted to changing environments, even though observers are unaware of these changes in the environment.

A spatial bias toward highly rewarded locations is associated with awareness.

Mounting evidence suggests that monetary reward induces an incidentally learned selection bias toward highly rewarded features. It remains controversial, however, whether learning of reward regularities has similar effects on spatial attention. Here we ask whether spatial biases toward highly rewarded locations are learned implicitly, or are instead associated with explicit knowledge of reward structure. Participants completed a hybrid search and choice task involving multiple targets among multiple distractors. Targets garnered varying magnitudes of reward, and participants were instructed to search for targets and guess and click on the 1 that they thought would yield the highest reward. Unbeknownst to participants, 1 side of the display offered higher reward than the other. We measured the spatial bias for targets on the high-reward side of the screen and probed explicit awareness via a multiquestion interview. Participants who were aware of the reward structure (N = 48) showed a selection bias for targets appearing on the high-reward side of the screen. Contrary to previous findings, unaware participants (N = 24) showed only a significant central bias, despite spending just as much time on the task. The strong association between explicit awareness and reward-driven spatial attention in this paradigm suggests that instead of directly affecting the attentional priority map, probabilistic spatial reward learning more frequently affects attention indirectly by modulating task goals. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

«Housing problem» on virgin soil: touches of everyday life

The purpose of the article is to analyze the problem of housing construction for working state farms during the development of virgin and fallow lands (50-ies 60-ies of the XX century) using virgin state farms of the Orenburg (Chkalovsk) region as an example. To achieve this goal, the author posed the following tasks were set: to investigate the volume and quality of housing under construction on the virgin lands, to assess its sanitary condition, to characterize the internal situation of housing as an element of everyday life of primary lands; analyze the measures taken by the state. The relevance of the chosen topic is determined by the low knowledge of this problem in modern historiography and the lack of an integrated approach to it. A wide range of archival materials of a regional and national level, periodicals, and sources of personal origin are used as a research source. The presented material identifies the causes of the acute shortage of housing in the virgin lands; the analysis of compliance with norms and indicators of per capita demand and the actual provision of housing for each newcomer in the amount of square meters of living space, as well as the volume of housing development in the dynamics of the first decade of development of virgin lands. Based on the analysis of the statements of young people virgin lands, a map of priorities is compiled, prompting them to decide to move and develop these lands; issues of technical and sanitary condition of housing for new settlers are considered; a characteristic of the housing situation on the virgin lands is given, the possibilities of primary virgin lands and landmarks for the interior decoration of houses, apartments and rooms, as well as their arrangement, are determined; the main ways to solve the analyzed problem in virgin state farms are identified, such as lending for individual construction, provision of prefabricated switchboard houses, housing construction by unqualified primary lands. Conclusions are drawn about the lack of housing in the virgin lands, both quantitatively and qualitatively; about unsanitary condition in the first few years of development of virgin lands; lack of furniture and household items; a direct relationship between the quality of housing, its readiness for the arrival of new settlers and the turnover of personnel in virgin state farms. Most of the measures taken yielded results only in the mid-1960-ies.

Specificity and persistence of statistical learning in distractor suppression.

Statistical regularities in distractor location trigger suppression of high-probability distractor locations during visual search. The degree to which such suppression reflects generalizable, persistent changes in a spatial priority map has not been examined. We demonstrate that suppression of high-probability distractor locations persists after location probabilities are equalized and likely reflects a genuine reshaping of the priority map rather than more transient effects of selection history. Statistically learned suppression generalizes across contexts within a task during learning but does not generalize between task paradigms using unrelated stimuli in identical spatial locations. These findings suggest that stimulus features do play a role in learned spatial suppression, potentially gating the weights applied to a spatial priority map. However, the binding of location to context during learning is not automatic, in contrast to the previously reported interaction of location-based statistical learning and stimulus features. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

Barriers and opportunities for participatory environmental upgrading: Case study of Havelock informal settlement, Durban

Urbanisation is one of the key challenges of this decade with 68% of the global population likely to be living in urban areas by 2050. This challenge is particularly acute in sub-Saharan Africa where future towns and cities will see an influx of residents living in spontaneous human settlements. As cities struggle to keep up with the speed of growth and spread of informal settlements, associated environmental challenges such as air and water pollution and waste management have been significantly increasing posing a health risk in high density settings. Using the case of Havelock informal settlement in Durban, the authors identified key challenges associated with poor environmental conditions, lack of basic infrastructure, and the implications for settlement upgrading. The study uses mixed methods combining transect walks, priority mapping, seasonal calendar, focus group discussions and household interviews to explore the households' most challenging environmental issues faced daily by informal dwellers. This paper seeks to make the case for targeted participatory environmental infrastructure and management delivery in urban settlements in South Africa. The research also highlights the value of adopting a holistic approach to infrastructure provision to effectively enhance the living conditions of communities. Targeted participatory processes are vital to ensure that holistic infrastructure interventions are acceptable, appropriate and embedded in local communities to create sustainable habitats.