scholarly journals Neural correlates of experience with CCTV surveillance of naturalistic prosocial and antisocial interactions: a reverse correlation analysis

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Julia A. Gillard ◽  
Karin Petrini ◽  
Katie Noble ◽  
Jesus A. Rodriguez Perez ◽  
Frank E. Pollick

AbstractPrevious research using reverse correlation to explore the relationship between brain activity and presented image information found that Face Fusiform Area (FFA) activity could be related to the appearance of faces during free viewing of the Hollywood movie “The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly” (Hasson, et al, 2004). We applied this approach to the naturalistic viewing of unedited footage of city-centre closed-circuit television (CCTV) surveillance. Two 300 second videos were used, one containing prosocial activities and the other antisocial activities. Brain activity revealed through fMRI as well as eye movements were recorded while fifteen expert CCTV operators with a minimum of 6 months experience of CCTV surveillance alongside an age and gender matched control group of fifteen novice viewers were scanned while watching the videos. Independent scans functionally localized FFA and posterior Superior Temporal Sulcus (pSTS) activity using faces/houses and intact/scrambled point-light biological motion displays respectively. Reverse correlation revealed peaks in FFA and pSTS brain activity corresponding to the expert and novice eye movements directed towards faces and biological motion across both videos. In contrast, troughs in activation corresponded to camera-induced motion when a clear view of visual targets were temporarily not available. Our findings, validated by the eye movement data, indicate that the predicted modulation of brain activity occurs as a result of salient features of faces and biological motion embedded within the naturalistic stimuli. The examination of expertise revealed that in both pSTS and FFA the novices had significantly more activated timeframes than the experienced observers for the prosocial video. However, no difference was found for the antisocial video. The modulation of brain activity, as well as the effect of expertise gives a novel insight into the underlying visual processes in an applied real-life task.

Perception ◽  
1994 ◽  
Vol 23 (1) ◽  
pp. 45-64 ◽  
Author(s):  
Monica Biscaldi ◽  
Burkhart Fischer ◽  
Franz Aiple

Twenty-four children made saccades in five noncognitive tasks. Two standard tasks required saccades to a single target presented randomly 4 deg to the right or left of a fixation point. Three other tasks required sequential saccades from the left to the right. 75 parameters of the eye-movement data were collected for each child. On the basis of their reading, writing, and other cognitive performances, twelve children were considered dyslexic and were divided into two groups (D1 and D2). Group statistical comparisons revealed significant differences between control and dyslexic subjects. In general, in the standard tasks the dyslexic subjects had poorer fixation quality, failed more often to hit the target at once, had smaller primary saccades, and had shorter reaction times to the left as compared with the control group. The control group and group D1 dyslexics showed an asymmetrical distribution of reaction times, but in opposite directions. Group D2 dyslexics made more anticipatory and express saccades, they undershot the target more often in comparison with the control group, and almost never overshot it. In the sequential tasks group D1 subjects made fewer and larger saccades in a shorter time and group D2 subjects had shorter fixation durations than the subjects of the control group.


2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Sylvie Bernaerts ◽  
Bart Boets ◽  
Jean Steyaert ◽  
Nicole Wenderoth ◽  
Kaat Alaerts

Abstract Intranasal administration of the neuropeptide oxytocin (IN-OT) is increasingly considered as a potential treatment for targeting the core symptoms of autism spectrum disorder (ASD), but the effects of continual use on neural substrates are fairly unexplored and long-term effects are unknown. In this double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled study, we investigated the effects of single-dose and multiple-dose IN-OT treatment (4 weeks of daily (24 IU) administrations) on brain activity related to processing emotional states. Thirty-eight adult men with ASD (aged between 18 and 35 years) underwent functional magnetic resonance imaging of the posterior superior temporal gyrus (pSTS) and amygdala regions while processing emotional states from point-light biological motion. In line with prior research, a single dose of IN-OT induced a reliable increase in pSTS brain activity during the processing of point-light biological motion, but no consistent long-term changes in pSTS activity were induced after the multiple-dose treatment. In terms of bilateral amygdala, the multiple-dose treatment induced a consistent attenuation in brain activity, which outlasted the period of actual administrations until four weeks and one year post-treatment. Critically, participants with stronger attenuations in amygdala-activity showed greater behavioral improvements, particularly in terms of self-reported feelings of avoidant attachment and social functioning. Together, these observations provide initial insights into the long-lasting neural consequences of chronic IN-OT use on amygdala functioning and provide first indications that the acute versus chronic effects of IN-OT administration may be qualitatively different. Larger studies are however warranted to further elucidate the long-term impact of IN-OT treatment on human neural substrates and its behavioral consequences.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Souto ◽  
Kyle Nacilla ◽  
Mateusz Bocian

Smooth pursuit eye movements can anticipate predictable movement patterns, thus achieving their goal of reducing retinal motion blur. Oculomotor predictions have been thought to rely on an internal model of the target kinematics. Since biological motion is one of the most important visual stimuli in regulating human interaction, we asked whether there is a specific contribution of an internal model of biological motion in driving pursuit eye movements. Unlike previous contributions, we exploited the cyclical nature of walking to measure eye movement’s ability to track the velocity oscillations of the hip of point-light walkers. We quantified the quality of tracking by cross-correlating pursuit and hip velocity oscillations. We found a robust correlation between signals, even along the horizontal dimension, where changes in velocity during the stepping cycle are very subtle. The inversion of the walker and the presentation of the hip-dot without context incurred the same additional phase lag along the horizontal dimension, whereas a scrambled walker incurred no phase lag relative to the upright walker. Those findings support the view that local information beyond the hip-dot, but not necessarily configural information, contribute to predicting the hip kinematics that control pursuit. We also found a smaller phase lag in inverted walkers for pursuit along the vertical dimension compared to upright and scrambled walkers, indicating that inversion does not simply reduce prediction. We show that pursuit eye movements provide an implicit and robust measure of the processing of biological motion signals.


2010 ◽  
Vol 3 (9) ◽  
pp. 81-81
Author(s):  
E. D Grossman ◽  
C.-Y. Kim ◽  
R. Blake

2019 ◽  
Vol 24 (4) ◽  
pp. 297-311
Author(s):  
José David Moreno ◽  
José A. León ◽  
Lorena A. M. Arnal ◽  
Juan Botella

Abstract. We report the results of a meta-analysis of 22 experiments comparing the eye movement data obtained from young ( Mage = 21 years) and old ( Mage = 73 years) readers. The data included six eye movement measures (mean gaze duration, mean fixation duration, total sentence reading time, mean number of fixations, mean number of regressions, and mean length of progressive saccade eye movements). Estimates were obtained of the typified mean difference, d, between the age groups in all six measures. The results showed positive combined effect size estimates in favor of the young adult group (between 0.54 and 3.66 in all measures), although the difference for the mean number of fixations was not significant. Young adults make in a systematic way, shorter gazes, fewer regressions, and shorter saccadic movements during reading than older adults, and they also read faster. The meta-analysis results confirm statistically the most common patterns observed in previous research; therefore, eye movements seem to be a useful tool to measure behavioral changes due to the aging process. Moreover, these results do not allow us to discard either of the two main hypotheses assessed for explaining the observed aging effects, namely neural degenerative problems and the adoption of compensatory strategies.


Author(s):  
Toby J. Lloyd-Jones ◽  
Juergen Gehrke ◽  
Jason Lauder

We assessed the importance of outline contour and individual features in mediating the recognition of animals by examining response times and eye movements in an animal-object decision task (i.e., deciding whether or not an object was an animal that may be encountered in real life). There were shorter latencies for animals as compared with nonanimals and performance was similar for shaded line drawings and silhouettes, suggesting that important information for recognition lies in the outline contour. The most salient information in the outline contour was around the head, followed by the lower torso and leg regions. We also observed effects of object orientation and argue that the usefulness of the head and lower torso/leg regions is consistent with a role for the object axis in recognition.


2013 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 76
Author(s):  
Mathew Stone

A Review of: Gardois, P., Calabrese, R., Colombi, N., Lingua, C., Longo, F., Villanacci, M., Miniero, R., & Piga, A. (2011). Effectiveness of bibliographic searches performed by paediatric residents and interns assisted by librarian. A randomised controlled trial. Health Information and Libraries Journal, 28(4), 273-284. doi: 10.1111/j.1471-1842.2011.00957.x Objective – To establish whether the assistance of an experienced biomedical librarian delivers an improvement in the searching of bibliographic databases as performed by medical residents and interns. Design – Randomized controlled trial. Setting – The pediatrics department of a large Italian teaching hospital. Subjects – 18 pediatric residents and interns. Methods – 23 residents and interns from the pediatrics department of a large Italian teaching hospital were invited to participate in this study, of which 18 agreed. Subjects were then randomized into two groups and asked to spend between 30 and 90 minutes searching bibliographic databases for evidence to answer a real-life clinical question which was randomly allocated to them. Each member of the intervention group was provided with an experienced biomedical librarian to provide assistance throughout the search session. The control group received no assistance. The outcome of the search was then measured using an assessment tool adapted for the purpose of this study from the Fresno test of competence in evidence based medicine. This adapted assessment tool rated the “global success” of the search and included criteria such as appropriate question formulation, number of PICO terms translated into search terms, use of Boolean logic, use of subject headings, use of filters, use of limits, and the percentage of citations retrieved that matched a gold standard set of citations found in a prior search by two librarians (who were not involved in assisting the subjects) together with an expert clinician. Main Results – The intervention group scored a median average of 73.6 points out of a possible 100, compared with the control group which scored 50.4. The difference of 23.2 points in favour of the librarian assisted group was a statistically significant result (p value = 0.013) with a 95% confidence interval of between 4.8 and 33.2. Conclusion – This study presents credible evidence that assistance provided by an experienced biomedical librarian improves the quality of the bibliographic database searches performed by residents and interns using real-life clinical scenarios.


2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Meir Meshulam ◽  
Liat Hasenfratz ◽  
Hanna Hillman ◽  
Yun-Fei Liu ◽  
Mai Nguyen ◽  
...  

AbstractDespite major advances in measuring human brain activity during and after educational experiences, it is unclear how learners internalize new content, especially in real-life and online settings. In this work, we introduce a neural approach to predicting and assessing learning outcomes in a real-life setting. Our approach hinges on the idea that successful learning involves forming the right set of neural representations, which are captured in canonical activity patterns shared across individuals. Specifically, we hypothesized that learning is mirrored in neural alignment: the degree to which an individual learner’s neural representations match those of experts, as well as those of other learners. We tested this hypothesis in a longitudinal functional MRI study that regularly scanned college students enrolled in an introduction to computer science course. We additionally scanned graduate student experts in computer science. We show that alignment among students successfully predicts overall performance in a final exam. Furthermore, within individual students, we find better learning outcomes for concepts that evoke better alignment with experts and with other students, revealing neural patterns associated with specific learned concepts in individuals.


2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jessica McFadyen ◽  
Christopher Nolan ◽  
Ellen Pinocy ◽  
David Buteri ◽  
Oliver Baumann

Abstract Background The ‘doorway effect’, or ‘location updating effect’, claims that we tend to forget items of recent significance immediately after crossing a boundary. Previous research suggests that such a forgetting effect occurs both at physical boundaries (e.g., moving from one room to another via a door) and metaphysical boundaries (e.g., imagining traversing a doorway, or even when moving from one desktop window to another on a computer). Here, we aimed to conceptually replicate this effect using virtual and physical environments. Methods Across four experiments, we measured participants’ hit and false alarm rates to memory probes for items recently encountered either in the same or previous room. Experiments 1 and 2 used highly immersive virtual reality without and with working memory load (Experiments 1 and 2, respectively). Experiment 3 used passive video watching and Experiment 4 used active real-life movement. Data analysis was conducted using frequentist as well as Bayesian inference statistics. Results Across this series of experiments, we observed no significant effect of doorways on forgetting. In Experiment 2, however, signal detection was impaired when participants responded to probes after moving through doorways, such that false alarm rates were increased for mismatched recognition probes. Thus, under working memory load, memory was more susceptible to interference after moving through doorways. Conclusions This study presents evidence that is inconsistent with the location updating effect as it has previously been reported. Our findings call into question the generalisability and robustness of this effect to slight paradigm alterations and, indeed, what factors contributed to the effect observed in previous studies.


Sensors ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 21 (4) ◽  
pp. 1394
Author(s):  
Asad Ali ◽  
Sanaul Hoque ◽  
Farzin Deravi

Presentation attack artefacts can be used to subvert the operation of biometric systems by being presented to the sensors of such systems. In this work, we propose the use of visual stimuli with randomised trajectories to stimulate eye movements for the detection of such spoofing attacks. The presentation of a moving visual challenge is used to ensure that some pupillary motion is stimulated and then captured with a camera. Various types of challenge trajectories are explored on different planar geometries representing prospective devices where the challenge could be presented to users. To evaluate the system, photo, 2D mask and 3D mask attack artefacts were used and pupillary movement data were captured from 80 volunteers performing genuine and spoofing attempts. The results support the potential of the proposed features for the detection of biometric presentation attacks.


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