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Doucet G, Kruse JA, Hamlin N, Peyrin C, Poirel N. Neural correlates underlying local and global processing during visual search across adulthood. PLoS One 2024; 19:e0303796. [PMID: 38905236 PMCID: PMC11192325 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0303796] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/01/2022] [Accepted: 04/30/2024] [Indexed: 06/23/2024] Open
Abstract
Visual processing relies on the identification of both local and global features of visual stimuli. While well investigated at the behavioral level, the underlying brain mechanisms are less clear, especially in the context of aging. Using fMRI, we aimed to investigate the neural correlates underlying local and global processing in early and late adulthood. We recruited 77 healthy adults aged 19-77 who completed a visual search task based on 2-level hierarchical stimuli made of squares and/or circles. Participants were instructed to detect a target (a square) at either a local (small) or global (large) level of a hierarchical geometrical form, in the presence or absence of other hierarchical geometrical forms (distractors). At the behavioral level, we revealed high accuracy for all participants, but older participants were slower to detect local targets, specifically in presence of distractors. At the brain level, while both local and global processing were associated with occipital activation, local processing also recruited the anterior insula and dorsal anterior cingulate cortex, that are core regions of the salience network. However, while the presence of distractors in the local condition elicited specifically stronger activation within the right anterior insula for the young group, it was not observed for older participants. In addition, older participants showed less activation than younger participants in the occipital cortex, especially for the most complex conditions. Our findings suggest that the brain correlates underlying local and global processing change with aging, especially for complex visual patterns. These results are discussed in terms of top-down reduction effects from the salience network on primary visual areas, that may lead to specific difficulties to process local visual details in older adults.
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Affiliation(s)
- Gaelle Doucet
- Institute for Human Neuroscience, Boys Town National Research Hospital, Omaha, Nebraska, United States of America
- Department of Pharmacology and Neuroscience, Creighton University School of Medicine, Omaha, Nebraska, United States of America
| | - Jordanna A. Kruse
- Institute for Human Neuroscience, Boys Town National Research Hospital, Omaha, Nebraska, United States of America
| | - Noah Hamlin
- Institute for Human Neuroscience, Boys Town National Research Hospital, Omaha, Nebraska, United States of America
| | - Carole Peyrin
- French National Centre for Scientific Research, Laboratoire de Psychologie et NeuroCognition, Universite Grenoble Alpes, Universite Savoie Mont Blanc, Grenoble, France
| | - Nicolas Poirel
- LaPsyDÉ, French National Centre for Scientific Research, Université de Paris, Paris, France
- GIP Cyceron, Caen, France
- Institut Universitaire de France, Paris, France
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DeCouto BS, Smeeton NJ, Williams AM. Skill and experience impact neural activity during global and local biological motion processing. Neuropsychologia 2023; 191:108718. [PMID: 37939872 DOI: 10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2023.108718] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/06/2023] [Revised: 09/15/2023] [Accepted: 10/28/2023] [Indexed: 11/10/2023]
Abstract
During biological motion perception, individuals with perceptual experience learn to use more global processing, simultaneously extracting information from multiple body segments. Less experienced observers may use more local processing of individual body segments. The parietal lobe (e.g., alpha and beta power) has been shown to be critical to global and local static stimulus perception. Therefore, in this paper, we examined how skill impacts motion processing by assessing behavioral and neural responses to degrading global or local motion information for soccer penalty kicks. Skilled (N = 21) and less skilled (N = 19) soccer players anticipated temporally occluded videos of penalty kicks under normal, blurred (degraded local information), or spatially occluded (hips-only; degraded global information) viewing conditions. EEG was used to measure parietal alpha and beta power. Skilled players outperformed less skilled players, albeit both skill groups were less accurate in the blurred and hips-only conditions. Skilled performers showed significant decreases in bilateral parietal beta power in the hips-only condition, suggesting a greater reliance on global motion information under normal viewing conditions. Additionally, the hips-only condition elicited significantly greater beta relative to alpha power (beta - alpha), lower beta power, and lower alpha power than the control condition for both skill groups, suggesting spatial occlusion elicited a shift towards more local processing. Our novel findings demonstrate that skill and experience impact how motion is processed.
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Affiliation(s)
- B S DeCouto
- Florida Institute for Human & Machine Cognition, Human Health, Resilience & Performance, 40 South Alcaniz St. Pensacola, FL 32502, USA; University of Utah, College of Health, Department of Health & Kinesiology, 383 Colorow Drive, Suite 260, Salt Lake City, UT. 84112, USA.
| | - N J Smeeton
- University of Brighton, School of Sport and Health Sciences, Sport and Exercise Science and Sports Medicine Research and Enterprise Group, 1 Denton Road, Eastbourne BN22 7SR, Brighton, England, UK
| | - A M Williams
- Florida Institute for Human & Machine Cognition, Human Health, Resilience & Performance, 40 South Alcaniz St. Pensacola, FL 32502, USA; University of Utah, College of Health, Department of Health & Kinesiology, 383 Colorow Drive, Suite 260, Salt Lake City, UT. 84112, USA
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Doucet GE, Hamlin N, Kruse JA, Taylor BK, Poirel N. Link between fluid/crystallized intelligence and global/local visual abilities across adulthood. Conscious Cogn 2022; 106:103429. [PMID: 36306570 PMCID: PMC10481540 DOI: 10.1016/j.concog.2022.103429] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/27/2022] [Revised: 10/10/2022] [Accepted: 10/13/2022] [Indexed: 01/27/2023]
Abstract
Human visual processing involves the extraction of both global and local information from a visual stimulus. Such processing may be related to cognitive abilities, which is likely going to change over time as we age. We aimed to investigate the impact of healthy aging on the association between visual global vs local processing and intelligence. In this context, we collected behavioral data during a visual search task in 103 adults (50 younger/53 older). We extracted three metrics reflecting global advantage (faster global than local processing), and visual interference in detecting either local or global features (based on interfering visual distractors). We found that older, but not younger, adults with higher levels of fluid and crystallized intelligence showed stronger signs of global advantage and interference effects during local processing, respectively. The present findings also provide promising clues regarding how participants consider and process their visual world in healthy aging.
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Affiliation(s)
- Gaelle E Doucet
- Institute for Human Neuroscience, Boys Town National Research Hospital, Omaha, NE, USA; Creighton University School of Medicine, Omaha, NE, USA.
| | - Noah Hamlin
- Institute for Human Neuroscience, Boys Town National Research Hospital, Omaha, NE, USA
| | - Jordanna A Kruse
- Institute for Human Neuroscience, Boys Town National Research Hospital, Omaha, NE, USA
| | - Brittany K Taylor
- Institute for Human Neuroscience, Boys Town National Research Hospital, Omaha, NE, USA; Creighton University School of Medicine, Omaha, NE, USA
| | - Nicolas Poirel
- Université Paris Cité, LaPsyDÉ, CNRS, F-75005 Paris, France; GIP Cyceron, Caen, France; Institut Universitaire de France, Paris, France
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Álvarez-San Millán A, Iglesias J, Gutkin A, Olivares EI. Progressive attenuation of visual global precedence across healthy aging and Alzheimer's disease. Front Aging Neurosci 2022; 14:893818. [PMID: 36204552 PMCID: PMC9530062 DOI: 10.3389/fnagi.2022.893818] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/10/2022] [Accepted: 08/17/2022] [Indexed: 11/24/2022] Open
Abstract
In the perception of Navon hierarchical stimuli (e.g., large letters made up of small letters), young adults identify large letters faster than small ones (known as 'global advantage') and identify more slowly small letters when they form a different (or incongruent) large letter (known as 'unidirectional global interference'). Since some global/local perceptual alterations might be occurring with aging, we investigated whether these effects vary across healthy aging and Alzheimer's disease (AD). Here, the Navon letter task was administered to 26 healthy elderly (HE), 21 adults with mild cognitive impairment (MCI), and 26 adults with AD. The same task was administered 1 year later, and different neuropsychological variables were incorporated into the analyses. The cross-sectional study revealed no global advantage but did reveal both global and local interferences in all groups when response times were analyzed. Regarding discrimination sensitivity, HE showed unidirectional global interference, while AD displayed better discrimination of local than global letters in the incongruent condition, which denotes less interference by global distractors than by local ones. The longitudinal study revealed that 1 year later the participants with MCI showed a slowdown in inhibiting local distractors in the global task, revealing a certain bias toward focus in their attention on small stimuli. The elders with AD reflected a generalized slowing of their responses with a clear bias toward local analysis of stimuli, also suggested by their better discrimination in the incongruent local task at the second moment of assessment. Furthermore, all response timing measures in the Navon task were correlated with several neuropsychological indexes of highly sensitive neuropsychological tests, suggesting that performance in this task may also have a potential diagnostic value for differentiating typical from atypical cognitive aging. All these results support the need for a multidomain approach to define neuropsychological markers of progression toward AD, including visual perceptual organization evaluated via measures of performance quality.
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Affiliation(s)
- Andrea Álvarez-San Millán
- Department of Psychology, Faculty of Biomedical and Health Sciences, Universidad Europea de Madrid, Madrid, Spain
| | - Jaime Iglesias
- Department of Biological and Health Psychology, Faculty of Psychology, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Madrid, Spain
| | - Anahí Gutkin
- Department of Social Psychology and Methodology, Faculty of Psychology, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Madrid, Spain
| | - Ela I. Olivares
- Department of Biological and Health Psychology, Faculty of Psychology, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Madrid, Spain
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The forest, the trees, and the leaves across adulthood: Age-related changes on a visual search task containing three-level hierarchical stimuli. Atten Percept Psychophys 2022; 84:1004-1015. [PMID: 35013995 PMCID: PMC9001546 DOI: 10.3758/s13414-021-02438-3] [Citation(s) in RCA: 9] [Impact Index Per Article: 4.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Accepted: 12/27/2021] [Indexed: 11/08/2022]
Abstract
Selecting relevant visual information in complex scenes by processing either global information or local parts helps us act efficiently within our environment and achieve goals. A global advantage (faster global than local processing) and global interference (global processing interferes with local processing) comprise an evidentiary global precedence phenomenon in early adulthood. However, the impact of healthy aging on this phenomenon remains unclear. As such, we collected behavioral data during a visual search task, including three-levels hierarchical stimuli (i.e., global, intermediate, and local levels) with several hierarchical distractors, in 50 healthy adults (26 younger (mean age: 26 years) and 24 older (mean age: 62 years)). Results revealed that processing information presented at the global and intermediate levels was independent of age. Conversely, older adults were slower for local processing compared to the younger adults, suggesting lower efficiency to deal with visual distractors during detail-oriented visual search. Although healthy older adults continued exhibiting a global precedence phenomenon, they were disproportionately less efficient during local aspects of information processing, especially when multiple visual information was displayed. Our results could have important implications for many life situations by suggesting that visual information processing is impacted by healthy aging, even with similar visual stimuli objectively presented.
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Álvarez-San Millán A, Iglesias J, Gutkin A, Olivares EI. Forest Before Trees: Letter Stimulus and Sex Modulate Global Precedence in Visual Perception. Front Psychol 2021; 12:546483. [PMID: 33841222 PMCID: PMC8024528 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2021.546483] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/28/2020] [Accepted: 03/01/2021] [Indexed: 12/04/2022] Open
Abstract
The global precedence effect (GPE), originally referring to processing hierarchical visual stimuli composed of letters, is characterised by both global advantage and global interference. We present herein a study of how this effect is modulated by the variables letter and sex. The Navon task, using the letters “H” and “S,” was administered to 78 males and 168 females (69 follicular women, 52 luteal women, and 47 hormonal contraceptive users). No interaction occurred between the letter and sex variables, but significant main effects arose from each of these. Reaction times (RTs) revealed that the letter “H” was identified more rapidly in the congruent condition both in the global and the local task, and the letter “S” in the incongruent condition for the local task. Also, although RTs showed a GPE in both males and females, males displayed shorter reaction times in both global and local tasks. Furthermore, luteal women showed higher d’ index (discrimination sensitivity) in the congruent condition for the local task than both follicular women and hormonal contraceptive users, as well as longer exploration time of the irrelevant level during the global task than males. We conclude that, according to the linear periodicity law, the GPE is enhanced for compound letters with straight vs. curved strokes, whereas it is stronger in males than in females. Relevantly, luteal phase of the menstrual cycle seems to tilt women to rely on finer grained information, thus exhibiting an analytical processing style in global/local visual processing.
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Affiliation(s)
- Andrea Álvarez-San Millán
- Department of Biological and Health Psychology, Faculty of Psychology, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Madrid, Spain
| | - Jaime Iglesias
- Department of Biological and Health Psychology, Faculty of Psychology, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Madrid, Spain
| | - Anahí Gutkin
- Department of Biological and Health Psychology, Faculty of Psychology, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Madrid, Spain
| | - Ela I Olivares
- Department of Biological and Health Psychology, Faculty of Psychology, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Madrid, Spain
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Visual attention, biological motion perception, and healthy ageing. PSYCHOLOGICAL RESEARCH 2020; 84:625-642. [PMID: 30088079 PMCID: PMC7109192 DOI: 10.1007/s00426-018-1068-6] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/12/2017] [Accepted: 07/30/2018] [Indexed: 11/16/2022]
Abstract
Biological motion perception is the ability of the visual system to perceive complex human movement patterns. The previous studies have shown a direct link between attentional abilities and performance on biological motion tasks, both of which have been shown to deteriorate with age. However, it is not known whether there is a direct link between age-related deficits in biological motion processing and attention. Here, we investigated whether age-related changes in biological motion perception are mediated by impaired attentional abilities. To assess basic biological motion performance, we asked 42 younger (M = 21 years) and 39 older adults (M = 69 years) to indicate the facing direction of point-light actions. Performance did not differ between age groups. We assessed visual spatial and selective attentional abilities, using a range of tasks: conjunctive visual search, spatial cueing, and the Stroop task. Across all tasks, older adults were significantly slower to respond and exhibited larger interference/cueing effects, compared to younger adults. To assess attentional demands in relation with biological motion perception, participants performed a biological motion search task for which they had to indicate the presence of a target point-light walker among a varied number of distracters. Older adults were slower, and generally worse than younger adults at discriminating the walkers. Correlations showed that there was no significant relationship between performance in attention tasks and biological motion processing, which indicates that age-related changes in biological motion perception are unlikely to be driven by general attentional decline.
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Affiliation(s)
- Jutta Billino
- Abteilung Allgemeine Psychologie, Justus-Liebig-Universität Gießen, Gießen, Germany
| | - Karin S. Pilz
- Faculty of Behavioural and Social Sciences, University of Groningen, Groningen, The Netherlands
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Ward LM, Morison G, Simmers AJ, Shahani U. Age-Related Changes in Global Motion Coherence: Conflicting Haemodynamic and Perceptual Responses. Sci Rep 2018; 8:10013. [PMID: 29968729 PMCID: PMC6030110 DOI: 10.1038/s41598-018-27803-5] [Citation(s) in RCA: 8] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/13/2018] [Accepted: 06/08/2018] [Indexed: 11/22/2022] Open
Abstract
Our aim was to use both behavioural and neuroimaging data to identify indicators of perceptual decline in motion processing. We employed a global motion coherence task and functional Near Infrared Spectroscopy (fNIRS). Healthy adults (n = 72, 18-85) were recruited into the following groups: young (n = 28, mean age = 28), middle-aged (n = 22, mean age = 50), and older adults (n = 23, mean age = 70). Participants were assessed on their motion coherence thresholds at 3 different speeds using a psychophysical design. As expected, we report age group differences in motion processing as demonstrated by higher motion coherence thresholds in older adults. Crucially, we add correlational data showing that global motion perception declines linearly as a function of age. The associated fNIRS recordings provide a clear physiological correlate of global motion perception. The crux of this study lies in the robust linear correlation between age and haemodynamic response for both measures of oxygenation. We hypothesise that there is an increase in neural recruitment, necessitating an increase in metabolic need and blood flow, which presents as a higher oxygenated haemoglobin response. We report age-related changes in motion perception with poorer behavioural performance (high motion coherence thresholds) associated with an increased haemodynamic response.
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Affiliation(s)
- Laura McKernan Ward
- Department of Vision Science, Glasgow Caledonian University, 70 Cowcaddens Road, Glasgow, G4 0BA, United Kingdom.
| | - Gordon Morison
- Department of Engineering, Glasgow Caledonian University, 70 Cowcaddens Road, Glasgow, G4 0BA, United Kingdom
| | - Anita Jane Simmers
- Department of Vision Science, Glasgow Caledonian University, 70 Cowcaddens Road, Glasgow, G4 0BA, United Kingdom
| | - Uma Shahani
- Department of Vision Science, Glasgow Caledonian University, 70 Cowcaddens Road, Glasgow, G4 0BA, United Kingdom
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Miller L, Agnew HC, Pilz KS. Behavioural evidence for distinct mechanisms related to global and biological motion perception. Vision Res 2017; 142:58-64. [PMID: 29104005 PMCID: PMC5773238 DOI: 10.1016/j.visres.2017.08.004] [Citation(s) in RCA: 5] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/16/2017] [Revised: 08/04/2017] [Accepted: 08/24/2017] [Indexed: 11/15/2022]
Abstract
The perception of human motion is a vital ability in our daily lives. Human movement recognition is often studied using point-light stimuli in which dots represent the joints of a moving person. Depending on task and stimulus, the local motion of the single dots, and the global form of the stimulus can be used to discriminate point-light stimuli. Previous studies often measured motion coherence for global motion perception and contrasted it with performance in biological motion perception to assess whether difficulties in biological motion processing are related to more general difficulties with motion processing. However, it is so far unknown as to how performance in global motion tasks relates to the ability to use local motion or global form to discriminate point-light stimuli. Here, we investigated this relationship in more detail. In Experiment 1, we measured participants' ability to discriminate the facing direction of point-light stimuli that contained primarily local motion, global form, or both. In Experiment 2, we embedded point-light stimuli in noise to assess whether previously found relationships in task performance are related to the ability to detect signal in noise. In both experiments, we also assessed motion coherence thresholds from random-dot kinematograms. We found relationships between performances for the different biological motion stimuli, but performance for global and biological motion perception was unrelated. These results are in accordance with previous neuroimaging studies that highlighted distinct areas for global and biological motion perception in the dorsal pathway, and indicate that results regarding the relationship between global motion perception and biological motion perception need to be interpreted with caution.
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Affiliation(s)
- Louisa Miller
- Leverhulme Research Centre for Forensic Science, University of Dundee, United Kingdom
| | - Hannah C Agnew
- Department of Psychology, University of Aberdeen, United Kingdom
| | - Karin S Pilz
- Department of Psychology, University of Aberdeen, United Kingdom.
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Agnew HC, Pilz KS. Temporal aspects of natural scene categorisation in healthy ageing. Vision Res 2017; 140:25-32. [PMID: 28774776 DOI: 10.1016/j.visres.2017.06.012] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.6] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/24/2016] [Revised: 05/11/2017] [Accepted: 06/09/2017] [Indexed: 11/25/2022]
Abstract
The visual system has an extraordinary capability to extract categorical information from complex scenes. Age-related deficits in visual temporal processing have been found with both low-level and high-level stimuli. However, it is unknown to which extent those deficits extend to the processing of complex scenes. Here, we investigated the temporal characteristics of natural scene categorisation in healthy ageing. Using a backward masking paradigm, we asked young-old (aged 59-70), old-old (aged 70+) and younger adults (18-31years) to perform a go/no-go task, in which they had to respond to images of animals whilst ignoring images of landscapes. Both age groups were overall faster and more accurate in responding to the target images as the stimulus onset asynchrony (SOA) between target image and mask increased. Older adults, especially those in the old-old group, were significantly less accurate than younger adults for short SOAs but performed equally well at long SOAs. However, we found no age-difference in reaction times. Our findings suggest that the temporal processing of complex scenes is impaired in healthy older adults independently of reduced motor abilities. They also indicate that such deficits in natural scene categorisation become more evident with increasing age. Our findings might have important implications for the wellbeing of older adults and road safety in general.
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Affiliation(s)
- Hannah C Agnew
- School of Psychology, University of Aberdeen, Scotland, UK.
| | - Karin S Pilz
- School of Psychology, University of Aberdeen, Scotland, UK
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Affiliation(s)
- Karin S. Pilz
- School of Psychology, University of Aberdeen, Aberdeen, Scotland, UK
| | - Ian M. Thornton
- Department of Cognitive Science, Faculty of Media & Knowledge Science, University of Malta, Msida, Malta
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