Processing Of Visual-spatial Information Research Articles

Visual-spatial and visuomotor functioning in adults with neurofibromatosis type 1.

Neurofibromatosis type 1 (NF1) is a neurodevelopmental genetic disorder associated with visual-spatial and visuomotor deficits, which have not been studied well in adults with NF1. In 22 adults with NF1 and 31 controls, visuomotor functioning was assessed by measuring eye latency, hand latency and hand accuracy during visuomotor tasks. Visual-spatial functioning was assessed by measuring eye movement responses during the Visual Threshold Task. The NF1 group had a significantly shorter eye latency than the control group and was less accurate in their hand movements during specific visuomotor tasks. The groups showed no differences in eye movement responses during the Visual Threshold Task and in hand latency during the visuomotor tasks. In contrast to studies in children with NF1, we found no alterations in visual-spatial information processing in adults. Impairments in eye latency and hand accuracy during specific visuomotor tasks may indicate deficits in visuomotor functioning in adults with NF1.

Кластеризация нейропсихологических данных: оценка соотношения состояния когнитивных функций у детей 6–9 лет

The aim of this project is an investigation of the state of cognitive functions in older preschool and primary-school-age children. At this age, there is a considerable development and maturation of various components of cognitive functions, and large individual variability of their condition is observed. In the article, we tried to divide a large sample of children with normative development into groups with different neuropsychological profiles according to the strengths and weaknesses of various components of cognitive functions.
 A sample of 484 children between the ages of 6 and 9 years old underwent a Lurian face-to-face neuropsychological examination and the computerized neuropsychological assessment. In each of the tests, key parameters were identified to evaluate three groups of cognitive functions: executive functions, visual-spatial information processing, auditory information processing. Then a cluster analysis was carried out, which allowed us to identify five groups of subjects: children with a high level of cognitive functions; children with executive function weakness; children with low auditory information processing; children with low visual-spatial information processing; children with a low level of cognitive functions. With the help of other complex neuropsychological tests, we verified this division into groups. The data obtained confirm the idea of uneven development of cognitive functions in children aged 6–9 years with normative development. These results can be used in further research of theoretical issues of cognitive development, and for practical purposes in neuropsychologist correction.

Effects of Chronic Alcohol Use Disorder on the Visual Tilt Illusion.

Rationale: Among the serious consequences of alcohol use disorder (AUD) is the reduced ability to process visual information. It is also generally agreed that AUD tends to occur with disturbed excitation–inhibition (EI) balance in the central nervous system. Thus, a specific visual behavioral probe could directly qualify the EI dysfunction in patients with AUD. The tilt illusion (TI) is a paradigmatic example of contextual influences on perception of central target. The phenomenon shows a characteristic dependence on the angle between the inducing surround stimulus and the central target test. For small angles, there is a repulsion effect; for larger angles, there is a smaller attraction effect. The center-surround inhibition in tilt repulsion is considered to come from spatial orientational interactions between orientation-tuned neurons in the primary visual cortex (V1), and tilt attraction is from higher-level effects of orientation processing in the visual information processing.Objectives: The present study focuses on visual spatial information processing and explores whether chronic AUD patients in abstinence period exhibited abnormal TI compared with healthy controls.Methods: The participants are 30 male volunteers (20–46 years old) divided into two groups: the study group consists of 15 clinically diagnosed AUD patients undergoing abstinence from alcohol, and the control group consists of 15 healthy volunteers. The TI consists of a center target surround with an annulus (both target and annulus are sinusoidal grating with spatial frequency = 2 cycles per degree). The visual angle between center and surround is a variable restricted to 0°, ±15°, ±30°, or ±75°. For measuring the TI, participants have to report whether the center target grating orientation tilted clockwise or counterclockwise from the internal vertical orientation by pressing corresponding keys on the computer keyboard. No feedback is provided regarding response correctness.Results: The results reveal significantly weaker tilt repulsion effect under surround orientation ±15° (p < 0.05) and higher lapse rate (attention limitation index) under all tested surround orientations (all ps < 0.05) in patients with chronic AUD compared with health controls.Conclusions: These results provide psychophysical evidence that visual perception of center-contextual stimuli is different between AUD and healthy control groups.

Elaboration of Neuropsychological Evaluation of Children: Structural Analysis of Test Results.

Modern neuropsychology is discussing the possibility of combining qualitative and quantitative approaches in the evaluation of cognitive functions. In Russia a battery of tests called "Methods of neuropsychological assessment for children 6-9 years old" (Akhutina et al., 2016) has been proposed; it is based on the Lurian approach to diagnosis and combines qualitative and quantitative approaches to testing. The present paper describes the development of this combined qualitative and quantitative assessment of various groups of cognitive functions in preschool and primary school children. Structural modeling enables us to analyze a possible combination of integral indices of functions that includes the results of both a face-to-face neuropsychological assessment and computerized testing. To develop a combined qualitative and quantitative neuropsychological assessment of children, in order to 1) check the structural reliability of integral indicators of various cognitive functions; and 2) confirm the correctness of combining the results of face-to-face and computerized tests. A sample of 299 children between the ages of 6 and 9 years old (111 preschoolers, 82 first graders, and 106 second graders) underwent a Lurian face-to-face neuropsychological examination adapted for 6-to-9 year-old children, and five tests from the Computerized Neuropsychological Assessment for 6-9 Year-old Children. The five were the "Dots" test, the Schulte Tables, the Cancellation test, the Corsi Tapping Block test, and the Understanding of Similar Sounding Words test. In each of the tests (face-to-face and computerized), key parameters were identified to evaluate various cognitive functions. A confirmatory factor analysis verified the composition of the neuropsychological indices that were based on the results of the face-to-face neuropsychological assessment. At the same time, when the computer test data were added to the model, the fit indices of the model considerably improved. The confirmatory factor analysis confirmed the validity of the identification of eight neuropsychological indices that indicate the component processes underlying complex cognitive functions in children: 1) programming and control of voluntary actions (executive functions); 2) serial organization of movements and speech; 3) the processing of kinesthetic information; 4) the processing of auditory information; 5) the processing of visual information; 6) the processing of visual-spatial information; 7) hyperactivity/impulsivity; and 8) fatigue/slowness.

Cross-Modal Integration of Reward Value during Oculomotor Planning.

Reward value guides goal-directed behavior and modulates early sensory processing. Rewarding stimuli are often multisensory, but it is not known how reward value is combined across sensory modalities. Here we show that the integration of reward value critically depends on whether the distinct sensory inputs are perceived to emanate from the same multisensory object. We systematically manipulated the congruency in monetary reward values and the relative spatial positions of co-occurring auditory and visual stimuli that served as bimodal distractors during an oculomotor task performed by healthy human participants (male and female). The amount of interference induced by the distractors was used as an indicator of their perceptual salience. Our results across two experiments show that when reward value is linked to each modality separately, the value congruence between vision and audition determines the combined salience of the bimodal distractors. However, the reward value of vision wins over the value of audition if the two modalities are perceived to convey conflicting information regarding the spatial position of the bimodal distractors. These results show that in a task that highly relies on the processing of visual spatial information, the reward values from multiple sensory modalities are integrated with each other, each with their respective weights. This weighting depends on the strength of prior beliefs regarding a common source for incoming unisensory signals based on their congruency in reward value and perceived spatial alignment.

Motor expertise modulates unconscious rather than conscious executive control.

BackgroundExecutive control, the ability to regulate the execution of a goal-directed task, is an important element in an athlete’s skill set. Although previous studies have shown that executive control in athletes is better than that in non-athletes, those studies were mainly confined to conscious executive control. Many recent studies have suggested that executive control can be triggered by the presentation of visual stimuli without participant’s conscious awareness. However, few studies have examined unconscious executive control in sports. Thus, the present study investigated whether, similar to conscious executive control, unconscious executive control in table tennis athletes is superior to that in non-athletes.MethodsIn total, 42 age-matched undergraduate students were recruited for this study; 22 nonathletic students lacking practical athletic experience comprised one group, and 20 table tennis athletes with many years of training in this sport comprised a second group. Each participant first completed an unconscious response priming task, the unconscious processing of visual-spatial information, and then completed a conscious version of this same response priming task.ResultsTable tennis athletes showed a significant response priming effect, whereas non-athletes did not, when participants were unable to consciously perceive the visual-spatial priming stimuli. In addition, the number of years the table tennis athletes had trained in this sport (a measure of their motor expertise) was positively correlated with the strength of the unconscious response priming effect. However, both table tennis athletes and non-athletes showed a response priming effect when the primes were unmasked and the participants were able to consciously perceive the visual-spatial priming stimuli.ConclusionOur results suggest that motor expertise modulates unconscious, rather than conscious, executive control and that motor expertise is positively correlated with unconscious executive control in table tennis athletes.

Unraveling Psychomotor Slowing in Bipolar Disorder

Background/Aims: In addition to affective and cognitive symptomatology, psychomotor deficits are known to be present in bipolar disorder (BD). Psychomotor functioning includes all of the processes necessary for completing a movement, from planning to initiation and execution. While these psychomotor symptoms have been studied extensively in schizophrenia and major depressive disorder, only simple measures have been conducted in BD. The present study examines psychomotor functioning in BD. Methods: Twenty-two euthymic BD patients and 21 healthy controls performed three computerized copying tasks varying in cognitive load. Movement times (MT), reflecting fine motor processing, and initiation times (IT), reflecting cognitive processing of visual-spatial information, were separately measured in each group. Results: The BD patients had longer IT but not MT in the simplest task and the opposite pattern of longer MT but not IT in the complex task. However, when controlling for residual mood symptoms, the MT were no longer significantly slower in the BD group. Conclusions: The longer MT and IT in BD reflect overall psychomotor slowing. Specifically, the results provide evidence for cognitive slowing in BD. In addition, the longer MT in the complex task reflect a slowed motor component of movement when the cognitive load is high and when depressive symptoms are present. These findings extend the current knowledge of the nature of psychomotor slowing in BD and may have important prognostic implications for patients.

Prenatal cocaine exposure and child outcomes: a conference report based on a prospective study from Cleveland.

The study aims to describe developmental outcomes from a longitudinal prospective cohort (Cleveland study) of prenatally cocaine-exposed (CE) infants. Two hundred eighteen CE and 197 nonexposed infants were enrolled at birth and followed through mid-adolescence. Birth CE status was determined by interview and biologic measures. Multiple demographic, drug, and environmental correlates were controlled. Standardized, normative, reliable measures of fetal growth, intelligence quotient (IQ), behavior, executive function, and language were given at each age and risk for substance misuse assessed in adolescence. A subset of children received volumetric magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) at 7 years and functional MRI at 14 years. The effect of CE was determined through multiple regression analyses controlling for confounders. Cocaine exposed had significant negative effects on fetal growth, attention, executive function, language, and behavior, while overall IQ was not affected. CE had significant negative effects on perceptual reasoning IQ and visual-motor skills and predicted lower volume of corpus callosum and decreased gray matter in the occipital and parietal lobes. CE children had higher risk for substance misuse. Confounding risk factors had additive effects on developmental outcomes. Prenatal exposure to cocaine was related to poorer perceptual organization IQ, visual-spatial information processing, attention, language, executive function, and behavior regulation through early adolescence.

Object visibility alters the relative contribution of ventral visual stream and mirror neuron system to goal anticipation during action observation

We used fMRI to study the effect of hiding the target of a grasping action on the cerebral activity of an observer whose task was to anticipate the size of the object being grasped. Activity in the putative mirror neuron system (pMNS) was higher when the target was concealed from the view of the observer and anticipating the size of the object being grasped requested paying attention to the hand kinematics. In contrast, activity in ventral visual areas outside the pMNS increased when the target was fully visible, and the performance improved in this condition. A repetition suppression analysis demonstrated that in full view, the size of the object being grasped by the actor was encoded in the ventral visual stream. Dynamic causal modeling showed that monitoring a grasping action increased the coupling between the parietal and ventral premotor nodes of the pMNS. The modulation of the functional connectivity between these nodes was correlated with the subject's capability to detect the size of hidden objects. In full view, synaptic activity increased within the ventral visual stream, and the connectivity with the pMNS was diminished. The re-enactment of observed actions in the pMNS is crucial when interpreting others' actions requires paying attention to the body kinematics. However, when the context permits, visual–spatial information processing may complement pMNS computations for improved action anticipation accuracy.

Dr. Kato and Dr. Atsumi reply

<h3>Abstract</h3> Reward value guides goal-directed behavior and modulates early sensory processing. Rewarding stimuli are often multisensory but it is not known how reward value is combined across sensory modalities. Here we show that the integration of reward value critically depends on whether the distinct sensory inputs are perceived to emanate from the same multisensory object. We systematically manipulated the congruency in monetary reward values and the relative spatial positions of co-occurring auditory and visual stimuli that served as bimodal distractors during an oculomotor task performed by healthy human participants (male and female). The amount of interference induced by the distractors was used as an indicator of their perceptual salience. Our results across two experiments show that when reward value is linked to each modality separately, the value congruence between vision and audition determines the combined salience of the bimodal distractors. However, reward value of vision wins over the value of audition if the two modalities are perceived to convey conflicting information regarding the spatial position of the bimodal distractors. These results show that in a task that highly relies on the processing of visual spatial information, the reward values from multiple sensory modalities are integrated with each other, each with their respective weights. This weighting depends on the strength of prior beliefs regarding a common source for incoming uni-sensory signals based on their congruency in reward value and perceived spatial alignment. <b>Significance Statement</b> Real-world objects are typically multisensory but it is not known how reward value is combined across sensory modalities. We examined how the eye movements towards a visual target are modulated by the reward value of audiovisual distractors. Our results show that in the face of uncertainty as to whether co-occurring visual and auditory inputs belong to the same object, congruence in their reward values is used to guide audiovisual integration. However, when a strong prior exists to assume that uni-sensory inputs do not emanate from the same object, the associative value of vision dominates over audition. These results demonstrate that our brain uses a reward-sensitive, flexible weighting mechanism to decide whether incoming sensory signals should be combined or not.

Neurobehavioral Changes in Taiwanese Lead-Exposed Workers

The dysfunction of the central nervous system (CNS) caused by lead exposure was evaluated. Workers who have been exposed to lead for at least 3 years and have been informed of having elevated blood lead levels (BLLs) were recruited. According to their current BLLs, 33 and 28 males were assigned to the medium (40-80 microg/dL) and low (<40 microg/dL) BLLs groups, respectively. Sixty-two nonexposed healthy men served as the control group. Their neurobehaviors were examined by a computerized evaluation system. Significantly impaired neurobehavioral functions were shown in the medium BLLs group, which included slow performance of psychomotor tasks, impaired processing of visual-spatial information, reduced memory and learning functions, low performance accuracy, slow execution of responses, and poor attentional control. Subtle CNS dysfunction could be detected from lead-exposed workers who have no obvious neurologic and cognitive deficits.

Lateralized effects of target location on reaction times when preparing for manual aiming at a visual target

To elucidate the temporal characteristics of information processing for motor action differing in complexity in relation to both perceptual and cognitive information processing, we investigated whether the reaction times (RTs) to a visual target would be affected by task complexity (finger lifting or manual aiming), pre-cueing (with a pre-cue or without a pre-cue), or target location (five horizontal positions). Using the right hand, seven right-handed subjects performed two tasks, finger lifting and manual aiming at a target, with or without a pre-cue. The pre-cue announced the location of the target to be presented. An ANOVA showed significant interactions between task and location and between pre-cue and location with no significant interaction between task and pre-cue, indicating that the task–location interaction does not depend on whether or not a pre-cue is given. The manual-aiming RTs were longer than the finger-lifting RTs, and the effects of the target location on the RTs differed for finger lifting and manual aiming. It can be assumed that the longer RTs of manual aiming reflect the time for information processing that is needed when preparing for the aiming action per se, which is an extra movement performed in addition to the simple initiation of finger lifting. Differential RTs (DRTs) calculated by subtracting the finger-lifting RTs from the aiming RTs were therefore examined. The DRTs significantly differed for target locations (i.e., a lateralized effect), with the DRTs for an ipsilateral target appearing to be significantly shorter than those for contralateral and central targets. The lateralized effect appearing on the DRTs may be mediated by the processing of visual-spatial information about visual targets as motor preparations are made for manual aiming.