Unconscious Familiarity-based Color-Form Binding::Evidence from Visual Extinction

Abstract There is good evidence that early visual processing involves the coding of different features in independent brain regions. A major question, then, is how we see the world in an integrated manner, in which the different features are “bound” together. A standard account of this has been that feature binding depends on attention to the stimulus, which enables only the relevant features to be linked together [Treisman, A., &amp; Gelade, G. A feature-integration theory of attention. Cognitive Psychology, 12, 97–136, 1980]. Here we test this influential idea by examining whether, in patients showing visual extinction, the processing of otherwise unconscious (extinguished) stimuli is modulated by presenting objects in their correct (familiar) color. Correctly colored objects showed reduced extinction when they had a learned color, and this color matched across the ipsi- and contralesional items (red strawberry + red tomato). In contrast, there was no reduction in extinction under the same conditions when the stimuli were colored incorrectly (blue strawberry + blue tomato; Experiment 1). The result was not due to the speeded identification of a correctly colored ipsilesional item, as there was no benefit from having correctly colored objects in different colors (red strawberry + yellow lemon; Experiment 2). There was also no benefit to extinction from presenting the correct colors in the background of each item (Experiment 3). The data suggest that learned color–form binding can reduce extinction even when color is irrelevant for the task. The result is consistent with preattentive binding of color and shape for familiar stimuli.</jats:p

Hierarchical processing in Balint’s syndrome : a failure of flexible top-down attention

Patients with Balint’ s syndrome are typically impaired at perceiving multiple objects simultaneously, and at evaluating the relationship between multiple objects in a scene (simultanagnosia). These deficits may not only be observed in complex scenes, but also when local elements of individual objects must be integrated into a perceptual global whole. Thus, unlike normal observers, patients with simultanagnosia typically show a bias towards the local forms, even to the extent that they cannot identify the global stimuli. However, we have previously shown that global processing is still attainable in Balint patients in certain scenarios (e.g., when local elements are unfamiliar). This suggests that in addition to a possible perceptual deficit that favors the local elements in these patients, impaired attentional control may be at the core of their unique performance. To test this hypothesis we manipulated the perceptual saliency of the local and global elements in a compound letter task so that it included global-more-salient or local-more-salient displays. We show that a Balint patient was able to accurately identify both global and local targets as long as they were the salient aspect of the compound letter. However, substantial impairment was evident when either the global or local elements were the less salient aspect of the compound letter. We conclude that in Balint’ s syndrome there is a failure of flexible top-down attention both in biasing attention away from salient irrelevant aspects of the display (salience-based-selection) and in impaired disengagement from irrelevant but salient items once they have been selected

Warrington and Taylor’s 1978 paper

One of the most fundamental questions in cognitive neuroscience is to understand how the brain constructs our three-dimensional visual world from two-dimensional retinal signals of light and dark intensity. At the time this paper was written, the seminal work of Sperry and his colleagues studying patients who had undergone sections of the corpus callosum was most influential (Gazzaniga et al 1962; Sperry et al 1969). They reported that visual object recognition up to the level of functional significance or meaning was intact in the disconnected right hemisphere, merely the verbal label could not be retrieved. Consequently, at that time current theorising tended to conflate perceptual processing and semantic processing to a single post-sensory categorical stage such that object recognition was achieved by a single system (eg Sutherland 1968, 1973; Tenenbaum and Barrow 1976)

Randomised feasibility trial of a teaching assistant led extracurricular physical activity intervention for 9 to 11 year olds: Action 3:30

Background: Extracurricular programmes could provide a mechanism to increase the physical activity (PA) of primary-school-aged children. The aim of this feasibility study was to examine whether the Action 3:30 intervention, which is delivered by teaching assistants, holds promise as a means of increasing the PA of Year 5 and 6 children. Methods: A cluster randomised feasibility trial was conducted in 20 primary schools. Ten schools received the Action 3:30 intervention and 10 schools were allocated to the control arm. The intervention was 40 one-hour sessions, delivered twice a week by teaching assistants. The proportion of participants recruited per school was calculated. Session delivery and session attendance was calculated for intervention schools. Weekday and after-school (3.30 to 8.30 pm) moderate to vigorous intensity physical (MVPA) was assessed by accelerometer at baseline (T0), during the last few weeks of the intervention (T1) and four months after the intervention had ended (T2). The costs of delivering the intervention were estimated. Results: Five intervention schools ran all 40 of the intended sessions. Of the remaining five, three ran 39, one ran 38 and one ran 29 sessions. Mean attendance was 53%. The adjusted difference in weekday MVPA at T1 was 4.3 minutes (95% CI −2.6 to 11.3). Sex-stratified analyses indicated that boys obtained 8.6 more minutes of weekday MVPA than the control group (95% CI 2.8 to 14.5) at T1 with no effect for girls (0.15 minutes, 95% CI −9.7 to 10.0). There was no evidence that participation in the programme increased MVPA once the club sessions ceased (T2). The indicative average cost of this intervention was £2,425 per school or £81 per participating child during its first year and £1,461 per school or £49 per participating child thereafter. Conclusions: The effect of the Action 3:30 intervention was comparable to previous physical activity interventions but further analysis indicated that there was a marked sex difference with a positive impact on boys and no evidence of an effect on girls. The Action 3:30 intervention holds considerable promise but more work is needed to enhance the effectiveness of the intervention, particularly for girls

The neuropsychology of visual feature binding

This chapter reviews evidence from the neuropsychology of feature binding that reveals that (a) binding processes are mediated by the parietal lobe and (b) several binding processes may take place at different stages of vision. The relations between neuropsychological disorders of binding and synesthesia are discussed. Although both the temporal and spatial binding accounts stress the operation of a single binding process, there is some suggestion that several forms of binding operate, probably modulated by different brain regions. © 2005 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved

From what to where: neuropsychological evidence for implicit interactions between object- and space- based attention.

Three experiments examined nonspatial extinction in G.K., a patient with bilateral parietal damage. Experiment 1 demonstrated nonspatial extinction (poor detection of a weak relative to a stronger perceptual group), even when the stronger group was less complex than the weaker group. Experiment 2 showed improved report of a letter falling at the location of the stronger group, but explicit judgments of the location of the letter were at chance. Experiment 3 replicated the object-cuing benefit, though G.K. could not discriminate whether a letter fell at the same location as the stronger perceptual group. The data indicate coupling between object- and space-based attention, so that spatial attention is drawn to the location occupied by the winner of object-based competition for selection. In this case, what cues where. This coupling operates implicitly, even when explicit location judgments are impaired

Knowing what you need but not what you want: Affordances and action-defined templates in neglect

Abstract. We examined search for target objects in a patient, MP, showing symptoms of left unilateral neglect. The conditions varied how the target was defined, the numbers of targets and distractors, and whether search was for multiple or single targets. We found that search was substantially improved when the target was defined by a description of its action rather than its name. This advantage for action-defined targets increased with larger display sizes. For both action and name-defined targets, there were also larger effects of the number of distractors when search was for multiple rather than single targets, even when the numbers of distractors were kept constant. However, these effects were increased for name-defined targets. The differences between actionand name-defined targets decreased when objects were replaced with words. The data suggest that search could be based on action-defined templates of targets, activated by affordances from objects. The action-defined templates facilitated detection and reduced MP&apos;s tendency to re-search displays