Syoichi Iwasaki

Do Happy Faces Capture Attention? The Happiness Superiority Effect in Attentional Blink

This study investigated the influence of positive affect on attentional blink (AB) with schematic faces. Results of Experiment 1 showed that the AB effect was smaller for both upright and inverted positive face icons than other face icons (neutral and angry faces) of corresponding orientations, confirming and extending the results of the earlier study by Mack, Pappas, Silverman, and Gay (2002). Results of Experiment 2 demonstrated that this attenuation of AB was unlikely to be attributable to attentional capture by the happy face. Perceptual saliency is suggested as a likely cause of the effect.

Contrast Sensitivity of Patients With Severe Motor and Intellectual Disabilities and Cerebral Visual Impairment

We attempt to evaluate the residual visual capacities of nine patients (seven males and two females; age range 4 to 35 years, mean 13.8 ± 9.98) with cerebral visual impairment coupled with severe motor and intellectual disabilities by their contrast sensitivities to sine-wave gratings. Two methods were used for detecting the occurrence of ocular responses to stimuli: (1) detection of optokinetic nystagmus to drifting sinusoidal gratings by naked-eye observation and electronystagmography and (2) detection of ocular pursuit for a drifting Gabor patch by naked-eye observation. We succeeded in measuring the sensitivities of eight cases. For the remaining one case, only the Gabor method could be applied. Most cases showed low contrast sensitivity in both higher (2 and 4 cycles/degree) and lower (0.125 and 0.25 cycles/degree) spatial frequencies and relatively high contrast sensitivity in the middle (0.5 and 1 cycle/degree) range of spatial frequencies. We conclude that the residual visual capacities of patients with severe motor and intellectual disabilities and cerebral visual impairment can be measured fairly accurately by these behavioral methods. (J Child Neurol 2002;17:731—737).

Visual function of a patient with advanced adrenoleukodystrophy: Comparison of luminance and color contrast sensitivities

We assessed achromatic luminance and isoluminant chromatic contrast sensitivity functions of a 20-year-old male. He showed severe motor and intellectual disabilities after advanced adrenoleukodystrophy, which started at the age of 7. Optokinetic nystagmus (OKN) to drifting gratings was used to assess his contrast sensitivities. Although the achromatic luminance contrast sensitivities were lower over the entire range of spatial frequencies tested than those of the healthy adults, they were preserved to the level comparable to healthy 7-year-old children, except for the frequency of 1 and 4 cycles/degree. In contrast, both of the red-green and blue chromatic contrast sensitivities were remarkably lower in all frequency range compare to healthy children and adults. These results indicate that it is possible for even an advanced case of ALD to show residual visual capacity that was preserved to a remarkable extent.

Yellow Glasses Improve Contrast Sensitivity of a Patient with a Visual Variant of Alzheimer’s Disease

Yellow Glasses Improve Contrast Sensitivity of a Patient with a Visual Variant of Alzheimer’s Disease Shinya Sakai a, Kazumi Hirayama a, Syoichi Iwasaki b, Toshikatsu Fujii a, Ryusaku Hashimoto a, Atsushi Yamadori a Division of a Neuropsychology, Department of Disability Medicine, Tohoku University Graduate School of Medicine, and bGraduate School of Information Sciences, Tohoku University, Sendai, Japan