Which way is down? Visual and tactile verticality perception in expert dancers and non-experts

Gravity provides an absolute verticality reference for all spatial perception, allowing us to move within and interact effectively with our world. Bayesian inference models explain verticality perception as a combination of online sensory cues with a prior prediction that the head is usually upright. Until now, these Bayesian models have been formulated for judgements of the perceived orientation of visual stimuli. Here, we investigated whether judgements of the verticality of tactile stimuli follow a similar pattern of Bayesian perceptual inference. We also explored whether verticality perception is affected by the postural and balance expertise of dancers. We tested both the subjective visual vertical (SVV) and the subjective tactile vertical (STV) in ballet dancers and non-dancers. A robotic arm traced downward-moving visual or tactile stimuli in separate blocks while participants held their head either upright or tilted 30° to their right. Participants reported whether these stimuli deviated to the left (clockwise) or right (anti-clockwise) of the gravitational vertical. Tilting the head biased the SVV away from the longitudinal head axis (the classical E-effect), consistent with a failure to compensate for the vestibulo-ocular counter-roll reflex. On the contrary, tilting the head biased the STV toward the longitudinal head axis (the classical A-effect), consistent with a strong upright head prior. Critically, tilting the head reduced the precision of verticality perception, particularly for ballet dancers' STV judgements. Head tilt is thought to increase vestibular noise, so ballet dancers seem to be surprisingly susceptible to degradation of vestibular inputs, giving them an inappropriately high weighting in verticality judgements.

An exploration of the use of visually appealing contexts in a pain management program

PURPOSE

Pleasant pictures can help to reduce stress, promote positive feelings, and even facilitate recovery from diseases. Visual stimulation is an approach of distraction that can effectively reduce pain thresholds and increase pain tolerances. The number of older adults who suffer from pain has increased due to age-related diseases. Technology is increasingly being applied to the management of acute pain. The pain situation among older people was explored in this study, and a visually appealing pain management program was designed with the participants' experiences in mind.

METHODS

This was a descriptive observational study. Participants were recruited from local nursing homes.

RESULTS

A total of 165 older adults joined the study. The mean age of the participants was 85.6. More female than male participants experienced pain and the intensity of their pain was significantly greater. The results showed no significant differences in pain interferences between males and females. The participants stated that photographs of family members, homes, and natural scenery made them feel relaxed and happy, and reminded them of past happy times. They preferred to view those visually appealing pictures using digital devices (iPad/iPhone) to seeing hard copy versions.

CONCLUSION

A digital-based pain management program using visually appealing contexts for older adults can be implemented. The patients' experiences were collected and will be considered when developing a future program.

Selective attention to sound features mediates cross-modal activation of visual cortices

Contemporary schemas of brain organization now include multisensory processes both in low-level cortices as well as at early stages of stimulus processing. Evidence has also accumulated showing that unisensory stimulus processing can result in cross-modal effects. For example, task-irrelevant and lateralised sounds can activate visual cortices; a phenomenon referred to as the auditory-evoked contralateral occipital positivity (ACOP). Some claim this is an example of automatic attentional capture in visual cortices. Other results, however, indicate that context may play a determinant role. Here, we investigated whether selective attention to spatial features of sounds is a determining factor in eliciting the ACOP. We recorded high-density auditory evoked potentials (AEPs) while participants selectively attended and discriminated sounds according to four possible stimulus attributes: location, pitch, speaker identity or syllable. Sound acoustics were held constant, and their location was always equiprobable (50% left, 50% right). The only manipulation was to which sound dimension participants attended. We analysed the AEP data from healthy participants within an electrical neuroimaging framework. The presence of sound-elicited activations of visual cortices depended on the to-be-discriminated, goal-based dimension. The ACOP was elicited only when participants were required to discriminate sound location, but not when they attended to any of the non-spatial features. These results provide a further indication that the ACOP is not automatic. Moreover, our findings showcase the interplay between task-relevance and spatial (un)predictability in determining the presence of the cross-modal activation of visual cortices.

Differential neural processing of spontaneous blinking under visual and auditory sensory environments: An EEG investigation of blink-related oscillations

Blink-related oscillations (BROs) are a recently discovered neurophysiological response associated with spontaneous blinking, distinct from the well-known oculomotor and visual suppression effects. BROs strongly activate the bilateral precuneus along with other cortical regions involved in visuospatial processing and associative episodic memory, and are believed to represent environmental monitoring processes that occur following blink-induced visual interruptions. Although these responses have been reported across multiple imaging modalities under both resting and cognitive loading conditions, it is yet unknown whether these responses also exist under external sensory stimulation conditions. To address this, we investigated BRO responses in healthy adults using 64-channel electroencephalography (EEG), while participants underwent passive external auditory and visual stimulation. Our results showed that BRO responses are present under both auditory and visual stimulation conditions (p ​< ​0.05), with similar temporal and spectral features compared to rest. However, visual stimulation did result in decreased BRO amplitude compared to auditory and resting conditions (p ​< ​0.05), suggesting decreased neuronal resources for processing blink-related information in the visual but not auditory environment. There were also additional pre-blink spectral changes in the visual condition compared to rest (p ​< ​0.05), which suggest that passive visual stimulation induces neural preparatory processes occurring in anticipation of the upcoming blink event. Together, these findings provide new and compelling evidence that blink-related neural processes are modulated not only by the internal cognitive loading due to simultaneous task demands, but also by competing external sensory requirements. This highlights the link between blinking and cognition, and further demonstrates the importance of BROs as a new window into brain function.

Commercialisation and commodification of breastfeeding: video diaries by first-time mothers

BACKGROUND

Many of aspects of our lives became increasingly commercialised in post-modern society. Although breastfeeding is perhaps a late comer to this process in recent years, it too has seen significant commercialisation facilitated by social media and our obsession with celebrity culture. This paper explores how the commercialisation and commodification of breastfeeding impacts mothers' experiences of breastfeeding.

METHODS

In a qualitative study, five mothers in the United Kingdom recorded their real-time breastfeeding experiences in video diaries. Using a multi-modal method of analysis, incorporating both visual and audio data, a thematic approach was applied.

FINDINGS

Women preparing for breastfeeding are exposed to increasing commercialisation. When things do not go to plan, women are even more exposed to commercial solutions. The impact of online marketing strategies fuelled their need for paraphernalia so that their dependence on such items became important aspects of their parenting and breastfeeding experiences.

CONCLUSIONS

The audio-visual data demonstrated the extent to which "essential" paraphernalia was used, offering new insights into how advertising influenced mothers' need for specialist equipment and services. Observing mothers in their video diaries, provided valuable insights into their parenting styles and how this affected their breastfeeding experience.

Optical coherence tomography of the retina in schizophrenia: Inter-device agreement and relations with perceptual function

BACKGROUND

Optical coherence tomography (OCT) studies have demonstrated differences between people with schizophrenia and controls. Many questions remain including the agreement between scanners. The current study seeks to determine inter-device agreement of OCT data in schizophrenia compared to controls and to explore the relations between OCT and visual function measures.

METHODS

Participants in this pilot study were 12 individuals with schizophrenia spectrum disorders and 12 age- and sex-matched controls. Spectralis and Cirrus OCT machines were used to obtain retinal nerve fiber layer (RNFL) thickness and macular volume. Cirrus was used to obtain ganglion cell layer + inner plexiform layer (GCL + IPL) thickness. Visual function was assessed with low-contrast visual acuity and the King-Devick test of rapid number naming.

RESULTS

There was excellent relative agreement in OCT measurements between the two machines, but poor absolute agreement, for both patients and controls. On both machines, people with schizophrenia showed decreased macular volume but no difference in RNFL thickness compared to controls. No between-group difference in GCL + IPL thickness was found on Cirrus. Controls showed significant associations between King-Devick performance and RNFL thickness and macular volume, and between low-contrast visual acuity and GCL + IPL thickness. Patients did not show significant associations between OCT measurements and visual function.

CONCLUSIONS

Good relative agreement suggests that the offset between machines remains constant and should not affect comparisons between groups. Decreased macular volume in individuals with schizophrenia on both machines supports findings of prior studies and provides further evidence that similar results may be found irrespective of OCT device.

Temporal representation impairment in developmental dyslexia for unisensory and multisensory stimuli

Dyslexia has been associated with a problem in visual-audio integration mechanisms. Here, we investigate for the first time the contribution of unisensory cues on multisensory audio and visual integration in 32 dyslexic children by modelling results using the Bayesian approach. Non-linguistic stimuli were used. Children performed a temporal task: they had to report whether the middle of three stimuli was closer in time to the first one or to the last one presented. Children with dyslexia, compared with typical children, exhibited poorer unimodal thresholds, requiring greater temporal distance between items for correct judgements, while multisensory thresholds were well predicted by the Bayesian model. This result suggests that the multisensory deficit in dyslexia is due to impaired audio and visual inputs rather than impaired multisensory processing per se. We also observed that poorer temporal skills correlated with lower reading skills in dyslexic children, suggesting that this temporal capability can be linked to reading abilities.

Rapid and visual detection of 2019 novel coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) by a reverse transcription loop-mediated isothermal amplification assay

OBJECTIVE

To evaluate a reverse transcription loop-mediated isothermal amplification (RT-LAMP) assay for detection of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), and compare it with RT-PCR.

METHODS

We designed primers specific to the orf1ab and S genes of SARS-CoV-2. Total viral RNA was extracted using the QIAamp Viral RNA Mini Kit. We optimized the RT-LAMP assay, and evaluated it for its sensitivity and specificity of detection using real-time turbidity monitoring and visual observation.

RESULTS

The primer sets orf1ab-4 and S-123 amplified the genes in the shortest times, the mean (±SD) times were 18 ± 1.32 min and 20 ± 1.80 min, respectively, and 63°C was the optimum reaction temperature. The sensitivities were 2 × 10¹ copies and 2 × 10² copies per reaction with primer sets orf1ab-4 and S-123, respectively. This assay showed no cross-reactivity with 60 other respiratory pathogens. To describe the availability of this method in clinical diagnosis, we collected 130 specimens from patients with clinically suspected SARS-CoV-2 infection. Among them, 58 were confirmed to be positive and 72 were negative by RT-LAMP. The sensitivity was 100% (95% CI 92.3%-100%), specificity 100% (95% CI 93.7%-100%). This assay detected SARS-CoV-2 in a mean (±SD) time of 26.28 ± 4.48 min and the results can be identified with visual observation.

CONCLUSION

These results demonstrate that we developed a rapid, simple, specific and sensitive RT-LAMP assay for SARS-CoV-2 detection among clinical samples. It will be a powerful tool for SARS-CoV-2 identification, and for monitoring suspected patients, close contacts and high-risk groups.

Guessability of U.S. pharmaceutical pictograms in Iranian prospective users

Objective:

This study examined the gueassability of US pharmaceutical pictograms as well as associated demographic factors and cognitive design features among Iranian adults.

Methods:

A total of 400 participants requested to guess the meaning of 53 US pharmaceutical pictograms using the open-ended method. Moreover, the participants were asked to rate the cognitive design features of each pictorial in terms of familiarity, concreteness, simplicity, meaningfulness and semantic closeness on a scale of 0-100.

Results:

The average guessability score (standard deviation) was 66.30 (SD=24.59). Fifty-five percent of pharmaceutical pictograms understudy met the correctness criteria of 67% specified by ISO3864, while only 30% reached the criterion level of 85% set by ANSIz535.3. Low literate participants with only primary school education had substantial difficulty in the interpretation of pharmaceutical pictograms compared to those completed higher education levels. Younger adults of <30 years significantly performed better in the interpretation of pharmaceutical pictograms as compared to >31 years old participants. ‘Home patient care’ and ‘daily medication use’ had no effect on guessability performance. Concerning cognitive design features, meaningfulness better predict geussability score compared to the others.

Conclusions:

Several USP pictograms fail to be correctly interpreted by Iranian users and need to be redesigned respecting cognitive design features. Interface designers are recommended to incorporate more familiar and concrete elements into their graphics in order to create more meaningful pictorial symbols and to avoid any misinterpretation by the user. Much effective medication use is expected to be achieved by means of this approach, through the improvement of the communication property of pharmaceutical pictograms.

Neural underpinnings of perception and experience of disgust in individuals with a reduced sense of smell: An fMRI study

BACKGROUND

Individuals with reduced olfactory function (anosmia, hyposmia) have reported changes in disgust perception and disgust experience compared to normosmic controls. The current functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study investigated the neural underpinnings of the altered disgust processing.

METHOD

Twenty-four patients with anosmia or hyposmia and 26 normosmic controls were presented with images depicting facial expressions and scenes from the categories disgust and neutral. The disgusting scenes depicted stimuli that typically smell repulsive (spoiled food, excrements). Brain activity and structure in the primary olfactory cortex (POC) and in a region that processes affective/motivational olfactory-related information (insula, orbitofrontal cortex, basal ganglia) were compared between the two groups.

RESULTS

The anosmic/hyposmic participants were characterized by greater activation in the POC while looking at disgusting scenes. The POC can be activated by olfactory imagery and holds predictive templates of olfactory stimuli. The neural processing of the facial stimuli did not differ between the two groups. Additionally, group differences in functional connectivity and brain structure were not present or only minor.

CONCLUSION

The increased POC activation in anosmic/hyposmic patients might reflect a compensatory process that helps to compensate for their olfactory deficit. However, in general, this study identified only small adaptations in the neural disgust system as a consequence of reduced olfactory function.

Repetition effects in auditory and visual recognition

Repetition manipulations are robust ways of manipulating levels of memory performance, but are not without exception. A recent paper (Kassim, Rehman, & Price, 2018) found effects of repetition on visual and multi-modal recognition but not on auditory recognition in a continuous recognition task. We aimed to replicate and generalize this result by testing continuous recognition in three experiments and in a standard old/new recognition in a fourth experiment. Experiment 1 showed that repetition did affect auditory recognition in a continuous recognition task, but to a lesser extent than visual recognition. Experiment 2 demonstrated that the difference in repetition effects between auditory and visual modalities was due to a speed/accuracy tradeoff in the visual recognition condition; when reaction times were similar in the visual and auditory conditions repetition effects were the same in the two modalities. Experiment 3 replicated the repetition effects when performance was lower than in Experiments 1 and 2. Experiment 4 showed that repetition affected both auditory and visual recognition in an old/new recognition task, and to approximately the same extent. Thus, while evidence has suggested that auditory recognition is more difficult than visual recognition, it may depend on the types of stimuli and the type of test. Overall, the mechanics of auditory and visual recognition for words appear to be similar in that they are affected by repetition in similar ways.

Phase I randomized trial of liothyronine for remyelination in multiple sclerosis: A dose-ranging study with assessment of reliability of visual outcomes

BACKGROUND

Thyroid hormone promotes remyelination in multiple sclerosis (MS) animal models through a variety of mechanisms. Liothyronine (L-T3) is a short-acting thyroid hormone with demonstrated safety and tolerability for short-term and chronic use in euthyroid adults with other health conditions, but has not been studied in people with MS. The objectives of this single-center, phase I, placebo-controlled, clinical trial were to determine the safety, tolerability, and optimal dosing of L-T3 in people with MS in preparation for a phase 2 remyelination clinical trial. Secondary goals included exploration of the reliability of functional and clinical measurements of myelination in the anterior visual pathway over one week.

METHODS

Groups of six clinically stable people with MS were randomized in a 4:2 ratio to receive L-T3 or placebo. The first group received 50 mcg total daily dose (TDD) of L-T3, with escalating doses of L-T3 in subsequent groups, up to potentially 150 mcg TDD in the final group. Prior to enrollment for the next dose-escalated group, all safety measures for the prior dose were reviewed. The maximum tolerated dose (MTD) was considered to be the dose below which two or more participants experienced dose limiting symptoms or one participant experienced a serious adverse event. After the MTD was reached, no further patients were enrolled. Visual evoked potentials (VEP) P100 latency with two different check sizes (17' and 34') and Sloan low contrast letter acuity (LCLA) were measured pre- and post-treatment. To determine whether there was a treatment effect, the placebo and L-T3 groups were compared using a clustered bootstrap regression estimation. A linear mixed effects model was used to determine test-retest reliability of VEP and LCLA in all eyes.

RESULTS

Between May 2016 and November 2016, 15 people with MS were randomized to L-T3 (n = 10) or placebo (n = 5). Subjects were adherent to the study drug and the MTD was 75 mcg TDD. No serious adverse events were observed and the most common adverse events were poor sleep and loose stools. No treatment effect of L-T3 was observed over one week. Therefore, data from patients on L-T3 and placebo were pooled to explore VEP and LCLA reliability. The intraclass correlations of VEP 17', VEP 34' and LCLA were 0.836, 0.860, and 0.932, respectively. The mean differences in values between visits 1 and 2 for VEP 17' and 34' and LCLA were 1.9 ms/eye (SD 6.5), 0.4 ms/eye (6.3), and 0.8/eye (3.6), respectively.

CONCLUSIONS

This study confirms the short-term safety and tolerability of L-T3 in people with MS, with 75 mcg TDD as the MTD. Our results also support that, despite small variations over one week, VEP with various check sizes and Sloan LCLA are reliable functional and clinical outcome measures that could be used in remyelination clinical trials in MS. A future phase 2 clinical trial to investigate the efficacy of L-T3 as a remyelination therapy may be warranted. This trial was registered on clinicaltrials.gov (NCT02760056).

Differences Between Physical vs. Virtual Evoked Vestibular Responses

Electrovestibulography (EVestG), a technology purported to measure vestibular activity at the vestibular periphery, was used to compare the vestibular responses to two sensory inputs: (1) back-forward physical tilt (with eyes-open and eyes-closed) and (2) virtual reality replica of the back-forward tilt (eyes-open, physically static). Twenty-seven healthy participants (10 females) were tested. From each of the EVestG recordings, two feature curves: (1) average field potential (FP), and (2) distribution of time intervals between the detected FPs were extracted. For the eyes-closed physical tilt, except for the background segment, the FP response curve was generally wider compared to that evoked during the virtual replica tilt (p < 0.05). Moreover, the eyes-closed physical tilt produced longer time intervals between FP's compared to the virtual stimulus. For this measure, for the background segment, the eyes closed and open physical tilt responses were significantly different (p < 0.05) in both ears (repeated measure experimental design). The results support: (1) both vestibular and visual inputs evoking a measurably different EVestG response, (2) the differences between physical and virtual vestibular responses are dependent on the eyes being either open or closed, and (3) for the stimuli used, the modulation of vestibular afferent activity was measurably smaller for virtual than physical stimulation.

Neuronal correlates of full and partial visual conscious perception

Stimuli may induce only partial consciousness-an intermediate between null and full consciousness-where the presence but not identity of an object can be reported. The differences in the neuronal basis of full and partial consciousness are poorly understood. We investigated if evoked and oscillatory activity could dissociate full from partial conscious perception. We recorded human cortical activity with magnetoencephalography (MEG) during a visual perception task in which stimulus could be either partially or fully perceived. Partial consciousness was associated with an early increase in evoked activity and theta/low-alpha-band oscillations while full consciousness was also associated with late evoked activity and beta-band oscillations. Full from partial consciousness was dissociated by stronger evoked activity and late increase in theta oscillations that were localized to higher-order visual regions and posterior parietal and prefrontal cortices. Our results reveal both evoked activity and theta oscillations dissociate partial and full consciousness.

Reduced spontaneous perspective taking in schizophrenia

Judgments about another person's visual perspective are impaired when the self-perspective is inconsistent with the other-perspective. This is a robust finding in healthy samples as well as in schizophrenia (SZ). Studies show evidence for the existence of a reverse effect, where an inconsistent other-perspective impairs the self-perspective. Such spontaneous perspective taking processes are not yet explored in SZ. In the current fMRI experiment, 24 healthy and 24 schizophrenic participants performed a visual perspective taking task in the scanner. Either a social or a non-social stimulus was presented and their visual perspectives were consistent or inconsistent with the self-perspective of the participant. We replicated previous findings showing that healthy participants show increased reaction times when the human avatar's perspective is inconsistent to the self-perspective. Patients with SZ, however, did not show this effect, neither in the social nor in the non-social condition. BOLD responses revealed similar patterns in occipital areas and group differences were identified in the middle occipital gyrus. These findings suggest that patients with SZ are less likely to spontaneously compute the visual perspectives of others.

The index of the Prognosis Rural Landscape Preferences (IPRLP) as a tool of generalizing peoples' preferences on rural landscape

Social preferences of visual landscape quality are commonly analysed based on diverse techniques, among which the assessment of landscape photographs are the most often applied. Such evaluation is affected by the presence, configuration, colour, texture, etc. of different landscape attributes combined with respondent characteristics such as level of education, gender, age and environmental attitudes. The complexity of factors affecting preferences for visual quality raise the question of whether the objectifying of this kind of research is possible. That is why the aim of this paper is to determine if it is possible to generalise peoples' preferences on rural landscapes. This study developed the Index of Prognosis Rural Landscape Preferences (IPRLP), which is composed of nine variables referring to the presence or percentage share of different landscape attributes. The IPRLP was tested on 32 scenes of two regions located in Central Eastern Poland - the Polesie region and the Roztocze region. The index values were compared with real preferences expressed by respondents (n = 240). The results showed that this index was highly correlated with the respondents' preferences (0.79 < r < 0.90), which indicates that objectivity of visual preferences studies are possibly based on the mathematical model. Stepwise multiple regression indicates three explanatory variables of the model: percentage of buildings (PB), presence of negative manmade objects (NE) and degree of naturalness (DN) indicating that it is easier to predict what kind of landscape people would not prefer than would prefer.

Retrospective Attention in Short-Term Memory Has a Lasting Effect on Long-Term Memory Across Age

OBJECTIVES

Declines in both short- and long-term memory are typical of healthy aging. Recent findings suggest that retrodictive attentional cues ("retro-cues") that indicate the location of to-be-probed items in short-term memory (STM) have a lasting impact on long-term memory (LTM) performance in young adults. Whether older adults can also use retro-cues to facilitate both STM and LTM is unknown.

METHOD

Young and older adults performed a visual STM task in which spatially informative retro-cues or noninformative neutral-cues were presented during STM maintenance of real-world objects. We tested participants' memory at both STM and LTM delays for objects that were previously cued with retrodictive or neutral-cues during STM order to measure the lasting impact of retrospective attention on LTM.

RESULTS

Older adults showed reduced STM and LTM capacity compared to young adults. However, they showed similar magnitude retro-cue memory benefits as young adults at both STM and LTM delays.

DISCUSSION

To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study to investigate whether retro-cues in STM facilitate the encoding of objects into LTM such that they are more likely to be subsequently retrieved by older adults. Our results support the idea that retrospective attention can be an effective means by which older adults can improve their STM and LTM performance, even in the context of reduced memory capacity.

Differential Patterns of Visual Sensory Alteration Underlying Face Emotion Recognition Impairment and Motion Perception Deficits in Schizophrenia and Autism Spectrum Disorder

BACKGROUND

Impaired face emotion recognition (FER) and abnormal motion processing are core features in schizophrenia (SZ) and autism spectrum disorder (ASD) that have been linked to atypical activity within the visual cortex. Despite overlaps, only a few studies have directly explored convergent versus divergent neural mechanisms of altered visual processing in ASD and SZ. We employed a multimodal imaging approach to evaluate FER and motion perception in relation to functioning of subcortical and cortical visual regions.

METHODS

Subjects were 20 high-functioning adults with ASD, 19 patients with SZ, and 17 control participants. Behavioral measures of coherent motion sensitivity and FER along with electrophysiological and functional magnetic resonance imaging measures of visual pattern and motion processing were obtained. Resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging was used to assess the relationship between corticocortical and thalamocortical connectivity and atypical visual processing.

RESULTS

SZ and ASD participants had intercorrelated deficits in FER and motion sensitivity. In both groups, reduced motion sensitivity was associated with reduced functional magnetic resonance imaging activation in the occipitotemporal cortex and lower delta-band electroencephalogram power. In ASD, FER deficits correlated with hyperactivation of dorsal stream regions and increased evoked theta power. Activation of the pulvinar correlated with abnormal alpha-band modulation in SZ and ASD with under- and overmodulation, respectively, predicting increased clinical symptoms in both groups.

CONCLUSIONS

SZ and ASD participants showed equivalent deficits in FER and motion sensitivity but markedly different profiles of physiological dysfunction. The specific pattern of deficits observed in each group may help guide development of treatments designed to downregulate versus upregulate visual processing within the respective clinical groups.

Within- and Cross-Modal Integration and Attention in the Autism Spectrum

Although impairment in sensory integration is suggested in the autism spectrum (AS), empirical evidences remain equivocal. We assessed the integration of low-level visual and tactile information within and across modalities in AS and typically developing (TD) individuals. TD individuals demonstrated increased redundancy gain for cross-modal relative to double tactile or visual stimulation, while AS individuals showed similar redundancy gain between cross-modal and double tactile conditions. We further observed that violation of the race model inequality for cross-modal conditions was observed over a wider proportion of the reaction times distribution in TD than AS individuals. Importantly, the reduced cross-modal integration in AS individuals was not related to atypical attentional shift between modalities. We conclude that AS individuals displays selective decrease of cross-modal integration of low-level information.

Modality-general representations of valences perceived from visual and auditory modalities

Valence is a dimension of emotion and can be either positive, negative, or neutral. Valences can be expressed through the visual and auditory modalities, and the valences of each modality can be conveyed by different types of stimuli (face, body, voice or music). This study focused on the modality-general representations of valences, that is, valence information can be shared across not only visual and auditory modalities but also different types of stimuli within each modality. Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data were collected when subjects made affective judgment on silent videos (face and body) and audio clips (voice and music). The searchlight analysis helped to locate four areas that might be sensitive to the representations of modality-general valences, including the bilateral postcentral gyrus, left middle temporal gyrus (MTG) and right middle frontal gyrus (MFG). Further cross-modal classification based on multivoxel pattern analysis (MVPA) was performed as a validation analysis, which suggested that only the left postcentral gyrus could successfully distinguish three valences (positive versus negative and versus neutral: PvsNvs0) across different types of stimuli (face, body, voice or music), and the classification was also successful in left MTG across the stimuli types of face and body. The univariate analysis further found the valence-specific activation differences across stimulus types in MTG. Our study showed that the left postcentral gyrus was informative to valence representations, and extended the research about valence representation that the modality-general representation of valences across not only visual and auditory modalities but also different types of stimuli within each modality.

A review of visual ethnography: Radiography viewed through a different lens

INTRODUCTION

The objective of this article is to provide a short review of the research methodology 'visual ethnography'.

METHOD

The review article will provide a summary of the foundations of visual ethnography, outline the key debates and refer to some of the main authors working in this field.

RESULTS

Visual Ethnography is both a methodology and a method of research. It should be selected for research in radiography when research questions seek to focus upon aspects or elements of a culture. A research plan that is designed using a visual ethnographic approach should be flexible and take into account the requirements of the researcher and research participants. Visual methods of research include the use of various images, for example, photographs, collage, film or drawings. Visual methods are commonly employed together with interviews, conversations and observation. The approach enables researchers to generate new and unique insights into cultures.

CONCLUSION

This review of visual ethnography provides background information that informs an introduction to the methodology. It demonstrates a methodology with the potential to explore culture and expand knowledge of radiography practice.

IMPLICATIONS FOR PRACTICE

The authors suggest that for future studies visual ethnography is a methodology that can expand the paradigm of radiography research.

Role of the inhibitory system in shaping the BOLD fMRI response

The shape of the blood oxygenation level dependent (BOLD) functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) signal can vary considerably even across structures of the same sensory pathway. Here, we characterized the temporal behavior of the stimulus-evoked BOLD response in the primary cortical and subcortical regions of the visual and somatosensory whisker systems in awake rabbits. Despite similar BOLD responses in the thalamic nuclei, considerable differences in shape and duration emerged between the sensory cortices. Whereas the BOLD response in the whisker barrel cortex (WBC) was non-adaptive, BOLD in the visual cortex (V1) showed adaptation similar to simultaneously-recorded LFP and single unit activity. Analysis of baseline neuronal activity revealed significantly lower firing rates in V1 vs. WBC. We hypothesized that these changes point to region-dependent differences in the inhibitory systems which shape the hemodynamic response in each structure. To test the effect of neuronal baseline level inhibition on the BOLD signal shape, we locally injected the GABA_A agonist muscimol in WBC. Adaptation emerged in the BOLD response after injection, along with an overall decrease in baseline firing rate. These findings point to the importance of region-specific inhibitory shaping in determining the temporal behavior of the BOLD response in different brain areas.

Peripheral visual localization is degraded by globally incongruent auditory-spatial attention cues

Global auditory-spatial orienting cues help the detection of weak visual stimuli, but it is not clear whether crossmodal attention cues also enhance the resolution of visuospatial discrimination. Here, we hypothesized that if anywhere, crossmodal modulations of visual localization should emerge in the periphery where the receptive fields are large. Subjects were presented with trials where a Visual Target, defined by a cluster of low-luminance dots, was shown for 220 ms at 25°-35° eccentricity in either the left or right hemifield. The Visual Target was either Uncued or it was presented 250 ms after a crossmodal Auditory Cue that was simulated either from the same or the opposite hemifield than the Visual Target location. After a whole-screen visual mask displayed for 800 ms, a pair of vertical Reference Bars was presented ipsilateral to the Visual Target. In a two-alternative forced choice task, subjects were asked to determine which of these two bars was closer to the center of the Visual Target. When the Auditory Cue and Visual Target were hemispatially incongruent, the speed and accuracy of visual localization performance was significantly impaired. However, hemispatially congruent Auditory Cues did not improve the localization of Visual Targets when compared to the Uncued condition. Further analyses suggested that the crossmodal Auditory Cues decreased the sensitivity (d') of the Visual Target localization without affecting post-perceptual decision biases. Our results suggest that in the visual periphery, the detrimental effect of hemispatially incongruent Auditory Cues is far greater than the benefit produced by hemispatially congruent cues. Our working hypothesis for future studies is that auditory-spatial attention cues suppress irrelevant visual locations in a global fashion, without modulating the local visual precision at relevant sites.

Distinguishing abstract from concrete concepts in supramodal brain regions

Concrete words have been shown to have a processing advantage over abstract words, yet theoretical accounts and neural correlates underlying the distinction between concrete and abstract concepts are still unresolved. In an fMRI study, participants performed a property verification task on abstract and concrete concepts. Property comparisons of concrete concepts were predominantly based on either visual or haptic features. Multivariate pattern analysis successfully distinguished between abstract and concrete stimulus comparisons at the whole brain level. Multivariate searchlight analyses showed that posterior and middle cingulate cortices contained information that distinguished abstract from concrete concepts regardless of feature dominance. These results support the view that supramodal convergence zones play an important role in representation of concrete and abstract concepts.