Visual Information Processing Task Research Articles

Human efficiency for recognizing 3-D objects in luminance noise

The purpose of this study was to establish how efficiently humans use visual information to recognize simple 3-D objects. The stimuli were computer-rendered images of four simple 3-D objects—wedge, cone, cylinder, and pyramid—each rendered from 8 randomly chosen viewing positions as shaded objects, line drawings, or silhouettes. The objects were presented in static, 2-D Gaussian luminance noise. The observer's task was to indicate which of the four objects had been presented. We obtained human contrast thresholds for recognition, and compared these to an ideal observer's thresholds to obtain efficiencies. In two auxiliary experiments, we measured efficiencies for object detection and letter recognition. Our results showed that human object-recognition efficiency is low (3–8%) when compared to efficiencies reported for some other visual-information processing tasks. The low efficiency means that human recognition performance is limited primarily by factors intrinsic to the observer rather than the information content of the stimuli. We found three factors that play a large role in accounting for low object-recognition efficiency: stimulus size, spatial uncertainty, and detection efficiency. Four other factors play a smaller role in limiting object-recognition efficiency: observers' internal noise, stimulus rendering condition, stimulus familiarity, and categorization across views.

Persisting negative symptoms and information-processing deficits in schizophrenia: Implications for subtyping

To test the hypothesis that schizophrenic patients with persisting negative symptoms have stable information-processing impairments compared with schizophrenic patients without persisting negative symptoms, 20 chronic schizophrenic outpatients were trichotomously subgrouped on the basis of the level of negative symptoms that they displayed across multiple rating periods over a 1-year period. Brief Psychiatric Rating Scale assessments of negative symptoms were used to assign subjects into either an operationally defined persisting negative symptom (PNS), transient negative symptom (TNS), or no negative symptom (NNS) subgroup. The level and pattern of these subgroups' performance on a visual information-processing task, the Span of Apprehension Test (SPAN), were compared. Although the three groups did not differ statistically in level of SPAN performance during a drug-free baseline, the PNS group had significantly poorer SPAN performance than the other two groups at the 1-year followup assessment. The SPAN performance of the TNS and NNS groups improved while the SPAN performance of the PNS group did not improve over the 1-year followup period.

Topographical Patterns of ERP Elicited by Different Visual Information-Processing Tasks

Topographical patterns of event-related potentials were compared on a visual display terminal for a data-input task and a number-comparison task. Maximum negative peaks were found in the frontal and central regions for the former but at midline locations for the latter. Latencies were shorter in the occipital regions than in the frontal regions for the former and the opposite pattern was found for the latter. An analysis of variance indicated that hemispheric location significantly affected the amplitude of peaks. On the other hand, latencies were affected by the task, frontal and occipital regions, and their interaction. These results suggest that a pattern of the topographic display of event-related potentials can be used as an objective means for classifying visual tasks.

Event-related potentials in high-functioning adult autistics: Linguistic and nonlinguistic visual information processing tasks

Event-related potentials (ERPs) were recorded from high-functioning adult autistics and age- and IQ-matched normal controls during performance of two non-linguistic information processing tasks, the Continuous Performance Task (CPT) and Span of Apprehension (SPAN), and an Idiom Recognition Task (IRT) involving idiomatic, literal and nonsense phrases. The autistics exhibited behavioral deficits only when attempting to identify idiomatic phrases. The ERP correlate of that deficit was greatly reduced N400 to idioms. In addition, autistics produced larger N1 amplitudes in all tasks, and larger P3s in the IRT and CPT.

Mental capacity constraints and the development of moral reasoning

We present a dialectical constructivist approach to study moral development. This approach is used to task-analyze complexity in moral-judgement responses. With this theory and method we examine the role of mental-attentional capacity in moral reasoning. Subjects were 120 children, ages 10 to 16. Mental capacity was measured with two visual information-processing tasks. The Sociomoral Reflection Measure of Gibbs, Widaman, & Colby (1982) served to assess moral development. The highest level replies to the moral dilemmas were task-analyzed to determine their mental demand, i.e., the level of mental-attentional capacity required to generate the replies. Regression models indicated that 40% of the variance in moral-reasoning level can be explained by mental capacity alone, while 41% is additionally explained by the executive/experiential demand of the replies. Results suggest that mental capacity is a necessary but not sufficient condition for moral developmental growth.

The effects of caffeine and automaticity on a visual information processing task

AbstractThe present study examined caffeine's effect on mental performance in contrast to a recent study (Loke and Goh, 1992) which examined the effects of caffeine user‐effect on mental performance. Taken together, the studies would provide a detailed understanding of the effects of caffeine and automaticity on the visual search/detection domain of information processing. Analyses of the baseline measures of the visual search/detection task showed significant differences between low and high levels of automaticity and levels of task difficulty. Performance on the low difficulty level was higher than the high difficulty level, and performance on automatic task was higher than on non‐automatic task. Caffeine, however, did not interact with automaticity and task difficulty. Therefore, given that the present study used unpractised (novice) subjects with similar levels of caffeine consumptions and personality characteristics, the visual search/detection domain of information processing is shown to be insensitive to the effects of caffeine. This supports the general view that caffeine does not affect cognition, learning, and memory performance. Also, the non‐significant three‐way interaction of drug, automaticity, and task difficulty would therefore suggest that caffeine does not affect resource capacity. Of note is that knowledge of drug administration assessments (drug guessing) was sensitive to the effects of caffeine in the automatic condition and not in the non‐automatic condition, suggesting that the effects of caffeine are task‐dependent. In contrast, the expected sensitivity of mood assessments to caffeine's effects was not shown. Since caffeine is shown to be a ‘weak’ stimulant, given its commonly known non‐significant effects on mental performance, caffeine‐administered subjects may lack sufficient external cues to allow them to perceive and report correctly that they were given caffeine.

Selective Auditory - Visual Interference Effects in a Dual Task Paradigm: Implications for Assessing Individual Differences

Three experiments are reported that tested predictions from a multiple resource framework for selective patterns of interference in a visual - auditory dual task paradigm. Subjects performed an auditory memory search task both alone and in conjunction with several visual information processing tasks. In Experiment 1 the level of speech intelligibility in the memory search task did not affect performance in an unstable tracking task. In Experiments 2 and 3 speech intelligibility did affect performance in a spatial processing task and a mathematical reasoning task. These results are discussed in terms of their relevance for designing a test battery to identify individuals likely to be affected by changes in speech intelligibility.

Separate and combined psychophysiological effects of cigarette smoking and alcohol consumption

The present study on the separate and the combined effects of cigarette smoking and alcohol consumption on behavioral, electrocortical and cardiovascular functions involved 20 young female smokers, repeatedly tested on their performance in a visual information processing task before and after drug treatment. Each subject participated in four sessions where they received in a balanced sequence 0.7 g/kg alcohol or placebo followed by either real or sham smoking of a cigarette. The mental task required the subjects to detect sequences of three odd or even digits in a pseudorandom series of single digits presented on a TV screen. By using a variable subject-paced interstimulus interval, mental performance was analyzed continuously in terms of the achieved processing rate. The multivariate assessment of psychophysiological functions included the electrocardiogram, the finger plethysmogram and the electroencephalogram (EEG) measured on four electrode locations (Fz, Cz, P3, P4). The EEG was analyzed both for tonical changes in frequency distribution and for phasic responses to the correctly detected triads (Event-Related Potentials, ERP), yielding a CNV after the second digit and a late positive wave (LP) after the third digit. Cigarette smoking increased the processing rate, while it was decreased by alcohol. Smoking after alcohol diminished the performance decline due to alcohol. Heart rate acceleration and peripheral vasoconstriction were observed after smoking. Alcohol caused dilatation of the finger vessels which was prevented by smoking a cigarette after the drink.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)

Quantitative Hardware Stages That Constrain Language Development

We argue the case for general cognitive-processing constraints on, and cognitive-developmental stages in, linguistic performance. We use the theory of constructive operators of Pascual-Leone to analyze the sorts of’software’ (i.e., content-bound) and ‘hardware’ (i.e., content-free organismic) processes relevant for a cognitive developmental model of language. Emphasis is placed on the hardware: mental-attentional capacity as a limit on linguistic competence. We describe types of situations in which the effects of such capacity should be clearly manifest in performance and support our claims with results of two studies on language development, one on comprehension and production of subordinate conjunctions and the other on metaphor interpretation. Various linguistic performance scores in the two studies increased with age in steps that correspond to theory-predicted stages in the growth of mental-attentional capacity; a similar stage-bound developmental pattern is reported for a visual information-processing task. Theoretical and methodological implications are discussed.

Smoking and performance--a puff-by-puff analysis.

A new version of the Rapid Visual Information Processing (RVIP) task has been developed in this laboratory to examine the effects of each puff from a cigarette upon continuous performance. Two cigarettes were tested and compared with a not-smoking and a sham-smoking control. The results show improvements resulting from just two puffs both in terms of correct detections and reaction times. Both measures of performance were maintained at a higher level during and after smoking, compared with not-smoking and sham-smoking.

The effects of practice on measures of performance

AbstractThe effects of practice on a range of performance measures often used in studies of psychoactive drugs have been assessed in 50 normal healthy adult volunteers, during 10 practice sessions over an 8‐day period. There was no dramatic effect of practice on any of the parameters measured, only one of the mean values at the tenth session exceeded one standard deviation of the mean of the first session (manipulative motor task). Practice did not materially affect performance on elapsing time estimation, tapping rate, body sway measured by a ultrasonic method or rapid visual information processing task variables. There tended to be a non‐significant, exponential learning curve for choice reaction response and movement times to visual stimuli, flash fusion threshold and the manipulative motor task, with a statistically significant practice effect on all 16 visual analogue scales used; a plateau was apparently achieved by the fifth practice session for all these parameters. There was a statistically significant straight‐line improvement in digit span across the 10 sessions. It is concluded that for most simple measures of performance used in psychopharmacology including visual analogue scales, four pre‐study training sessions are necessary, and that direct methods of recording body sway are preferred to indirect methods such as the balance platform.

Task Complexity and Subjective Arousal

Responses on the Activation–Deactivation Adjective Check List were recorded for forty–eight subjects who were performing a visual perceptual information processing task at one of three levels of task difficulty. In general, significant task performance differences in the expected direction were recorded. Two of the activation measures were found to differentiate between low and high task difficulty groups, while the scores for the medium group fell between these two-but did not significantly differ from either. Gender differences for both performance and activation measures were largely not significant.

The Search for the Psychobiological Substrate of Childhood Onset Schizophrenia

This paper describes a program of neurobehavioral research aimed at: (1) isolating core information processing impairments in childhood onset schizophrenia, and (2) identifying structures in the central nervous system which mediate those impairments. Children meeting DSM-III criteria for schizophrenia, mental age matched normals, and younger normals were administered a series of visual information processing tasks. The results of these studies suggest that controlled attentional processes, which normally develop during middle childhood, are impaired in schizophrenic children while more automatic modes of attending are relatively intact. Convergent evidence for this conclusion was provided by event related potentials recorded from 7 scalp loci while children were performing on one of the tasks used in the first project. The schizophrenic children produced a small contingent negative variation (CNV) which was slow to develop and resolve as well as diminished amplitudes for N1, P3, and slow wave components. This suggests that these children are impaired in their ability to regulate the mobilization and direction of attention and to discriminate target stimuli. Event-related potential components of the schizophrenic children tended to be most deviant at frontal leads, but midline and lateralized deficits were also seen at vertex and posterior recording sites. The relationship of these impairments in controlled attentional processes to the phenomenology of childhood onset schizophrenia is discussed.

Schizotaxia, information processing and the MMPI 2-7-8 code type.

The relationship between the 2-7-8 MMPI code type and schizotaxia was investigated. College students whose Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory profiles revealed a 2-7-8 code were compared to an elevation-free group on a visual information-processing task. The 2-7-8 group exhibited a processing deficiency similar to that previously found for schizophrenics and in-patient schizotypal personalities, supporting the construct validity of the 2-7-8 code as a measure of schizotaxia.

Evidence of more rapid stimulus evaluation following cigarette smoking

Experienced male smokers ( > 15 cigarettes daily) performed a rapid visual information processing (RVIP) task requiring the detection of sequences of three consecutive odd or even digits in a series presented singly on a TV screen, at a rate of 100 digits/minute. Approximately 80 targets occured every 10 minutes. All subjects took part in three test sessions: (a) Baseline of 10 minutes on the RVIP task, (2) treatment phase of 10 minutes smoking one cigarette (0.9mg or 1.5mg standard machine delivery of nicotine) or not smoking (NS), (3) posttreatment phase of 20 minutes on the task. Before these morning sessions subjects abstained from smoking for at least 12 hours. Smoking increased the number of correct detections and decreased response time compared with pre-smoking baseline and NS sessions. Analysis of vertex Event-Related Potentials to correct detections revealed a significant reduction in P300 latency following smoking compared to NS sessions. It is suggested that smoking has speeded up stimulus evaluation processes in these individuals. These data are consistent with the common self-report by smokers that smoking aids concentration.

Studies of Visual Information Processing in Schizophrenic Children

11 children meeting DSM III criteria for schizophrenia (mean age approximately 12 years), a group of normal children matched in mean mental age to the schizophrenic children, and a group of younger normal children (mean age 6.6 years) were administered a series of visual information-processing tasks in order to isolate core information-processing impairments in childhood onset schizophrenia. In Experiment 1, the schizophrenic children showed impairment relative to the MA-matched normals and performed at the level of the younger normal children on a forced-choice partial-report version of the span-of-apprehension task. Previous research has shown that this task is sensitive to dysfunction in both actively and partially recovered schizophrenic adults as well as a subset of foster children at risk for schizophrenia. Experiment 2 delimited the source of the information-processing impairment in schizophrenic children by ruling out a number of possible causes of impairment and suggesting that schizophrenic children use the same information-acquisition strategies as MA-matched children but less efficiently. Experiment 3 revealed that, consistent with the previous research, the schizophrenic children were comparable with the MA-matched controls on a full-report span-of-apprehension task that placed heavy demands on iconic and short-term memory. Both the schizophrenic and MA-matched normals performed significantly better than the younger normal children. Taken collectively, the results of the three experiments suggest that all groups of children engaged in a serial information-processing strategy while performing on the partial-report version of the span-of-apprehension task. The differential impairment of the schizophrenic children on the partial-report versions but not the full-report version of the span-of-apprehension task seems to reflect inefficiencies in controlled attentional processes that normally develop during middle childhood.

Studies of Visual Information Processing in Schizophrenic Children

11 children meeting DSM III criteria for schizophrenia (mean age approximately 12 years), a group of normal children matched in mean mental age to the schizophrenic children, and a group of younger normal children (mean age 6.6 years) were administered a series of visual information-processing tasks in order to isolate core information-processing impairments in childhood onset schizophrenia. In Experiment 1, the schizophrenic children showed impairment relative to the MA-matched normals and performed at the level of the younger normal children on a forced-choice partial-report version of the span-of-apprehension task. Previous research has shown that this task is sensitive to dysfunction in both actively and partially recovered schizophrenic adults as well as a subset of foster children at risk for schizophrenia. Experiment 2 delimited the source of the information-processing impairment in schizophrenic children by ruling out a number of possible causes of impairment and suggesting that schizophrenic children use the same information-acquisition strategies as MA-matched children but less efficiently. Experiment 3 revealed that, consistent with the previous research, the schizophrenic children were comparable with the MA-matched controls on a full-report span-of-apprehension task that placed heavy demands on iconic and short-term memory. Both the schizophrenic and MA-matched normals performed significantly better than the younger normal children. Taken collectively, the results of the three experiments suggest that all groups of children engaged in a serial information-processing strategy while performing on the partial-report version of the span-of-apprehension task. The differential impairment of the schizophrenic children on the partial-report versions but not the full-report version of the span-of-apprehension task seems to reflect inefficiencies in controlled attentional processes that normally develop during middle childhood.

Developmental Lags in Preterm Infants from One to Three Years of Age

Assessments of play, sensorimotor, language, and general developmental skills were administered to 20 preterm and 20 full-term infants at comparable corrected and postnatal ages in 5 sessions during the second and third years of life. Clear effects of biological maturity on play and sensorimotor skills were demonstrated at 13 1/2 months, and less pervasive effects remained at 22 months. Furthermore, the preterm infants were significantly delayed in sensorimotor, personal-social, and gross motor abilities at 13 1/2 months and in language abilities at 22 months beyond that predicted by biological maturity alone. While these deficits were mostly overcome by 3 years, the preterm infants performed somewhat more poorly on visual information-processing tasks. This investigation demonstrated that the development of representational abilities as manifested in play and sensorimotor behaviors was clearly related to corrected age rather than postnatal age.

The impending demise of the icon: A critique of the concept of iconic storage in visual information processing

AbstractWithout disputing the experimental evidence that subjects have available most of the content of brief displays for a fraction of a second, or that visual stimuli Persist after their physical termination for a similar time, I argue that this evidence is irrelevant to perception. Specifically, the notion of an icon as a brief storage of information persisting after stimulus termination cannot possibly be useful in any typical visual information-processing task except reading in a lightning storm. Since the visual world that provides the stimuli for perception is continuous and not chopped up by tachistoscopes, and since our eyes and heads are rarely motionless, no realistic circumstances exist in which having a frozen iconic storage of information could be helpful. Rather, the presence of such an icon interferes with perception. This paper examines instances of normal perception, and then reviews experimental evidence on temporal integration, saccadic suppression, masking, and the photoreceptor basis of visual persistence, to further demonstrate that a storage of excitation cannot be a useful device for storing information. Finally, I note that little would have to be changed in our theories of visual perception or information processing if we simply forgot all about the icon and iconic memory as an early stage of processing.

Interaction effects in successive visual displays: An extension of the Eriksen-Collins paradigm

The paradigm of Eriksen and Collins, in which one-haft of the elements of a display is assigned randomly to each of two successively presented fields, was applied to the visual discrimination of one- and two-dimensional Markov constraints. In contrast with the two-flash masking paradigm, performance in the Eriksen-Collins paradigmimproves as the interval between the successively presented fields is shortened. Constraint thresholds may increase with interfield intervals as short as 20 msec. In contrast with the results of most visual information-processing tasks, increasing the duration of each field may result in sharplyelevated thresholds. The elevation of thresholds can be reduced through repeated presentation. Sharp asymmetries are also obtained with differential brightness of the two fields.