Visual Search Research Articles

Effects of a visual search task in a virtual reality space with a moving background on spatial cognition and standing balance in patients with left hemiparetic stroke.

We examined effects of a visual search task (VST) in virtual reality (VR) with a moving background on spatial cognition and standing balance in left hemiparetic strokes. The VST with background deviation was allocated to Case A. In Case B, the VST without the deviation was performed. As a results, in Case A, the reaction time of VST was shortened in the paretic space and ability of weight-shift to the paretic side was improved. In conclusion, the VST in the VR with a spatial manipulation may improve spatial cognition and standing balance in left hemiparetic strokes.

Evidence of elevated situational awareness for active duty soldiers during navigation of a virtual environment.

U.S. service members maintain constant situational awareness (SA) due to training and experience operating in dynamic and complex environments. Work examining how military experience impacts SA during visual search of a complex naturalistic environment, is limited. Here, we compare Active Duty service members and Civilians' physiological behavior during a navigational visual search task in an open-world virtual environment (VE) while cognitive load was manipulated. We measured eye-tracking and electroencephalogram (EEG) outcomes from Active Duty (N = 21) and Civilians (N = 15) while they navigated a desktop VE at a self-regulated pace. Participants searched and counted targets (N = 15) presented among distractors, while cognitive load was manipulated with an auditory Math Task. Results showed Active Duty participants reported significantly greater/closer to the correct number of targets compared to Civilians. Overall, Active Duty participants scanned the VE with faster peak saccade velocities and greater average saccade magnitudes compared to Civilians. Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) response (EEG P-300) was significantly weighted more to initial fixations for the Active Duty group, showing reduced attentional resources on object refixations compared to Civilians. There were no group differences in fixation outcomes or overall CNN response when comparing targets versus distractor objects. When cognitive load was manipulated, only Civilians significantly decreased their average dwell time on each object and the Active Duty group had significantly fewer numbers of correct answers on the Math Task. Overall, the Active Duty group explored the VE with increased scanning speed and distance and reduced cognitive re-processing on objects, employing a different, perhaps expert, visual search strategy indicative of increased SA. The Active Duty group maintained SA in the main visual search task and did not appear to shift focus to the secondary Math Task. Future work could compare how a stress inducing environment impacts these groups' physiological or cognitive markers and performance for these groups.

Attentional bias to uncertainty-based information: a conceptual replication of Fergus et al. (2013)

AbstractAttentional biases to negative information are often observed in emotional disorders such as anxiety and depression. Recently, Fergus et al. (Cognitive Therapy and Research 37:735-741, 2013) demonstrated that participants scoring high in Intolerance of Uncertainty (IU), a transdiagnostic risk factor for emotional disorders, were faster at identifying targets with uncertainty-based information (e.g., word stimuli such as ‘maybe’), relative to neutral information (e.g. word stimuli related to household items). Moreover, this effect was specific to IU over other anxious traits such as worry. This report aimed to conceptually replicate the results of Fergus et al. (Cognitive Therapy and Research 37:735-741, 2013). The current experiment was conducted with a student sample (n = 126). As in the original study, a visual search task with uncertainty-based and neutral information (e.g., word stimuli) was used. Reaction times were collected. IU and trait anxiety was measured via self-report. We partially replicated the results of Fergus et al. (Cognitive Therapy and Research 37:735-741, 2013). We found that higher IU was significantly associated with faster identification of uncertainty-based information, relative to neutral information. However, we also observed a similar pattern of results for trait anxiety. Additionally, we observed no specificity of IU or trait anxiety in predicting faster identification of uncertainty-based information, relative to neutral information. Despite the lack of specificity of IU or trait anxiety in predicting attentional bias to uncertainty-based information, these findings highlight that negative emotionality may be generally associated with attentional biases to uncertainty-based information in the absence of direct threat.

Contextual cueing—Eye movements in rotated and recombined displays

Contextual cueing leads to improved efficiency in visual search resulting from the extraction of spatial regularities in repeated visual stimuli. Previous research has demonstrated the independent contributions of global configuration and spatial position to contextual cueing. The present study aimed to investigate whether learned spatial configuration or individual locations would elicit fixation patterns resembling those observed in the original displays. We found that search guidance based on either local or global spatial context, by combining distractor locations from two learned displays or rotating displays, kept not only search time facilitation intact, in agreement with previous studies, but also enabled search with less fixations and more direct scan paths to the target. Fixation distribution maps of recombined or rotated displays were more similar to the original displays than random new displays. However, for rotated displays this was only true when the rotation angle was taken into account. Overall, this shows an astonishingly flexible use of the oculomotor system for search in incompletely repeated displays.

Separate cue- and alpha-related mechanisms for distractor suppression.

Research on selective attention has largely focused on the enhancement of behaviorally important information, with less focus on the suppression of distracting information. Enhancement and suppression can operate through a push-pull relationship attributable to competitive interactions among neural populations. There has been considerable debate, however, regarding (i) whether suppression can be voluntarily deployed, independent of enhancement, and (ii) whether the voluntary deployment of suppression is associated with neural processes that occur prior to distractor onset. Here, we investigated the interplay between pre- and post-distractor neural processes, while male and female human subjects performed a visual search task with a cue that indicated the location of an upcoming distractor. We utilized two established EEG markers of suppression: the distractor positivity (PD) and alpha power (∼8-15 Hz). The PD-a component of event-related potentials-has been linked with successful distractor suppression, and increased alpha power has been linked with attenuated sensory processing. Cueing the location of an upcoming distractor speeded responses and led to an earlier PD, consistent with earlier suppression due to the strategic use of a spatial cue. In comparison, higher pre-distractor alpha power contralateral to distractors led to a later PD, consistent with later suppression. Lower alpha power contralateral to distractors instead led to distractor-related attentional capture. Lateralization of alpha power was not linked to the spatial cue. This observation, combined with differences in the timing of successful suppression-as indexed by earlier and later PD components-demonstrates that cue-related, voluntary suppression can occur separate from alpha-related gating of sensory processing.Significance Statement Selective suppression of distracting information is important for survival. There are ongoing debates, however, regarding whether and how selective enhancement can be voluntarily deployed independent of selective enhancement. Here, we recorded EEG while subjects performed a visual search task with cues that indicated the location of upcoming distractors. Behavioral and electrophysiological results revealed that foreknowledge of a distractor's location speeded suppression (relative to non-cued trials), thereby facilitating target detection. The results further revealed that such cue-related suppression of a distractor can occur separate from alpha-related gating of sensory processing. That is, alpha-related suppression in the present task occurred independent of the spatially informative cue (i.e., on both cued and non-cued trials) and later than cue-related suppression (as indexed by later and earlier PD components).

Reliability and validity of a novel attention assessment scale (broken ring enVision search test) in the Chinese population

BackgroundThe correct assessment of attentional function is the key to cognitive research. A new attention assessment scale, the Broken Ring enVision Search Test (BReViS), has not been validated in China. The purpose of this study was to assess the reliability and validity of the BReViS in the Chinese population.MethodsFrom July to October 2023, 100 healthy residents of Changzhou were selected and subjected to the BReViS, Digital Cancelation Test (D-CAT), Symbol Digit Modalities Test (SDMT), and Digit Span Test (DST). Thirty individuals were randomly chosen to undergo the BReViS twice for test–retest reliability assessment. Correlation analysis was conducted between age, education level, gender, and various BReViS sub-tests including Selective Attention (SA), Orientation of Attention (OA), Focal Attention (FA), and Total Errors (Err). Intergroup comparisons and multiple linear regression analyses were performed. Additionally, correlation analyses between the BReViS sub-tests and with other attention tests were also analyzed.ResultsThe correlation coefficients of the BReViS sub-tests (except for FA) between the two tests were greater than 0.600 (p < 0.001), indicating good test–retest reliability. The Cronbach’s alpha coefficient was 0.874, suggesting high internal consistency reliability. SA showed a significant negative correlation with the net score of D-CAT (r = −0.405, p < 0.001), and a significant positive correlation with the error rate of D-CAT (r = 0.401, p < 0.001), demonstrating good criterion-related validity. The correlation analysis among the results of each sub-test showed that the correlation coefficient between SA and Err was 0.532 (p < 0.001), and between OA and Err was-0.229 (p < 0.05), whereas there was no significant correlation between SA, OA, and FA, which indicated that the scale had good informational content validity and structural validity. Both SA and Err were significantly correlated with age and years of education, while gender was significantly correlated with OA and Err. Multiple linear regression suggested that Err was mainly affected by age and gender. There were significant differences in the above indexes among different age, education level and gender groups. Correlation analysis with other attention tests revealed that SA negatively correlated with DST forward and backward scores and SDMT scores. Err positively correlated with D-CAT net scores and negatively with D-CAT error rate, DST forward and backward scores, and SDMT scores. OA and FA showed no significant correlation with other attention tests.ConclusionThe BReViS test, demonstrating good reliability and validity, assessing not only selective attention but also gauging capacities in immediate memory, information processing speed, visual scanning, and hand-eye coordination. The results are susceptible to demographic variables such as age, gender, and education level.

Study on the relationship between fixation characteristics and hit rate in psychological procedure training of free throw.

Free throw is an important means of scoring in basketball games. With the improvement of basketball competition level and the enhancement of confrontation degree, the number of free throws in the game gradually increases, so the score of free throw will have an important impact on the result of the game. The purpose of this study is to explore the relationship between visual attention characteristics and hit rate of basketball players in free throw psychological procedure training, so as to provide scientific basis for basketball teaching and training. Forty players with similar free throw abilities were randomly assigned to the experimental group (10 males, 10 females) and control group (10 males, 10 females). The experimental group was free throw psychological procedure training, while the control group was trained with routine training, Eye movement indices (number of fixations, fixation duration, and pupil dilation) and the free throw hit rate and analyzed before and after the experiment. Group differences were examined using t-tests, while paired sample t-tests were conducted to compare pre- and post-test results within each group. The training time and training times of the two groups were the same. There were significant differences in fixation duration, number of fixations, pupil diameter and free throw hit rate between pre-test and post-test in the experimental group (P < 0.05). Post-test, there were significant differences in number of fixations, fixation duration, pupil diameter and free throw hit rate between the two groups (P < 0.05). There was a significant positive correlation between number of fixations and free throw hit rate in top (P < 0.01), and there was a significant positive correlation between fixation duration and hit rate in front (P < 0.01). The psychological procedure training can improve the visual information search strategy and information processing ability of free throw, and significantly improve the free throw hit rate. There was a positive correlation between the front fixation time and the free throw hit rate, and there was a positive correlation between the top number of fixations and the free throw hit rate.

Attentional set and explicit expectations of perceptual load determine flanker interference.

Attentional set and explicit expectations of perceptual load determine flanker interference.

Conditional independence as a statistical assessment of evidence integration processes.

Intuitively, combining multiple sources of evidence should lead to more accurate decisions than considering single sources of evidence individually. In practice, however, the proper computation may be difficult, or may require additional data that are inaccessible. Here, based on the concept of conditional independence, we consider expressions that can serve either as recipes for integrating evidence based on limited data, or as statistical benchmarks for characterizing evidence integration processes. Consider three events, A, B, and C. We find that, if A and B are conditionally independent with respect to C, then the probability that C occurs given that both A and B are known, P(C|A, B), can be easily calculated without the need to measure the full three-way dependency between A, B, and C. This simplified approach can be used in two general ways: to generate predictions by combining multiple (conditionally independent) sources of evidence, or to test whether separate sources of evidence are functionally independent of each other. These applications are demonstrated with four computer-simulated examples, which include detecting a disease based on repeated diagnostic testing, inferring biological age based on multiple biomarkers of aging, discriminating two spatial locations based on multiple cue stimuli (multisensory integration), and examining how behavioral performance in a visual search task depends on selection histories. Besides providing a sound prescription for predicting outcomes, this methodology may be useful for analyzing experimental data of many types.

Psychopathic traits and attentional control: Antisociality associated with poorer real-world cognitive functioning and egocentricity associated with poorer low-prevalence visual search performance due to quitting early

Attentional control is the process that enables focusing on executing goals without succumbing to distraction, and it is implicated in meaningful outcomes such as driving safety, perspective-taking, and emotion regulation. Across three studies we investigated the relationship between psychopathic traits (egocentricity, callousness, and antisocial tendencies) and: a) subjective experiences of attentional control in real-world contexts, b) performance on a task that differentiates proactive from reactive attentional control, and c) performance on a real-world relevant task that demands endogenous maintenance of a goal with minimal scaffolding from the task (low prevalence visual search). A strong and consistent finding was that antisocial tendencies were associated with poorer subjective real-world attentional control. Psychopathic traits were not reliability associated with individual differences in either proactive or reactive attentional control. Egocentricity was associated with poorer performance in low prevalence visual search, but this was mediated by a reduced quitting threshold (i.e., giving up on searching for the target earlier). This likely reflects reduced motivation rather than impaired ability. Altogether, there was no evidence for psychopathic traits being associated with enhanced attentional control. The differential relationships between different psychopathic traits and attentional control highlights the importance of distinguishing them.

Young Children of Mothers with a History of Depression Show Attention Bias to Sad Faces: An Eye-tracking Study.

Maternal depression is a predictor of the emergence of depression in the offspring. Attention bias (AB) to negative emotional stimuli in children may serve as a risk factor for children of depressed parents. The present study aimed to examine the effect of maternal major depressive disorder (MDD) history on AB to emotional faces in children at age four, before the age of onset for full-blown psychiatric symptoms. The study also compared AB patterns between mothers and their offspring. Fifty-eight mothers and their four-year-old children participated in this study, of which 27 high-risk (HR) children had mothers with MDD during their children's lifetime. Attention to emotional faces was measured in both children and their mothers using an eye-tracking visual search task. HR children exhibited faster detection and longer dwell time toward the sad than happy target faces. The low-risk (LR) children also displayed a sad bias but to a lesser degree. Children across both groups showed AB towards angry target faces, likely reflecting a normative AB pattern. Our findings indicate that AB to sad faces may serve as an early marker of depression risk. However, we provided limited support for the mother-child association of AB. Future research is needed to examine the longitudinal intergenerational transmission of AB related to depression and possible mechanisms underlying the emergence of AB in offspring of depressed parents.

Virtual reality gameplay classification illustrates the multidimensionality of visuospatial neglect

Abstract Brain injuries can significantly impact mental processes, and lead to hidden disabilities not easily detectable. Traditional methods for assessing these impacts are imprecise, leading to unreliable prevalence estimates and treatments with uncertain effectiveness. Immersive virtual reality has shown promise for assessment, but its use as a standalone tool is rare. Our research focused on developing and validating a standalone immersive virtual reality classification system for unilateral spatial neglect, a condition common following brain injury characterised by inattention to one side of space. Our study involved 51 brain injury inpatients and 30 controls, all engaging with “The Attention Atlas,” an immersive virtual reality game for testing visual search skills. Our classification system aimed to identify patients with neglect, “minor atypicality” (indicative of inattention not consistent enough to be labelled as neglect), or non-neglect. This categorisation was based on a simple mathematical definition, utilising gameplay to describe spatial orientation (to the left or right side) and attentional challenge (indicative of search inefficiency). These metrics were benchmarked against a normative model to detect atypical visual search, which refers to gameplay beyond the usual bounds. The combination of neglected side, orientation, and challenge factors were used to categorise neglect. We discovered a strong correlation between atypical visual search patterns and neglect risk factors, such as middle cerebral artery stroke, parietal injuries, and existing neglect diagnoses (Poisson regression incidence rate ratio = 7.18, 95% CI = 4.41-11.90). In our study, immersive virtual reality identified neglect in one-fourth of the patients (n = 13, 25.5%), minor atypicality in 17.6% (n = 9), and non-neglect in the majority, 56.9% (n = 29). This contrasts with standard assessments, which detected neglect in 17.6% (n = 9) of cases and had no intermediate category. Our analysis determined six categories of neglect, the most common being left hemispace neglect with above-median orientation and challenge scores. Traditional assessments were not significantly more accurate (accuracy = 84.3%, P = .06) than a blanket assumption of non-neglect. Traditional assessments were also relatively insensitive in detecting immersive virtual reality-identified neglect (53.8%), particularly in less severe cases and those involving right side inattention. Our findings underline the effectiveness of immersive virtual reality in revealing various dimensions of neglect, surpassing traditional methods in sensitivity and detail, and operating independently from them. To integrate immersive virtual reality into real-world clinical settings, collaboration with healthcare professionals, patients, and other stakeholders is crucial to ensure practical applicability and accessibility.

Uncertainty-modulated attentional capture: Outcome variance increases attentional priority.

Our prior experiences shape the way that we prioritize information from the environment for further processing, analysis, and action. We show in three experiments that this process of attentional prioritization is critically modulated by the degree of uncertainty in these previous experiences. Participants completed a visual search task in which they made a saccade to a target to earn a monetary reward. The color of a color-singleton distractor in the search array signaled the reward outcome(s) that were available, with different degrees of variance (uncertainty). Participants were never required to look at the colored distractor, and doing so would slow their response to the target. Nevertheless, across all experiments, participants were more likely to look at distractors associated with high outcome variance versus low outcome variance. This pattern was observed when all distractors had equal expected value (Experiment 1), when the difference in variance was opposed by a difference in expected value (i.e., the high-variance distractor had a low expected value, and vice versa: Experiment 2), and when high- and low-variance distractors were paired with the maximum-value outcome on an equal proportion of trials (Experiment 3). Our findings demonstrate that experience of prediction error plays a fundamental role in guiding "attentional exploration," wherein priority is driven by the potential for a stimulus to reduce future uncertainty through a process of learning, as opposed to maximizing current information gain. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

LITHO- AND CHRONOSTRATIGRAPHY OF THE UPPER QUATERNARY SEDIMENTS FROM THE PIEDRA BUENA TERRACE, PATAGONIAN CONTINENTAL MARGIN (SW ATLANTIC)

This paper presents a detailed description of the lithostratigraphy of mostly contouritic deposits from the Piedra Buena Terrace (PBT), collected at water depth of 2 – 2.5 km. It is based unpon a multi-proxy investigation of five gravity cores, including visual description and scanning, grain size distributions, microfossils and sand fraction study, supported by the analysis of high-resolution sub-bottom profiles. Two older seismic units were identified in addition to those previously described in the area . The defined lithostratigraphic units were correlated to the upper seismic units, while the age of the younger units was confirmed using AMS-14C dating. In terms of the sedimentary facies, the dark quartz-glauconitic sands, which seem to be a fingerprint of the Piedra Buena Terrace, were investigated by applying the X-ray diffraction and performing grain SEM-SE images. The sandy facies correspond to sea-level low-stands during cold glacials (MIS 2 and MIS 4), when glauconite and terrigenous material were transported from the emerged shelf down and along the Patagonian continental slope by vigorous bottom currents. The latter is confirmed by an occurrence of parts of bi-gradational sequences reported from the grain-size distributions in lithostratigraphic units 2 and 4. Units 1 and 3, represented by mostly hemipelagic calcareous ooze, were formed during warm high sea-level stages (MIS 1 and 3). Unlike Unit 1, Unit 3 also demonstrates clear contourite features, similar to Units 2 and 4. They include common bioturbation, occurrence of mottles, lenses, irregular thin layers of sand, erosional boundaries and hiatuses between and within the units, good sorting of fine sands, and microfossil reworking. Together with our previous data from canyons on the Perito Moreno Terrace and the Ameghino segment , supported by available publications from the PBT and Mar del Plata areas, this study demonstrates that the Patagonian Continental Margin could be used as a natural laboratory to investigate and better understand contourite systems.

Distinct mechanisms of attentional suppression: exploration of trait factors underlying cued- and learned-suppression

Attention allows us to focus on relevant information while ignoring distractions. Effective suppression of distracting information is crucial for efficient visual search. Recent studies have developed two paradigms to investigate attentional suppression: cued-suppression which is based on top-down control, and learned-suppression which is based on selection history. While both types of suppression reportedly engage proactive control, it remains unclear whether they rely on shared mechanisms. This study aimed to determine the relationship between cued- and learned-suppression. In a within-subjects design, 54 participants performed a cued-suppression task where pre-cues indicated upcoming target or distractor colors, and a learned-suppression task where a salient color distractor was present or absent. No significant correlation emerged between performance in the two tasks, suggesting distinct suppression mechanisms. Cued-suppression correlated with visual working memory capacity, indicating reliance on explicit control. In contrast, learned-suppression correlated with everyday distractibility, suggesting implicit control based on regularities. These results provide evidence for heterogeneous proactive control mechanisms underlying cued- and learned-suppression. While both engage inhibition, cued-suppression relies on deliberate top-down control modulated by working memory, whereas learned-suppression involves implicit suppression shaped by selection history and distractibility traits.

Cognitive-Behavioural Processes During Route Previewing in Bouldering

IntroductionIn the Olympic climbing discipline of bouldering, climbers can preview boulders before actually climbing them. Whilst such pre-climbing route previewing is considered as central to subsequent climbing performance, research on cognitive-behavioural processes during the preparatory phase in the modality of bouldering is lacking. The present study aimed at extending existing findings on neural efficiency processes associated with advanced skill level during motor activity preparation by examining cognitive-behavioural processes during the previewing of boulders. MethodsIntermediate (n = 20), advanced (n = 20), and elite (n = 20) climbers were asked to preview first, and then attempt two boulders of different difficulty levels (boulder 1: advanced difficulty; boulder 2: elite difficulty). During previewing, climbers’ gaze behaviour was gathered using a portable eye-tracker. ResultsLinear regression revealed for both boulders a significant relation between participants’ skill levels and both preview duration and number of scans during previewing. Elite climbers more commonly used a superficial scan path than advanced and intermediate climbers. In the more difficult boulder, both elite and advanced climbers showed longer preview durations, performed more scans, and applied less often a superficial scan path than in the easier boulder. ConclusionFindings revealed that cognitive-behavioural processes during route previewing are associated with climbing expertise and boulder difficulty. Superior domain-specific cognitive proficiency seems to account for the expertise-processing-paradigm in boulder previewing, contributing to faster and more conscious acquisition of perceptual cues, more efficient visual search strategies, and better identification of representative patterns among experts.

Contextual facilitation: Separable roles of contextual guidance and context suppression in visual search.

Visual search is facilitated when targets are repeatedly encountered at a fixed position relative to an invariant distractor layout, compared to random distractor arrangements. However, standard investigations of this contextual-facilitation effect employ fixed distractor layouts that predict a constant target location, which does not always reflect real-world situations where the target location may vary relative to an invariant distractor arrangement. To explore the mechanisms involved in contextual learning, we employed a training-test procedure, introducing not only the standard full-repeated displays with fixed target-distractor locations but also distractor-repeated displays in which the distractor arrangement remained unchanged but the target locations varied. During the training phase, participants encountered three types of display: full-repeated, distractor-repeated, and random arrangements. The results revealed full-repeated displays to engender larger performance gains than distractor-repeated displays, relative to the random-display baseline. In the test phase, the gains were substantially reduced when full-repeated displays changed into distractor-repeated displays, while the transition from distractor-repeated to full-repeated displays failed to yield additional gains. We take this pattern to indicate that contextual learning can improve performance with both predictive and non-predictive (repeated) contexts, employing distinct mechanisms: contextual guidance and context suppression, respectively. We consider how these mechanisms might be implemented (neuro-)computationally.

Recurrent neural networks that learn multi-step visual routines with reinforcement learning.

Many cognitive problems can be decomposed into series of subproblems that are solved sequentially by the brain. When subproblems are solved, relevant intermediate results need to be stored by neurons and propagated to the next subproblem, until the overarching goal has been completed. We will here consider visual tasks, which can be decomposed into sequences of elemental visual operations. Experimental evidence suggests that intermediate results of the elemental operations are stored in working memory as an enhancement of neural activity in the visual cortex. The focus of enhanced activity is then available for subsequent operations to act upon. The main question at stake is how the elemental operations and their sequencing can emerge in neural networks that are trained with only rewards, in a reinforcement learning setting. We here propose a new recurrent neural network architecture that can learn composite visual tasks that require the application of successive elemental operations. Specifically, we selected three tasks for which electrophysiological recordings of monkeys' visual cortex are available. To train the networks, we used RELEARNN, a biologically plausible four-factor Hebbian learning rule, which is local both in time and space. We report that networks learn elemental operations, such as contour grouping and visual search, and execute sequences of operations, solely based on the characteristics of the visual stimuli and the reward structure of a task. After training was completed, the activity of the units of the neural network elicited by behaviorally relevant image items was stronger than that elicited by irrelevant ones, just as has been observed in the visual cortex of monkeys solving the same tasks. Relevant information that needed to be exchanged between subroutines was maintained as a focus of enhanced activity and passed on to the subsequent subroutines. Our results demonstrate how a biologically plausible learning rule can train a recurrent neural network on multistep visual tasks.

Assessing the influence of dopamine and mindfulness on the formation of routines in visual search.

Given experience in cluttered but stable visual environments, our eye-movements form stereotyped routines that sample task-relevant locations, while not mixing-up routines between similar task-settings. Both dopamine signaling and mindfulness have been posited as factors that influence the formation of such routines, yet quantification of their impact remains to be tested in healthy humans. Over two sessions, participants searched through grids of doors to find hidden targets, using a gaze-contingent display. Within each session, door scenes appeared in either one of two colors, with each color signaling a differing set of likely target locations. We derived measures for how well target locations were learned (target-accuracy), how routine were sets of eye-movements (stereotypy), and the extent of interference between the two scenes (setting-accuracy). Participants completed two sessions, where they were administered either levodopa (dopamine precursor) or placebo (vitamin C), under double-blind counterbalanced conditions. Dopamine and trait mindfulness (assessed by questionnaire) interacted to influence both target-accuracy and stereotypy. Increasing dopamine improved accuracy and reduced stereotypy for high mindfulness scorers, but induced the opposite pattern for low mindfulness scorers. Dopamine also disrupted setting-accuracy invariant to mindfulness. Our findings show that mindfulness modulates the impact of dopamine on the target-accuracy and stereotypy of eye-movement routines, whereas increasing dopamine promotes interference between task-settings, regardless of mindfulness. These findings provide a link between non-human and human models regarding the influence of dopamine on the formation of task-relevant eye-movement routines and provide novel insights into behavior-trait factors that modulate the use of experience when building adaptive repertoires.

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&lt;p&gt;Goal. A representation is a multisensory model of an object that may or may not be represented in direct perceptual experience. In this regard, the question arises about the possibility of including in the representation information about the way of action with an object (motor programs). The purpose of this work is to analyze the existing theoretical concepts and empirical studies of the thesis about the inclusion of motor knowledge in the representation of an object and the influence of this knowledge on other cognitive processes. Methods. The work examines such theoretical approaches as the theory of the dual visual system, the model of embedded representation, as well as approaches based on manipulation and intention. In particular, the effect of compatibility is analyzed, which consists in reaction time reduction in the case of a congruence of the executed motor program and the perceived object. Results. The compatibility effect can be found in naming, categorization, and visual search tasks. The conditions for the occurrence of the compatibility effect in visual search are considered. Conclusions. It is assumed that there are two alternative explanations for the compatibility effect in the visual search &amp;mdash; the conflict resolution in working memory or the inhibition of affordances hypothesis.&lt;/p&gt;