Deborah Goren

Selective preference in visual fixation away from negative images in old age? An eye-tracking study.

Recent studies have suggested that older individuals selectively forget negative information. However, findings on a positivity effect in the attention of older adults have been more mixed. In the current study, eye tracking was used to record visual fixation in nearly real-time to investigate whether older individuals show a positivity effect in their visual attention to emotional information. Young and old individuals (N = 64) viewed pairs of synthetic faces that included the same face in a nonemotional expression and in 1 of 4 emotional expressions (happiness, sadness, anger, or fear). Gaze patterns were recorded as individuals viewed the face pairs. Older adults showed an attentional preference toward happy faces and away from angry ones; the only preference shown by young adults was toward afraid faces. The age groups were not different in overall cognitive functioning, suggesting that these attentional differences are specific and motivated rather than due to general cognitive change with age.

Looking While Unhappy Mood-Congruent Gaze in Young Adults, Positive Gaze in Older Adults

Recent findings that older adults gaze toward positively valenced stimuli and away from negatively valenced stimuli have been interpreted as part of their attempts to achieve the goal of feeling good. However, the idea that older adults use gaze to regulate mood, and that their gaze does not simply reflect mood, stands in contrast to evidence of mood-congruent processing in young adults. No previous study has directly linked age-related positive gaze preferences to mood regulation. In this eye-tracking study, older and younger adults in a range of moods viewed synthetic face pairs varying in valence. Younger adults demonstrated mood-congruent gaze, looking more at positive faces when in a good mood and at negative faces when in a bad mood. Older adults displayed mood-incongruent positive gaze, looking toward positive and away from negative faces when in a bad mood. This finding suggests that in older adults, gaze does not reflect mood, but rather is used to regulate it.

Quantifying facial expression recognition across viewing conditions.

Facial expressions are key to social interactions and to assessment of potential danger in various situations. Therefore, our brains must be able to recognize facial expressions when they are transformed in biologically plausible ways. We used synthetic happy, sad, angry and fearful faces to determine the amount of geometric change required to recognize these emotions during brief presentations. Five-alternative forced choice conditions involving central viewing, peripheral viewing and inversion were used to study recognition among the four emotions. Two-alternative forced choice was used to study affect discrimination when spatial frequency information in the stimulus was modified. The results show an emotion and task-dependent pattern of detection. Facial expressions presented with low peak frequencies are much harder to discriminate from neutral than faces defined by either mid or high peak frequencies. Peripheral presentation of faces also makes recognition much more difficult, except for happy faces. Differences between fearful detection and recognition tasks are probably due to common confusions with sadness when recognizing fear from among other emotions. These findings further support the idea that these emotions are processed separately from each other.

Configural masking of faces: Evidence for high-level interactions in face perception

The perception of a stimulus can be impaired when presented in the context of a masking pattern. To determine the timing and the nature of face processing, the effect of various masks on the discriminability of faces was investigated. Results reveal a strong configural effect: the magnitude of masking depends on the similarity between mask and target. Masking is absent for non-face masks (noise, houses), modest for scrambled and inverted faces and strongest for upright faces, even when they differ in size, gender or viewpoint from the targets. This suggests an extra-striate location for the masking (possibly FFA). Reduced but significant masking for isolated face parts (internal features or head shape) is consistent with holistic computations in face perception. The duration over which a face mask can impair face discrimination (130 ms) is markedly longer than previously assumed and is sufficient for iterative and feedback computations to be part of face processing.

Age-related positivity enhancement is not universal: older Chinese look away from positive stimuli.

Socioemotional selectivity theory postulates that with age, people are motivated to derive emotional meaning from life, leading them to pay more attention to positive relative to negative/neutral stimuli. The authors argue that cultures that differ in what they consider to be emotionally meaningful may show this preference to different extents. Using eye-tracking techniques, the authors compared visual attention toward emotional (happy, fearful, sad, and angry) and neutral facial expressions among 46 younger and 57 older Hong Kong Chinese. In contrast to prior Western findings, older but not younger Chinese looked away from happy facial expressions, suggesting that they do not show attentional preferences toward positive stimuli.

Is flicker-defined form (FDF) dependent on the contour?

Flicker-defined form (FDF) is a temporally driven illusion within which randomly positioned background elements are flickered in counterphase to stimulus elements, creating the illusion of a contour in the region between the background and the stimulus dots. It has been proposed that FDF is dependent on the boundary region between the counterphase flickering dots. Is the stimulus area or the illusory contour itself (region between stimulus and background) paramount to the FDF percept? Circular stimuli were compared to ring stimuli to determine the relative importance of area and contour. The rings were tested in the following configurations: constant maximum diameter/variable area; constant area/variable contour; and constant contour/variable area. For rings with constant diameter, no effect of ring thickness was found. No effect of contour was found for rings of a constant area. For rings of constant contour, the smaller the area the greater the threshold. These results suggest a greater dependence on the area of a stimulus rather than its contour. Area dependence suggests that the theory of contour dependence by a fast extraction system is unlikely. This temporally defined magnocellular-dependent illusion is influenced by slow surface perception mechanisms of the parvocellular system.

Selective Preference in Visual Fixation Away From Negative Images in Old Age? An Eye-Tracking Study: Correction.

Recent studies have suggested that older individuals selectively forget negative information. However, findings on a positivity effect in the attention of older adults have been more mixed. In the current study, eye tracking was used to record visual fixation in nearly real-time to investigate whether older individuals show a positivity effect in their visual attention to emotional information. Young and old individuals (N = 64) viewed pairs of synthetic faces that included the same face in a nonemotional expression and in 1 of 4 emotional expressions (happiness, sadness, anger, or fear). Gaze patterns were recorded as individuals viewed the face pairs. Older adults showed an attentional preference toward happy faces and away from angry ones; the only preference shown by young adults was toward afraid faces. The age groups were not different in overall cognitive functioning, suggesting that these attentional differences are specific and motivated rather than due to general cognitive change with age.

Correlating perimetric indices with three nerve fiber layer thickness measures.

Purpose To determine which of three estimates of retinal nerve fiber layer thickness (RNFLT) correlate best with visual field sensitivity measured using standard automated perimetry (SAP). Methods Data were collected from 400 eyes of 209 participants enrolled in the Portland Progression Project. These individuals ranged from high-risk suspects to having non–end-stage glaucoma. In each eye, three measures of average RNFLT (spectral domain optical coherence tomography [SDOCT], scanning laser polarimetry [SLP], confocal scanning laser tomography [CSLT]) and SAP (Humphrey HFAII) were performed on the same day. Mean deviation (MD), mean sensitivity (MS), and pattern standard deviation (PSD) were linearized using the equations MDLin = 10(MD*0.1), MSLin = 10(MS*0.1), and PSDLin = 10(PSD*−0.1). Correlations between each of the estimates of RNFLT and each of the functional metrics were calculated (nine total). Pearson correlations and generalized estimating equations (GEE) were used to calculate the strength and significance of the correlations. Results Linearized MS had the strongest correlation with SDOCT (r = 0.57), intermediate with SLP (r = 0.40), and weakest with CSLT (r = 0.13). When multiple RNFLT measures were included in a GEE model to predict MSLin, SDOCT was consistently predictive (p < 0.001) whereas CSLT was never predictive in these multivariate models. Similar findings were observed for MDLin and PSDLin. Conclusions Average RNFLT estimated from SDOCT predicts SAP status significantly better than average RNFLT estimated from SLP or CSLT.