270 research outputs found
Neural mechanisms of attention become more specialised during infancy: Insights from combined eye tracking and EEG
No full textThe Fixation Shift Paradigm (FSP) measures infants' ability to shift gaze from a central fixation stimulus to a peripheral target (e.g. Hood & Atkinson, 1993: Infant Behavior and Development, 16(4), 405-422). Cortical maturation has been suggested as crucial for the developing ability to shift attention. This study investigated the development of neural mechanisms by combining EEG with simultaneous eye tracking during FSP testing, in typically developing infants aged between 1 and 8 months. The most prominent neural response was a frontal positivity which occurred only in the hemisphere contralateral to the target in the youngest infants but became more ipsilateral with age. This changing lateralisation was associated with improving ability to shift attention (decreasing saccade latencies and fewer 'sticky fixations'-failures to disengage attention from the central target). These findings suggest that the lateralisation of neural responses develops during infancy, possibly due to developing intracortical connections, allowing infants to shift attention more efficiently.DAAD; Leverhulme Trus
Relation Between Event-Related Potential Latency and Saccade Latency in Overt Shifts of Attention
No full textNeural Differences between Covert and Overt Attention Studied using EEG with Simultaneous Remote Eye Tracking
No full textResearch on neural mechanisms of attention has generally instructed subjects to direct attention covertly while maintaining a fixed gaze. This study combined simultaneous eye tracking and electroencephalogram (EEG) to measure neural attention responses during exogenous cueing in overt attention shifts (with saccadic eye movements to a target) and compared these with covert attention shifts (responding manually while maintaining central fixation). EEG analysis of the period preceding the saccade latency showed similar occipital response amplitudes for overt and covert shifts, although response latencies differed. However, a frontal positivity was greater during covert attention shifts, possibly reflecting saccade inhibition to maintain fixation. The results show that combined EEG and eye tracking can be successfully used to study natural overt shifts of attention (applicable to non-verbal infants) and that requiring inhibition of saccades can lead to additional frontal responses. Such data can be used to refine current neural models of attention that have been mainly based on covert shifts.Open-Access-Publikationsfonds 201
Author Janette Turner-Hospital at the Staff and Graduates Club, University of Queensland, St Lucia, 2003
No full textGuests attending the luncheon for author Janette Turner-Hospital
Automatic Detection of Attention Shifts in Infancy: Eye Tracking in the Fixation Shift Paradigm
No full textThis study measured changes in switches of attention between 1 and 9 months of age in 67 typically developing infants. Remote eye-tracking (Tobii X120) was used to measure saccadic latencies, related to switches of fixation, as a measure of shifts of attention, from a central stimulus to a peripheral visual target, measured in the Fixation Shift Paradigm. Fixation shifts occur later if the central fixation stimulus stays visible when the peripheral target appears (competition condition), than if the central stimulus disappears as the peripheral target appears (non-competition condition). This difference decreases with age. Our results show significantly faster disengagement in infants over 4 months than in the younger group, and provide more precise measures of fixation shifts, than behavioural observation with the same paradigm. Reduced saccadic latencies in the course of a test session indicate a novel learning effect. The Fixation Shift Paradigm combined with remote eye-tracking measures showed improved temporal and spatial accuracy compared to direct observation by a trained observer, and allowed an increased number of trials in a short testing time. This makes it an infant-friendly non-invasive procedure, involving minimal observational training, suitable for use in future studies of clinical populations to detect early attentional abnormalities in the first few months of life
Cuba. Les défis du nouveau « modèle »
No full text[eng] Janette Habel — Cuba. The challenges of the new « model » . The article presents the reforms measures adopted in Cuba to deal first with the crisis of the early 1990s and then with the economic difficulties of the recent years. The new economic strategy has modified earlier social relations and created an inegalitarian situation that is without precedent since 1959. The author tackles the debate which has divided Cubans, concerning the viability of the present opening up to the market and its compatibility with the continuity of the political system. It is in this perspective that some Cuban researchers are exploring different possible paths that the post-Castro period might follow.
Janette Turner Hospital's The Last Magician in an "Expanded Field"
No full textThe article provides an overview of the novel "The Last Magician," by Janette Turner Hospital. The author gives a short orientation to the book and analyzes the way in which Hospital enables the readers to become more aware of how the subjects are constructed. The author of this article argues on how Hospital encourages her readers to criticize the process of identity acquisition by going beyond the dichotomy of inclusion in order to examine the suffering that it constitutes.Arts, Education & Law Group, School of Humanities, Languages and Social SciencesNo Full Tex
Social and attention factors during infancy and the later emergence of autism characteristics
No full textCharacteristic features of autism include atypical social perception and social–communication skills, and atypical visual attention, alongside rigid and repetitive thinking and behavior. Debate has focused on whether the later emergence of atypical social skills is a consequence of attention problems early in life, or, conversely, whether early social deficits have knock-on consequences for the later development of attention skills. We investigated this question based on evidence from infants at familial risk for a later diagnosis of autism by virtue of being younger siblings of children with a diagnosis. Around 9 months, at-risk siblings differed as a group from controls, both in measures of social perception and inhibitory control. We present preliminary data from an ongoing longitudinal research program, suggesting clear associations between some of these infant measures and autism-related characteristics at 3 years. We discuss the findings in terms of the emergent nature of autism as a result of complex developmental interactions among brain networks
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