Visual Working Memory Capacity Does Not Modulate the Feature-Based Information Filtering in Visual Working Memory

Background: The limited capacity of visual working memory (VWM) requires us to select the task relevant information and filter out the irrelevant information efficiently. Previous studies showed that the individual differences in VWM capacity dramatically influenced the way we filtered out the distracters displayed in distinct spatial-locations: low-capacity individuals were poorer at filtering them out than the high-capacity ones. However, when the target and distracting information pertain to the same object (i.e., multiple-featured object), whether the VWM capacity modulates the featurebased filtering remains unknown. Methodology/Principal Findings: We explored this issue mainly based on one of our recent studies, in which we asked the participants to remember three colors of colored-shapes or colored-landolt-Cs while using two types of task irrelevant information. We found that the irrelevant high-discriminable information could not be filtered out during the extraction of VWM but the irrelevant fine-grained information could be. We added 8 extra participants to the original 16 participants and then split the overall 24 participants into low- and high-VWM capacity groups. We found that regardless of the VWM capacity, the irrelevant high-discriminable information was selected into VWM, whereas the irrelevant fine-grained information was filtered out. The latter finding was further corroborated in a second experiment in which the participants were required to remember one colored-landolt-C and a more strict control was exerted over the VWM capacity

Microsaccades reflect attention shifts: a mini review of 20 years of microsaccade research

Microsaccades are small, involuntary eye movements that occur during fixation. Since the 1950s, researchers have conducted extensive research on the role of microsaccades in visual information processing, and found that they also play an important role in human advanced visual cognitive activities. Research over the past 20 years further suggested that there is a close relationship between microsaccades and visual attention, yet lacking a timely review. The current article aims to provide a state-of-the-art review and bring microsaccades studies into the sight of attention research. We firstly introduce basic characteristics about microsaccades, then summarized the empirical evidence supporting the view that microsaccades can reflect both external (perception) and internal (working memory) attention shifts. We finally conclude and highlight three promising avenues for future research

Synchronization of complex human networks

The synchronization of human networks is essential for our civilization, and understanding the motivations, behavior, and basic parameters that govern the dynamics of human networks is important in many aspects of our lives. Human ensembles have been investigated in recent years, but with very limited control over the network parameters and in noisy environments. In particular, research has focused predominantly on all-to-all coupling, whereas current social networks and human interactions are often based on complex coupling configurations, such as nearest-neighbor coupling and small-world networks. Because the synchronization of any ensemble is governed by its network parameters, studying different types of human networks while controlling the coupling and the delay is essential for understanding the dynamics of different types of human networks. We studied the synchronization between professional violin players in complex networks with full control over the network connectivity, coupling strength of each connection, and delay. We found that the usual models for coupled networks, such as the Kuramoto model, cannot be applied to human networks. We found that the players can change their periodicity by a factor of three to find a stable solution to the coupled network, or they can delete connections by ignoring frustrating signals. These additional degrees of freedom enable new strategies and yield better solutions than are possible within current models. Our results may influence numerous fields, including traffic management, epidemic control, and stock market dynamics.Comment: 9 pages, 7 figures, to be submitte

Proactive Interference Does Not Meaningfully Distort Visual Working Memory Capacity Estimates in the Canonical Change Detection Task

The change detection task has become a standard method for estimating the storage capacity of visual working memory. Most researchers assume that this task isolates the properties of an active short-term storage system that can be dissociated from long-term memory systems. However, long-term memory storage may influence performance on this task. In particular, memory traces from previous trials may create proactive interference that sometimes leads to errors, thereby reducing estimated capacity. Consequently, the capacity of visual working memory may be higher than is usually thought, and correlations between capacity and other measures of cognition may reflect individual differences in proactive interference rather than individual differences in the capacity of the short-term storage system. Indeed, previous research has shown that change detection performance can be influenced by proactive interference under some conditions. The purpose of the present study was to determine whether the canonical version of the change detection task – in which the to-be-remembered information consists of simple, briefly presented features – is influenced by proactive interference. Two experiments were conducted using methods that ordinarily produce substantial evidence of proactive interference, but no proactive interference was observed. Thus, the canonical version of the change detection task can be used to assess visual working memory capacity with no meaningful influence of proactive interference

Islamic education: The philosophy, aim, and main features

Islam has put greater emphasis on the importance of acquisition and dissemination of knowledge (‘ilm) than any other human activities. In fact, it makes it compulsory (farḍ) upon its adherents, regardless of gender, to learn and disseminate knowledge. The obligation of seeking out knowledge is binding upon every Muslim by the command of the Qur’an and Sunnah of the Prophet (PBUH). Education from Islamic perspective is often defined by Muslim scholars from three different dimensions which are reflected in different concepts introduced, important among them are; tarbiyyah – the process of education that gives emphasis on physical and intellectual development of an individual; ta’dīb – the process of education that gives emphasis on nurturing good human beings with noble codes of conduct/ethics approved by Islam, so that he may conduct and position himself in society with justice; and taʿlīm – the process of education that is based on teaching and learning. The concept of education in Islam must take into consideration of all the dimensions stated above. No matter which one of the above concepts is preferable to scholars, it should not be used as a pretext for controversy and intellectual acrimony among scholars, because what does it matter is not the concept, but the practice, methodology and its objectives. Education occupies a significant position in Islamic civilization. The first revelation to Prophet Muḥammad (PBUH) in Sūrah al-‘Alaq (verses 1-4) is about the divine instruction to “reading by the name of God”, thus underscores the tawḥīd philosophy that education in its essence is not purely a mundane activity, but an integral part of faith. Recently, the concept of education in Islam has been influenced by secularism since the time of colonization and the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, which consequently resulted in the failure of the Muslim Ummah in its quest for nation building and development according to Islamic perspective. The purpose of education in Islam is to produce a good human being (al-insān al-ṣāliḥ), who is capable of delivering his/her duties as a servant of Allāh (ʿabdullāh) and His vicegerent (khalīfah) on earth. This paper is aimed at highlighting the main features of Islamic education, its methodology and objectives in comparison with the current system of education, which is predominantly secular in its philosophy and methodology. (Keywords: Education, secularism, philosophy

Depression care management for late-life depression in China primary care: Protocol for a randomized controlled trial

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>As a major public health issue in China and worldwide, late-life depression is associated with physical limitations, greater functional impairment, increased utilization and cost of health care, and suicide. Like other chronic diseases in elders such as hypertension and diabetes, depression is a chronic disease that the new National Health Policy of China indicates should be managed in primary care settings. Collaborative care, linking primary and mental health specialty care, has been shown to be effective for the treatment of late-life depression in primary care settings in Western countries. The primary aim of this project is to implement a depression care management (DCM) intervention, and examine its effectiveness on the depressive symptoms of older patients in Chinese primary care settings.</p> <p>Methods/Design</p> <p>The trial is a multi-site, primary clinic based randomized controlled trial design in Hangzhou, China. Sixteen primary care clinics will be enrolled in and randomly assigned to deliver either DCM or care as usual (CAU) (8 clinics each) to 320 patients (aged ≥ 60 years) with major depression (20/clinic; n = 160 in each treatment condition). In the DCM arm, primary care physicians (PCPs) will prescribe 16 weeks of antidepressant medication according to the treatment guideline protocol. Care managers monitor the progress of treatment and side effects, educate patients/family, and facilitate communication between providers; psychiatrists will provide weekly group psychiatric consultation and CM supervision. Patients in both DCM and CAU arms will be assessed by clinical research coordinators at baseline, 4, 8, 12, 18, and 24 months. Depressive symptoms, functional status, treatment stigma and clients' satisfaction will be used to assess patients' outcomes; and clinic practices, attitudes/knowledge, and satisfaction will be providers' outcomes.</p> <p>Discussion</p> <p>This will be the first trial of the effectiveness of a collaborative care intervention aiming to the management of late-life depression in China primary care. If effective, its finding will have relevance to policy makers who wish to scale up DCM treatments for late-life depression in national wide primary care across China.</p> <p>Study Registration</p> <p>The DCM project is registered through the National Institutes of Health sponsored by clinical trials registry and has been assigned the identifier: <a href="http://www.clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT01287494">NCT01287494</a></p

Dissociated Mechanisms of Extracting Perceptual Information into Visual Working Memory

The processing mechanisms of visual working memory (VWM) have been extensively explored in the recent decade. However, how the perceptual information is extracted into VWM remains largely unclear. The current study investigated this issue by testing whether the perceptual information was extracted into VWM via an integrated-object manner so that all the irrelevant information would be extracted (object hypothesis), or via a feature-based manner so that only the target-relevant information would be extracted (feature hypothesis), or via an analogous processing manner as that in visual perception (analogy hypothesis).High-discriminable information which is processed at the parallel stage of visual perception and fine-grained information which is processed via focal attention were selected as the representatives of perceptual information. The analogy hypothesis predicted that whereas high-discriminable information is extracted into VWM automatically, fine-grained information will be extracted only if it is task-relevant. By manipulating the information type of the irrelevant dimension in a change-detection task, we found that the performance was affected and the ERP component N270 was enhanced if a change between the probe and the memorized stimulus consisted of irrelevant high-discriminable information, but not if it consisted of irrelevant fine-grained information.We conclude that dissociated extraction mechanisms exist in VWM for information resolved via dissociated processes in visual perception (at least for the information tested in the current study), supporting the analogy hypothesis

Brave New GES World:A Systematic Literature Review of Gestures and Referents in Gesture Elicitation Studies

How to determine highly effective and intuitive gesture sets for interactive systems tailored to end users’ preferences? A substantial body of knowledge is available on this topic, among which gesture elicitation studies stand out distinctively. In these studies, end users are invited to propose gestures for specific referents, which are the functions to control for an interactive system. The vast majority of gesture elicitation studies conclude with a consensus gesture set identified following a process of consensus or agreement analysis. However, the information about specific gesture sets determined for specific applications is scattered across a wide landscape of disconnected scientific publications, which poses challenges to researchers and practitioners to effectively harness this body of knowledge. To address this challenge, we conducted a systematic literature review and examined a corpus of N=267 studies encompassing a total of 187, 265 gestures elicited from 6, 659 participants for 4, 106 referents. To understand similarities in users’ gesture preferences within this extensive dataset, we analyzed a sample of 2, 304 gestures extracted from the studies identified in our literature review. Our approach consisted of (i) identifying the context of use represented by end users, devices, platforms, and gesture sensing technology, (ii) categorizing the referents, (iii) classifying the gestures elicited for those referents, and (iv) cataloging the gestures based on their representation and implementation modalities. Drawing from the findings of this review, we propose guidelines for conducting future end-user gesture elicitation studies

Attentional biases and daily game craving dynamics: An ecological momentary assessment study

Background and aims: Theories posit that the combination of external (e.g. cue exposure) and internal (e.g. attention biases) factors contributes to the development of game craving. Nevertheless, whether different components of attentional biases (namely, engagement bias and disengagement bias) play separate roles on game craving has not been fully elucidated. We aimed to examine the associations between two facets of attentional biases and game craving dynamics under a daily life setting. Methods: Participants (110 regular internet game players) accomplished the modified attentional assessment task in the laboratory, after which they entered a 10-day ecological momentary assessment (EMA) to collect data on their momentary game craving and occurrence of game-related events at five different time points per day. Results: We found that occurrence of game-related events was significantly associated with increased game craving. Moreover, attentional disengagement bias, instead of engagement bias, bore on the occasional level variations of game craving as moderating variables. Specifically, attentional disengagement bias, not engagement bias, was associated with a greater increase in game craving immediately after encountering a game-related event; however, neither attentional engagement bias nor disengagement bias was associated with the craving maintenance after a relatively long period. Discussion and conclusions: The present study highlights the specific attentional processes involved in game craving dynamics, which could be crucial for designing interventions for attentional bias modification (ABM) in Internet Gaming Disorder (IGD) populations