Telephone conversation impairs sustained visual attention via a central bottleneck

Recent research has shown that holding telephone conversations disrupts one's driving ability. We asked whether this effect could be attributed to a visual attention impairment. In Experiment 1, participants conversed on a telephone or listened to a narrative while engaged in multiple object tracking (MOT), a task requiring sustained visual attention. We found that MOT was disrupted in the telephone conversation condition, relative to single-task MOT performance, but that listening to a narrative had no effect. In Experiment 2, we asked which component of conversation might be interfering with MOT performance. We replicated the conversation and single-task conditions of Experiment 1 and added two conditions in which participants heard a sequence of words over a telephone. In the shadowing condition, participants simply repeated each word in the sequence. In the generation condition, participants were asked to generate a new word based on each word in the sequence. Word generation interfered with MOT performance, but shadowing did not. The data indicate that telephone conversation disrupts attention at a central stage, the act of generating verbal stimuli, rather than at a peripheral stage, such as listening or speaking

Kairos: Transforming Waiting Time into Healing for Older Male Cancer Patients Through Textile Art Therapy Interventions

This research uncovers the potential benefits of textile interventions with older male cancer patients in waiting spaces, supporting clients through their trajectory of treatment. This theoretical inquiry asks the following questions: “How can art therapy enhance healing within a hospital setting for older men receiving cancer treatment?” and “How could textile-based art therapy interventions, such as knitting, be used during cancer treatment?” A review and synthesis of related literature found that older male cancer patients are at risk for loneliness and social isolation, yet are faced with many barriers to receive social programming. Textile interventions – and knitting specifically – are suggested as a means of increasing sense of inclusion, distracting from symptoms associated with cancer treatment, and providing an opportunity for creativity in clinical and other waiting spaces. The text builds a theoretical foundation from which new frameworks for treatment of this population could be developed

Photonic Three-Level Systems Within the Framework of Generalised Probabilistic Theories

If one seeks to test quantum theory not against a particular alternative but against many alternatives in a landscape of possibilities, it is crucial to be able to analyze experimental data in a theory-agnostic way. This can be achieved using the framework of Generalized Probabilistic Theories (GPTs). A GPT identifies the properties of a physical theory based entirely on what it predicts for the probabilities associated with the various outcomes of measurements in an experiment. The use of the GPT formalism allows one to avoid any biases towards quantum theory that typically arise in conventional practices. In this work, we provide an experimental characterization of a photonic three-level system within the framework of GPTs. First, we outline the relevant background information in quantum mechanics and experimental quantum optics. We then review the basics of the GPT framework and describe how to apply a particular tomographic scheme to our data that we use to characterize our experimental three-level system. This scheme achieves a GPT characterization of each of the preparations and measurements implemented in the experiment without requiring any prior characterization of either. Finally, we perform the experiment and analyze the data to obtain GPT characterizations of our experimentally realized state and effect vector spaces. Our experimental three-level system is encoded in a single photon shared among three modes which are distinguished by their polarization and spatial degrees of freedom. Our analysis identifies that the most likely dimension of the GPT vector space for the realized three-level system is 9, agreeing with the value predicted by quantum theory. We infer the scope of GPTs that are consistent with our experimental data and identify pairs of bounding polytopes of the state and effect spaces, whose shapes resemble those of the quantum mechanical state and effect spaces for a qutrit. From these spaces, we are able to place quantitative bounds on possible deviations from quantum theory. In particular, we bound the degree to which the no-restriction hypothesis might be violated for our three-level system

Shifting attention in viewer- and object-based reference frames after unilateral brain injury

The aims of the present study were to investigate the respective roles that object- and viewer-based reference frames play in reorienting visual attention, and to assess their influence after unilateral brain injury. To do so, we studied 16 right hemisphere injured (RHI) and 13 left hemisphere injured (LHI) patients. We used a cueing design that manipulates the location of cues and targets relative to a display comprised of two rectangles (i.e., objects). Unlike previous studies with patients, we presented all cues at midline rather than in the left or right visual fields. Thus, in the critical conditions in which targets were presented laterally, reorienting of attention was always from a midline cue. Performance was measured for lateralized target detection as a function of viewer-based (contra- and ipsilesional sides) and object-based (requiring reorienting within or between objects) reference frames. As expected, contralesional detection was slower than ipsilesional detection for the patients. More importantly, objects influenced target detection differently in the contralesional and ipsilesional fields. Contralesionally, reorienting to a target within the cued object took longer than reorienting to a target in the same location but in the uncued object. This finding is consistent with object-based neglect. Ipsilesionally, the means were in the opposite direction. Furthermore, no significant difference was found in object-based influences between the patient groups (RHI vs. LHI). These findings are discussed in the context of reference frames used in reorienting attention for target detection

Object integration requires attention: visual search for Kanizsa figures in parietal extinction

The contribution of selective attention to object integration is a topic of debate: integration of parts into coherent wholes, such as in Kanizsa figures, is thought to arise either from pre-attentive, automatic coding processes or from higher-order processes involving selective attention. Previous studies have attempted to examine the role of selective attention in object integration either by employing visual search paradigms or by studying patients with unilateral deficits in selective attention. Here, we combined these two approaches to investigate object integration in visual search in a group of five patients with left-sided parietal extinction. Our search paradigm was designed to assess the effect of left- and right-grouped nontargets on detecting a Kanizsa target square. The results revealed comparable reaction time (RT) performance in patients and controls when they were presented with displays consisting of a single to-be-grouped item that had to be classified as target vs. nontarget. However, when display size increased to two items, patients showed an extinction-specific pattern of enhanced RT costs for nontargets that induced a partial shape grouping on the right, i.e., in the attended hemifield (relative to the ungrouped baseline). Together, these findings demonstrate a competitive advantage for right-grouped objects, which in turn indicates that in parietal extinction, attentional competition between objects particularly limits integration processes in the contralesional, i.e., left hemifield. These findings imply a crucial contribution of selective attentional resources to visual object integration

Simultaneous shape repulsion and global assimilation in the perception of aspect ratio

Although local interactions involving orientation and spatial frequency are well understood, less is known about spatial interactions involving higher level pattern features. We examined interactive coding of aspect ratio, a prevalent twodimensional feature. We measured perception of two simultaneously flashed ellipses by randomly post-cueing one of them and having observers indicate its aspect ratio. Aspect ratios interacted in two ways. One manifested as an aspect-ratiorepulsion effect. For example, when a slightly tall ellipse and a taller ellipse were simultaneously flashed, the less tall ellipse appeared flatter and the taller ellipse appeared even taller. This repulsive interaction was long range, occurring even when the ellipses were presented in different visual hemifields. The other interaction manifested as a global assimilation effect. An ellipse appeared taller when it was a part of a global vertical organization than when it was a part of a global horizontal organization. The repulsion and assimilation effects temporally dissociated as the former slightly strengthened, and the latter disappeared when the ellipse-to-mask stimulus onset asynchrony was increased from 40 to 140 ms. These results are consistent with the idea that shape perception emerges from rapid lateral and hierarchical neural interactions

Visual speech differentially modulates beta, theta, and high gamma bands in auditory cortex

Speech perception is a central component of social communication. While principally an auditory process, accurate speech perception in everyday settings is supported by meaningful information extracted from visual cues (e.g., speech content, timing, and speaker identity). Previous research has shown that visual speech modulates activity in cortical areas subserving auditory speech perception, including the superior temporal gyrus (STG), potentially through feedback connections from the multisensory posterior superior temporal sulcus (pSTS). However, it is unknown whether visual modulation of auditory processing in the STG is a unitary phenomenon or, rather, consists of multiple temporally, spatially, or functionally distinct processes. To explore these questions, we examined neural responses to audiovisual speech measured from intracranially implanted electrodes within the temporal cortex of 21 patients undergoing clinical monitoring for epilepsy. We found that visual speech modulates auditory processes in the STG in multiple ways, eliciting temporally and spatially distinct patterns of activity that differ across theta, beta, and high-gamma frequency bands. Before speech onset, visual information increased high-gamma power in the posterior STG and suppressed beta power in mid-STG regions, suggesting crossmodal prediction of speech signals in these areas. After sound onset, visual speech decreased theta power in the middle and posterior STG, potentially reflecting a decrease in sustained feedforward auditory activity. These results are consistent with models that posit multiple distinct mechanisms supporting audiovisual speech perception and provide a crucial map for subsequent studies to identify the types of visual features that are encoded by these separate mechanisms.This study was supported by NIH Grant R00 DC013828 A. Beltz was supported by the Jacobs Foundation.http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/167729/1/OriginalManuscript.pdfDescription of OriginalManuscript.pdf : Preprint of the article "Multiple auditory responses to visual speech"SEL

On the Functional Significance of the P1 and N1 Effects to Illusory Figures in the Notch Mode of Presentation

The processing of Kanizsa figures have classically been studied by flashing the full “pacmen” inducers at stimulus onset. A recent study, however, has shown that it is advantageous to present illusory figures in the “notch” mode of presentation, that is by leaving the round inducers on screen at all times and by removing the inward-oriented notches delineating the illusory figure at stimulus onset. Indeed, using the notch mode of presentation, novel P1and N1 effects have been found when comparing visual potentials (VEPs) evoked by an illusory figure and the VEPs to a control figure whose onset corresponds to the removal of outward-oriented notches, which prevents their integration into one delineated form. In Experiment 1, we replicated these findings, the illusory figure was found to evoke a larger P1 and a smaller N1 than its control. In Experiment 2, real grey squares were placed over the notches so that one condition, that with inward-oriented notches, shows a large central grey square and the other condition, that with outward-oriented notches, shows four unconnected smaller grey squares. In response to these “real” figures, no P1 effect was found but a N1 effect comparable to the one obtained with illusory figures was observed. Taken together, these results suggest that the P1 effect observed with illusory figures is likely specific to the processing of the illusory features of the figures. Conversely, the fact that the N1 effect was also obtained with real figures indicates that this effect may be due to more global processes related to depth segmentation or surface/object perception