Intermittent central suppression and reading efficiency: A correlation study

Purpose: It has been suggested that non-strabismic intermittent central suppression (ICS) may interfere with reading efficiency (RE). If during brief moments of suppression vergence posture changes, during the transition from suppression to non-suppression there may be a brief moment of diplopia and/or confusion until the eyes realign with the reading material. If this were true, it is likely that ICS would have a deleterious effect on oculomotor performance during reading. The purpose of the current study was to explore a possible correlation between ICS and eye movements during reading. Method: 70 professional students ranging in age from 21 to 37 were tested for suppression tendencies with a modified diamond target on the Borish Vectographic Nearpoint Card 11. The number of intermittent suppression episodes as well as the total time of suppression was measured. The subjects\u27 eye movements were then measured using the Taylor Visagraph 11, a system that quantifies a number of specific eye movement characteristics during a reading task. Subjects who exhibited no suppression were assigned to the control group and those who exhibited any suppression were assigned to the experimental group. Results: No statistically significant (PC. 05) difference was found between the experimental group (N) and the control group (NB) on any of the eye movement characteristics. Additionally, no statistically significant correlation was found between time of suppression or number of suppression episodes, and any individual eye movement characteristics. Conclusions: The current study found no correlation between ICS and RE. It should be noted that the sample size was small and the subjects were normal, high achieving adults. Also, many of the subjects in the experimental group exhibited minimal suppression tendencies. Future studies should attempt to include more subjects with greater suppression tendencies

Impact of attractives of Bieszczady to development on form of tourism

Odkrycie Bieszczad dla turystyki nastąpiło w XIX wieku. Wówczas magnesem przyciągającym turystów były ich „dziki” charakter, nieskażona przyroda oraz pozostałości historii i kultury. W latach sześćdziesiątych XX wieku w Bieszczadach zaczęły powstawać wielkie inwestycje, m.in. budowa zbiornika solińskiego oraz obwodnic bieszczadzkich. Z roku na rok, w miarę zapotrzebowania, rozwijała się infrastruktura turystyczno – rekreacyjna. Dzięki walorom turystycznym Bieszczad oraz stale rozwijanemu i poprawianemu stanowi zagospodarowania turystycznego, obszar ten jest atrakcyjny dla turystów. Przeprowadzona wśród nich ankieta również na to wskazuje. Zdecydowana większość, bo aż 98,6 % badanych, uważa, że Bieszczady są atrakcyjne turystycznie. Ze względu na uwarunkowania przyrodnicze i kulturowe oraz bazę turystyczną Bieszczady nadają się szczególnie dobrze do uprawiania różnorodnych form turystyki. Badania ankietowe potwierdziły, że nadal najbardziej popularną formą jest turystyka piesza. Dużym zainteresowaniem cieszą się również turystyka wodna, agroturystyka, kulturowa, narciarska oraz rowerowa. Mniej popularne według ankietowanych turystów są turystyka: konna i uzdrowiskowa. O dużej popularności Bieszczad wśród turystów świadczy również ich coroczna frekwencja. Według badań GUS z 2006 roku liczba turystów w powiatach bieszczadzkich przekroczyła 140 tys.The discovery of the Bieszczady Mountains for tourism occurred in the nineteenth century. The magnet for tourists was "wild" character of region, untouched nature and the remains of history and culture. In the sixties of the twentieth century in the Bieszczady Mountains began to form large investments, including Solina reservoir and and construction of new road connections. Tourist and recreational structure began to develop in a short time. Thanks to tourist attractions and the constant improvement of turistic infrastructure this area is attractive for tourists. Results of a survey shows that 98.6% of respondents believe that the Bieszczady Mountains are attractive to tourists. Due to the conditions of natural and cultural Bieszczady Mountains are particularly suitable for practicing various forms of tourism. Surveys have confirmed that there is still the most popular form is walking turism. Very popular are water tourism, agrotourism, cultural, ski and bicycle. Less popular are riding turism and spa. The high popularity among tourists Bieszczady also provide their annual attendance. According to the GUS survey in 2006, the number of tourists in the Bieszczady counties exceeded 140 thousand

Validating a Method to Assess Lipreading, Audiovisual Gain, and Integration During Speech Reception With Cochlear-Implanted and Normal-Hearing Subjects Using a Talking Head

Objectives: Watching a talker's mouth is beneficial for speech reception (SR) in many communication settings, especially in noise and when hearing is impaired. Measures for audiovisual (AV) SR can be valuable in the framework of diagnosing or treating hearing disorders. This study addresses the lack of standardized methods in many languages for assessing lipreading, AV gain, and integration. A new method is validated that supplements a German speech audiometric test with visualizations of the synthetic articulation of an avatar that was used, for it is feasible to lip-sync auditory speech in a highly standardized way. Three hypotheses were formed according to the literature on AV SR that used live or filmed talkers. It was tested whether respective effects could be reproduced with synthetic articulation: (1) cochlear implant (CI) users have a higher visual-only SR than normal-hearing (NH) individuals, and younger individuals obtain higher lipreading scores than older persons. (2) Both CI and NH gain from presenting AV over unimodal (auditory or visual) sentences in noise. (3) Both CI and NH listeners efficiently integrate complementary auditory and visual speech features. Design: In a controlled, cross-sectional study with 14 experienced CI users (mean age 47.4) and 14 NH individuals (mean age 46.3, similar broad age distribution), lipreading, AV gain, and integration of a German matrix sentence test were assessed. Visual speech stimuli were synthesized by the articulation of the Talking Head system MASSY (Modular Audiovisual Speech Synthesizer), which displayed standardized articulation with respect to the visibility of German phones. Results: In line with the hypotheses and previous literature, CI users had a higher mean visual-only SR than NH individuals (CI, 38%; NH, 12%; p < 0.001). Age was correlated with lipreading such that within each group, younger individuals obtained higher visual-only scores than older persons (r(CI) = -0.54; p = 0.046; r(NH) = -0.78; p < 0.001). Both CI and NH benefitted by AV over unimodal speech as indexed by calculations of the measures visual enhancement and auditory enhancement (each p < 0.001). Both groups efficiently integrated complementary auditory and visual speech features as indexed by calculations of the measure integration enhancement (each p < 0.005). Conclusions: Given the good agreement between results from literature and the outcome of supplementing an existing validated auditory test with synthetic visual cues, the introduced method can be considered an interesting candidate for clinical and scientific applications to assess measures important for AV SR in a standardized manner. This could be beneficial for optimizing the diagnosis and treatment of individual listening and communication disorders, such as cochlear implantation