Piotr Francuz

Determinants of attentive blank stares. An EFRP study.

Attentive blank stares mean a failure to notice changes in a visual scene, despite looking at the area of change (Caplovitz, Fendrich, & Hughes, 2008). In this research project we have shown that people differ in terms of attentive blank stare incidences. Novices tend to fail to notice changes in the target area more often than experts. This effect is greater in persons with low visual working memory capacity (VWMC) than with high VWMC. In addition, in a group of novices with low VWMC, attentive blank stares are more frequent compared to a group with high VWMC. Attentive blank stares did not disappear even after the high VWMC group were given expertise training. With the method of eye-fixation-related potentials (EFRP) we analyzed the amplitude of lambda response, which may reflect the state of the attentional system, during encoding information about a change, prior to a decision whether a change has occurred or not. We demonstrate that the cases of attentive blank stares are accompanied by significantly lower amplitude of the lambda response compared with cases involving change detection. In addition, we discovered greater lambda responses in a group with expertise who noticed the change than in novices. The EFRP record coming from occipital electrodes in the 80-180ms window function was marked by left-sided asymmetry in the cases of change detection and by right-sided asymmetry in the cases of attentive blank stares.

Does the Brain Differentiate Between Related and Unrelated Cuts When Processing Audiovisual Messages? An ERP Study

The purpose of this study is to test the hypothesis that during audiovisual message processing (e.g., television or film), cuts in the video track cause an orienting response, which is reflected in the involuntary shift of attention. In classic research by Reeves et al. (1985), changes in the alpha band were noticed in reaction to montage cuts. We propose an investigation of the brains reaction to montage cuts by means of event-related potentials (ERPs), which are the brains electrophysiological responses to a stimulus. Well-known indices of orienting response are two ERP components: P3 and slow cortical potential (SCP). Ten participants watched a film consisting of 105 related and 114 unrelated cuts while an electroencephalographic signal was recorded. The hypothesis that unrelated cuts in the video track when watching an audiovisual message cause more pronounced SCP was confirmed. There was no effect of unrelated cuts on P3. The results of this study provide a good starting point for further research on brain reactions to the structural features of an audiovisual message, such as close ups or camera moves.

The Impact of Audio Information Intonation on Understanding Television News Content

The Impact of Audio Information Intonation on Understanding Television News Content The goal of the research presented in this article is to verify the hypothesis that television viewers have difficulties understanding news content due to inappropriate prosodic articulation used by reporters reading the news. News texts are often read with excessive rhetorical accent and omitting logical accents. Sometimes even the prosodic rules of text segmentation are broken as well. Understanding of news is analyzed in the areas of: (1) appropriately applying words, (2) receiving important, detailed information, (3) synthesis of news content and (4) cause-effect inference. It was found that inappropriate intonation of read news text results in television viewers: (1) being unable to correctly understand the words in accordance with the context of the news content, (2) not remembering the most important details of the news and (3) having problems with pointing out the real causes of events discussed in the news. In addition, it appears that reading of the text by reporters in logical accents and in accordance with the norms of Polish language prosody does not negatively influence the evaluation of news in terms of attractiveness, usefulness and objectivity.

Short-Term Kinesthetic Training for Sensorimotor Rhythms: Effects in Experts and Amateurs

ABSTRACT The authors’ aim was to examine whether short-term kinesthetic training affects the level of sensorimotor rhythm (SMR) in different frequency band: alpha (8–12 Hz), lower beta (12.5–16 Hz) and beta (16.5–20 Hz) during the execution of a motor imagery task of closing and opening the right and the left hand by experts (jugglers, practicing similar exercises on an everyday basis) and amateurs (individuals not practicing any sports). It was found that the performance of short kinesthetic training increases the power of alpha rhythm when executing imagery tasks only in the group of amateurs. Therefore, kinesthetic training may be successfully used as a method increasing the vividness of motor imagery, for example, in tasks involving the control of brain–computer interfaces based on SMR.

Event-Related Potential Correlates of Attention to Mediated Message Processing

The aim of this article is to find neural correlates of attention allocated to processing mediated messages. Event-related potentials (ERPs) for auditory distractors were recorded while subjects were engaged in watching a movie telling a short story (audio-video condition) or listening to a radio program describing the same events (audio condition). The amplitudes of the N1 and P3a components for distractors were larger in the audio than in the audio-video condition. The results indicate a stronger orienting response to auditory distractors when listening to the radio than when listening to and watching television. It confirmed predictions of the limited capacity model of motivated mediated message processing (LC4MP), which assumes that the less complex the encoded message, the more attentional resources are left for additional tasks. The largest amplitude of the P3a was observed during the first stage of encoding the message compared to the next stages. P3a amplitude to repeated auditory distractors seems to be a strong indicator of habituation. Results are discussed in the context of LC4MP and perceptual load theory of attention.

Eye Movement Correlates of Expertise in Visual Arts

The aim of this study was to search for oculomotor correlates of expertise in visual arts, in particular with regard to paintings. Achieving this goal was possible by gathering data on eye movements of two groups of participants: experts and non-experts in visual arts who viewed and appreciated the aesthetics of paintings. In particular, we were interested in whether visual arts experts more accurately recognize a balanced composition in one of the two paintings being compared simultaneously, and whether people who correctly recognize harmonious paintings are characterized by a different visual scanning strategy than those who do not recognize them. For the purposes of this study, 25 paintings with an almost ideal balanced composition have been chosen. Some of these paintings are masterpieces of the world cultural heritage, and some of them are unknown. Using Photoshop, the artist developed three additional versions of each of these paintings, differing from the original in the degree of destruction of its harmonious composition: slight, moderate, or significant. The task of the participants was to look at all versions of the same painting in pairs (including the original) and decide which of them looked more pleasing. The study involved 23 experts in art, students of art history, art education or the Academy of Fine Arts, and 19 non-experts, students in the social sciences and the humanities. The experimental manipulation of comparing pairs of paintings, whose composition is at different levels of harmony, has proved to be an effective tool for differentiating people because of their ability to distinguish paintings with balanced composition from an unbalanced one. It turned out that this ability only partly coincides with expertise understood as the effect of education in the field of visual arts. We also found that the eye movements of people who more accurately appreciated paintings with balanced composition differ from those who more liked their altered versions due to dwell time, first and average fixation duration and number of fixations. The familiarity of paintings turned out to be the factor significantly affects both the aesthetic evaluation of paintings and eye movement.

Selection of EEG signal features for ERD/ERS classification using genetic algorithms

The article presents the use of genetic algorithm (GA) to select and classify ERD/ERS patterns. One hundred twenty eight channel EEG signal was used in the experiments. The signal was recorded for 40 people, during the process of imagining right and left hand movements. Feature extraction was performed using frequency analysis (FFT) with the resolution of 1Hz. So the features were spectral lines associated with particular electrodes. The selection of features, calculated for all people, was made with GA. The fitness function used in GA was EEG signal classification error calculated using LDA classifier and 5-CV test. The average accuracy of the classification for all people in 8–30Hz band was 0.85, while for the top 10 results 0.92.

Brain activation in teenagers with isolated spelling disorder during tasks involving spelling assessment and comparison of pseudowords. fMRI study

METHODS The present study aimed at defining the specific traits of brain activation in teenagers with isolated spelling disorder in comparison with good spellers. fMRI examination was performed where the subjects task involved taking a decision 1/whether the visually presented words were spelled correctly or not (the orthographic decision task), and 2/whether the two presented letters strings (pseudowords) were identical or not (the visual decision task). Half of the displays showing meaningful words with an orthographic difficulty contained pairs with both words spelled correctly, and half of them contained one misspelled word. Half of the pseudowords were identical, half of them were not. The participants of the study included 15 individuals with isolated spelling disorder and 14 good spellers, aged 13-15. RESULTS The results demonstrated that the essential differences in brain activation between teenagers with isolated spelling disorder and good spellers were found in the left inferior frontal gyrus, left medial frontal gyrus and right cerebellum posterior lobe, i.e. structures important for language processes, working memory and automaticity of behaviour. CONCLUSION Spelling disorder is not only an effect of language dysfunction, it could be a symptom of difficulties in learning and automaticity of motor and visual shapes of written words, rapid information processing as well as automating use of orthographic lexicon.

Do university students really have difficulty in duration judgments? Comment on Okazaki and Matsuda (2008, 2010).

Reinterpretation suggests that low performance of the participants studied by Okazaki and Matsuda (2008, 2010) may have been caused by using a procedure which overloads the cognitive capacities of undergraduate students. The questions asked participants about their reasoning could have led to cognitive overload because they performed two tasks: judgment of movement duration and paying attention to what kind of knowledge should be used (α or β). Some interpretations are offered referring to possible effects of training procedures for applying both kinds of knowledge.

Selective Attention and Working Memory Under Spatial Disorientation in a Flight Simulator

ABSTRACT Objective: The aim of this study was to test the effects of visual and vestibular spatial disorientation on the cognitive performance of military aviators while they were piloting a flight simulator. Background: Spatial disorientation (SD), the inability to correctly determine the position and orientation of the aircraft in relation to the ground, poses a serious threat in aviation and can impair the cognitive performance of pilots while flying. More evidence is needed on the effects of visual and vestibular SD on cognition in flight simulators. Method: Pilots performed an auditory selective attention (duration discrimination) task (Experiment 1, N = 16) or an auditory working memory (N-back) task (Experiment 2, N = 16) while completing 6 different flight profiles in the disorientation and control conditions in the GYRO-IPT flight simulator. The flight scenarios included 3 visual illusions (false horizon, shape constancy, size constancy) and 3 vestibular illusions (somatogyral illusion, Coriolis effect, the leans). Results: In both experiments the cognitive performance (task accuracy) decreased for flight profiles with the leans illusion. Also, the flight performance (measured as the number of control reversal errors) was worse for the false horizon illusion and for the somatogyral illusion in both experiments. Conclusion: The results suggest that SD, particularly the vestibular illusion of the leans, can impair selective attention and working memory processes.