[Detection of stereopsis by recording of visual evoked cortical potentials].
Explore the source record for details and available documents.
SEARCH · PubMed Health
Explore indexed PubMed citations for clinical trials, systematic reviews and public health research. Read source abstracts and follow each citation to its original PubMed record.
Quote a phrase for an exact phrase match. Source license links do not imply unrestricted reuse.
Explore the source record for details and available documents.
Explore the source record for details and available documents.
The effect of contrast on visual evoked potential (VEP) amplitude was examined in nine observers. A 6.0 cycles/deg (cpd) grating was modulated in an "on-off" mode at 7.5 Hz. The VEP response contains significant first and second harmonic components: their growth with contrast is parallel, each function consisting of two limbs. The data are consistent with the hypothesis that the pattern VEP obtained with "on-off" presentation may reflect the contributions of "low" and "high" contrast neuronal populations demonstrated in physiological studies of the primate.
Explore the source record for details and available documents.
Explore the source record for details and available documents.
Explore the source record for details and available documents.
We examined the variation of monocular pattern reversal topographic visually evoked potentials across a 13.6 degrees visual field and measured the parameters of the VEP waveforms in 37 locations across the field. Eighteen right and 20 left normal eyes were tested from 23 subjects. The mean response densities of the VEP decreased with increasing eccentricity; response densities are higher in the lower hemifield than in the corresponding mirror symmetric locations in the upper hemifield. The incidence of polarity reversal is higher in the upper hemifield, especially in more superior locations. The latency in the temporal field is shorter than that in the other locations. The coefficients of variations (CVs) of latencies are less than those of amplitudes in corresponding locations and the CVs of latencies of P1 and N2 components are less than those of the N1 component in corresponding locations. The CVs of amplitudes of the waveforms in mid-peripheral locations are larger than those of the other central areas. The parameters of the human topographic visually evoked potential are distributed regularly across the visual field and appear to reflect the underlying anatomy of the retina and visual cortex, and the placement of the recording electrode.
We investigated the appropriateness of a method for the assessment of visual acuity using pattern visual evoked potentials (PVEP) in which retinal X-ganglion cells are predominantly stimulated. Eighteen normal eyes (average 22.2 years old) with normal acuity of 1.0 were examined. The stimulus consisted of white and black checkerboards (39', 26', 15' and 9') with a visual angle of eight degrees and a contrast level of 15%. The pattern reversal frequency was 0.7 Hz. This resulted in 100 averaged PVEP per session. We judged visual acuity from responses of the P100 component. Visual acuity was judged to be 0.1, so that there was response to the 39' checkerboard stimulus pattern, but not to the 26' pattern. Consequently, the accuracy for visual acuity was 76.9% for 0.1, 71.4% for 0.2, 70.0% for 0.5 and 58.3% for 1.0. This method, which uses a stimulus pattern with a small visual angle, low contrast, and low pattern reversal frequency, is useful for subjective measurement of the visual acuity of infants or handicapped children whom it is difficult to measure by the conventional objective method of measuring visual acuity with Landolt's rings.
The aim of this study was to investigate the relationship between visual field differences in tachistoscopic recognition of visuo-spatial patterns and overall proficiency in the two sexes. The results demonstrated a left visual field advantage in males but not in females. A female subgroup showed opposite rather than lacking visual field superiorities without affecting speed and accuracy of performance. These data warn against explaining differences in performance in the two sexes in terms of different hemispheric asymmetries.
The purpose of these experiments was to evaluate the rat's discriminative capacities when facing tridimensional patterns. The behavioral approach involved 3 steps: (1) After establishing a brightness discrimination in a Y-maze (S+ = dark, S- = bright), tridimensional objects were introduced into the goal boxes. (2) Brightness differences were gradually attenuated during the course of the fading procedure and correct responding to the tridimensional patterns was obtained. (3) This procedure had a second fading phase where configurational differences between these patterns were progressively reduced. All animals trained with this method of successive approximations learned the discrimination to a 90% criterion; whereas control animals, given the same complex discrimination without any shaping procedure, failed to learn. These experiments show that success or failure in the acquisition of a visual task is specific to the training method used. Our fading procedure produced complex discrimination behavior.
The study examined visual recognition of bigrams, each formed from a pair of "random" dot patterns, as a function of stimulus offset asynchrony and duration. The results replicate and extend those of an earlier study by showing that the effect of backward masking in vision, where the mask is actually a part of the preceding composite target, is limited to about 250 to 300 msec. This time interval is suggested as that required to complete the processing of that composite target. The results may be understood in terms of an interruption hypothesis, with selective attention and/or discontinuity detectors as mechanisms possibly involved in the masking process.
Working memory (Baddeley and Hitch 1974) incorporates the notion of a visuo-spatial sketch pad; a mechanism thought to be specialized for short-term storage of visuo-spatial material. However, the nature and characteristics of this hypothesized mechanism are as yet unclear. Two experiments are reported which examined selective interference in short-term visual memory. Experiment 1 contrasted recognition memory span for visual matrix patterns with that for visually presented letter sequences. These two span tasks were combined with concurrent arithmetic or a concurrent task which involved manipulation of visuo-spatial material. Results suggested that although there was a small, significant disruption by concurrent arithmetic of span for the matrix patterns, there was a substantially larger disruption of the letter span task. The converse was true for the secondary visuo-spatial task. Experiment 2 combined the span tasks with two established tasks developed by Brooks (1967). Span for matrix patterns was disrupted by a visuo-spatial task but not by a secondary verbal task. The converse was true for letter span. These results suggest that the impairment in short-term visual memory resulting from secondary arithmetic reflects a small general processing load, but that the selective interference due to mode of processing is by far the stronger effect. Results are interpreted as being entirely consistent with the notion of a specialized visuo-spatial mechanism in working memory.
Two different patterns of unilateral tactile-visual recognition tasks with random shapes were administered to 64 subjects, 32 right-handed (16 males, 16 females) and 32 left-handed (16 males, 16 females). The main effects were found in the over-all performance: dextral subjects performed better than sinistral subjects; males performed better than females. On the task at a lower level of mental process dextral subjects performed better over-all than the sinistral subjects; however, neither group showed superiority of one hand over the other. On the task at a higher level of mental process performance of sinistral subjects improved to a level equivalent to that of the dextral subjects. Dextral subjects tended to perform better with their left hands, whereas the sinistral subjects scored equally with both hands. The findings are discussed in terms of quantitative and qualitative differences in patterns of hemispheric functionality between dextral and sinistral subjects, and the more specific cerebral activation for tasks at a higher level of mental process is hypothesized.
Visual short-term memory of young and older adults was studied in relation to imaging ability. Both recall and recognition memory tasks were used and additional variables included stimulus complexity and response delay (recognition tasks) and stimulus complexity and visual masking (recall tasks). Young and older participants were matched on visual discrimination, verbal intelligence, and imaging ability. Stimuli consisted of abstract visual patterns. Age-related decrements in recognition and recall were observed but performance was related to imaging ability only with recall tasks and only for older adults. The results were discussed with reference to mediational strategies and locus of occurrence of age-related decrements in short-term memory.
Visual discrimination and short-term recognition memory for computer-generated random patterns were explored in 23 patients with a postsurgical lesion in one of the cortical hemispheres. Their results are compared with those of 23 age-matched volunteers. In a same-different forced-choice discrimination task, d' and log beta (measures of sensitivity and bias), as well as reaction time (RT) were determined. All participants viewed patterns defined either by luminance contrast or isoluminant red-green color contrast, the amplitude of which was adjusted to be 10 times the respective detection threshold level. Block patterns consisting of a 6 x 6 matrix of light and dark (red and green) checks were randomly configured on each presentation. They were presented in pairs, randomly in two visual quadrants for a duration of 200 msec. Three presentation conditions were used: simultaneous presentation of reference and test stimulus, sequential presentation with a short delay (interstimulus interval, ISI = 3 s), and sequential presentation with a long delay (ISI = 6 s). The results indicate that patients with a lesion in the occipitotemporal cortex, the superior temporal cortex and the frontal cortex were significantly impaired on both luminance-contrast and color-contrast pattern discrimination. Patients with damage in the anterior inferotemporal cortex showed no overall impairment. The results suggest that performance in visual discrimination and recognition memory tasks rely on distributed neural processes with more than one neocortical location.
There is considerable evidence that visual attention is concentrated at a single locus in the visual field, and that this locus can be moved independent of eye movements. Two studies are reported which suggest that, while certain aspects of attention require that locations be scanned serially, at least one operation may be carried out in parallel across several independent loci in the visual field. That is the operation of indexing features and tracking their identity. The studies show that: (a) subjects are able to track a subset of up to 5 objects in a field of 10 identical randomly-moving objects in order to distinguish a change in a target from a change in a distractor; and (b) when the speed and distance parameters of the display are designed so that, on the basis of some very conservative assumptions about the speed of attention movement and encoding times, the predicted performance of a serial scanning and updating algorithm would not exceed about 40% accuracy, subjects still manage to do the task with 87% accuracy. These findings are discussed in relation to an earlier, and independently motivated model of feature-binding--called the FINST model--which posits a primitive identity maintenance mechanism that indexes and tracks a limited number of visual objects in parallel. These indexes are hypothesized to serve the function of binding visual features prior to subsequent pattern recognition.
Properties of auditory and visual sensory memory were compared by examining subjects' recognition performance of randomly generated binary auditory sequential frequency patterns and binary visual sequential color patterns within a forced-choice paradigm. Experiment 1 demonstrated serial-position effects in auditory and visual modalities consisting of both primacy and recency effects. Experiment 2 found that retention of auditory and visual information was remarkably similar when assessed across a 10s interval. Experiments 3 and 4, taken together, showed that the recency effect in sensory memory is affected more by the type of response required (recognition vs. reproduction) than by the sensory modality employed. These studies suggest that auditory and visual sensory memory stores for nonverbal stimuli share similar properties with respect to serial-position effects and persistence over time.
Spatial limitation in visual information processing was examined with dot-in-matrix patterns by using a probe recognition procedure. The independent variables were the number (1-16 dots) and the position of target dots. Subjects were four undergraduate students. The data were analyzed and discussed from three points of view; span of attention, spatial limitation of recognition and visual attention. The following became clear: First, the span of position recognition was 4.8. Second, "spatial span of attention" was defined as the range of dot positions at which subjects can perceive target dots with 75% or more accuracy. It extended around the fixation point and shrinked with the increase of the number of target dots. Finally, the distribution of spatial attention was estimated for each target dot condition under the assumption that the hit RT at each probe position reflects the amount of attention allocated there. Distributions estimated were cone-shaped, and the height and extent changed with the number of target dots. It was suggested that spatial limitation (i.e. spatial span of attention) in the processing of spatial positions can be explained by the notion of distribution of spatial attention.