skip to main content
US FlagAn official website of the United States government
dot gov icon
Official websites use .gov
A .gov website belongs to an official government organization in the United States.
https lock icon
Secure .gov websites use HTTPS
A lock ( lock ) or https:// means you've safely connected to the .gov website. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites.


Title: Fixation Disparity: A Possible Index of Visuospatial Cognition during Authentic Learning Tasks
Abstract This article describes a novel method for quantifying fixation disparity and evaluates its role in visuospatial cognition during an authentic learning task, specifically, the determination of molecule chirality in organic chemistry involving mental rotation and pattern comparison. The first study examined the influence of molecular model dimensionality (2D vs. 3D) on chirality determination performance and visual attention of 55 participants. The second study explored how the sustained playing of the tile‐matching game Mahjong, a pattern comparison game, can affect visual attention and visuospatial performance during the chirality determination task of 59 participants. Fixation disparity was one of the eye tracking variables explored. Both studies revealed that (1) individuals with higher fixation disparity underperformed on the chirality task, which involves mental rotation and pattern comparison, and (2) fixation disparity improved over time in participants who played Mahjong. This work provides important implications for using fixation disparity as a possible biomarker of visuospatial performance.  more » « less
Award ID(s):
2040185
PAR ID:
10565604
Author(s) / Creator(s):
; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ;
Publisher / Repository:
Wiley
Date Published:
Journal Name:
Mind, Brain, and Education
Volume:
18
Issue:
3
ISSN:
1751-2271
Page Range / eLocation ID:
346 to 359
Format(s):
Medium: X
Sponsoring Org:
National Science Foundation
More Like this
  1. Spatial ability is the ability to generate, store, retrieve, and transform visual information to mentally represent a space and make sense of it. This ability is a critical facet of human cognition that affects knowledge acquisition, productivity, and workplace safety. Although having improved spatial ability is essential for safely navigating and perceiving a space on earth, it is more critical in altered environments of other planets and deep space, which may pose extreme and unfamiliar visuospatial conditions. Such conditions may range from microgravity settings with the misalignment of body and visual axes to a lack of landmark objects that offer spatial cues to perceive size, distance, and speed. These altered visuospatial conditions may pose challenges to human spatial cognitive processing, which assists humans in locating objects in space, perceiving them visually, and comprehending spatial relationships between the objects and surroundings. The main goal of this paper is to examine if eye-tracking data of gaze pattern can indicate whether such altered conditions may demand more mental efforts and attention. The key dimensions of spatial ability (i.e., spatial visualization, spatial relations, and spatial orientation) are examined under the three simulated conditions: (1) aligned body and visual axes (control group); (2) statically misaligned body and visual axes (experiment group I); and dynamically misaligned body and visual axes (experiment group II). The three conditions were simulated in Virtual Reality (VR) using Unity 3D game engine. Participants were recruited from Texas A&M University student population who wore HTC VIVE Head-Mounted Displays (HMDs) equipped with eye-tracking technology to work on three spatial tests to measure spatial visualization, orientation, and relations. The Purdue Spatial Visualization Test: Rotations (PSVT: R), the Mental Cutting Test (MCT), and the Perspective Taking Ability (PTA) test were used to evaluate the spatial visualization, spatial relations, and spatial orientation of 78 participants, respectively. For each test, gaze data was collected through Tobii eye-tracker integrated in the HTC Vive HMDs. Quick eye movements, known as saccades, were identified by analyzing raw eye-tracking data using the rate of change of gaze position over time as a measure of mental effort. The results showed that the mean number of saccades in MCT and PSVT: R tests was statistically larger in experiment group II than in the control group or experiment group I. However, PTA test data did not meet the required assumptions to compare the mean number of saccades in the three groups. The results suggest that spatial relations and visualization may require more mental effort under dynamically misaligned idiotropic and visual axes than aligned or statically misaligned idiotropic and visual axes. However, the data could not reveal whether spatial orientation requires more/less mental effort under aligned, statically misaligned, and dynamically misaligned idiotropic and visual axes. The results of this study are important to understand how altered visuospatial conditions impact spatial cognition and how simulation- or game-based training tools can be developed to train people in adapting to extreme or altered work environments and working more productively and safely. 
    more » « less
  2. chmorrow, D.D.; Fidopiastis, C.M. (Ed.)
    This paper presents the results of a study investigating the impact of misaligned idiotropic and visual axes on spatial ability in a simulated microgravity environment in virtual reality. The study involved 99 participants who completed two spatial tests, the Purdue Spatial Visualization Test: Rotations and the Perspective Taking Ability test, in three different scenarios: control (axes aligned), static misalignment, and dynamic misalignment. The results showed that dynamic misalignment significantly impacted mental rotation and spatial visualization performance, but not spatial orientation ability. Additionally, the gaming experience did not moderate mental rotation outcomes but did enhance spatial orientation ability. These findings provide insight into how altered visuospatial conditions may affect human spatial cognition and can inform the development of simulation-based training tools to help people adapt to such environments more effectively. Furthermore, the study highlights the potential of using games as a learning tool to improve productivity and safety in extreme or altered work environments. 
    more » « less
  3. Abstract The enhancement hypothesis suggests that deaf individuals are more vigilant to visual emotional cues than hearing individuals. The present eye-tracking study examined ambient–focal visual attention when encoding affect from dynamically changing emotional facial expressions. Deaf (n = 17) and hearing (n = 17) individuals watched emotional facial expressions that in 10-s animations morphed from a neutral expression to one of happiness, sadness, or anger. The task was to recognize emotion as quickly as possible. Deaf participants tended to be faster than hearing participants in affect recognition, but the groups did not differ in accuracy. In general, happy faces were more accurately and more quickly recognized than faces expressing anger or sadness. Both groups demonstrated longer average fixation duration when recognizing happiness in comparison to anger and sadness. Deaf individuals directed their first fixations less often to the mouth region than the hearing group. During the last stages of emotion recognition, deaf participants exhibited more focal viewing of happy faces than negative faces. This pattern was not observed among hearing individuals. The analysis of visual gaze dynamics, switching between ambient and focal attention, was useful in studying the depth of cognitive processing of emotional information among deaf and hearing individuals. 
    more » « less
  4. The pulvinar, also called the lateral posterior nucleus of the thalamus in rodents, is one of the higher-order thalamic relays and the main visual extrageniculate thalamic nucleus in rodents and primates. Although primate studies report the pulvinar is engaged under attentional demands, there are open questions about the detailed role of the pulvinar in visuospatial attention. The pulvinar provides the primary thalamic input to the posterior parietal cortex (PPC). Both the pulvinar and the PPC are known to be important for visuospatial attention. Our previous work showed that neuronal activity in the PPC correlated with multiple phases of a visuospatial attention (VSA) task, including onset of the visual stimuli, decision-making, task-relevant locations, and behavioral outcomes. Here, we hypothesized that the pulvinar, as the major thalamic input to the PPC, is involved in visuospatial attention as well as in other cognitive functions related to the processing of visual information. We recorded the neuronal activity of the pulvinar in rats during their performance on the VSA task. The task was designed to engage goal-directed, top–down attention as well as stimulus-driven, bottom–up attention. Rats monitored three possible locations for the brief appearance of a target stimulus. An approach to the correct target location was followed by a liquid reward. For analysis, each trial was divided into behavioral epochs demarcated by stimulus onset, selection behavior, and approach to reward. We found that neurons in the pulvinar signaled stimulus onset and selection behavior consistent with the interpretation that the pulvinar is engaged in both bottom–up and top–down visuospatial attention. Our results also suggested that pulvinar cells responded to allocentric and egocentric task-relevant locations. 
    more » « less
  5. This paper presents a systematic review of the empirical literature that uses dual-task interference methods for investigating the on-line involvement of language in various cognitive tasks. In these studies, participants perform some primary task X putatively recruiting linguistic resources while also engaging in a secondary, concurrent task. If performance on the primary task decreases under interference, there is evidence for language involvement in the primary task. We assessed studies (N = 101) reporting at least one experiment with verbal interference and at least one control task (either primary or secondary). We excluded papers with an explicitly clinical, neurological, or developmental focus. The primary tasks identified include categorization, memory, mental arithmetic, motor control, reasoning (verbal and visuospatial), task switching, theory of mind, visual change, and visuospatial integration and wayfinding. Overall, the present review found that internal language is likely to play a facilitative role in memory and categorization when items to be remembered or categorized have readily available labels, when inner speech can act as a form of behavioral self-cuing (inhibitory control, task set reminders, verbal strategy), and when inner speech is plausibly useful as “workspace,” for example, for mental arithmetic. There is less evidence for the role of internal language in cross-modal integration, reasoning relying on a high degree of visual detail or items low on nameability, and theory of mind. We discuss potential pitfalls and suggestions for streamlining and improving the methodology. 
    more » « less