Neural Machine Translation with Recurrent Attention Modeling

OpenAIRE

Yang, Zichao; Hu, Zhiting; Deng, Yuntian; Dyer, Chris; Smola, Alex

2016-01-01

Knowing which words have been attended to in previous time steps while generating a translation is a rich source of information for predicting what words will be attended to in the future. We improve upon the attention model of Bahdanau et al. (2014) by explicitly modeling the relationship between previous and subsequent attention levels for each word using one recurrent network per input word. This architecture easily captures informative features, such as fertility and regularities in relat...

Attention and Olfactory Consciousness

OpenAIRE

Keller, Andreas

2011-01-01

Understanding the relation between attention and consciousness is an important part of our understanding of consciousness. Attention, unlike consciousness, can be systematically manipulated in psychophysical experiments and a law-like relation between attention and consciousness is waiting to be discovered. Most attempts to discover the nature of this relation are focused on a special type of attention: spatial visual attention. In this review I want to introduce another type of attention to ...

Bioenergy costs and potentials with special attention to implications for the land system

Science.gov (United States)

Popp, A.; Lotze-Campen, H.; Dietrich, J.; Klein, D.; Bauer, N.; Krause, M.; Beringer, T.; Gerten, D.

2011-12-01

In the coming decades, an increasing competition for global land and water resources can be expected, due to rising demand for agricultural products, goals of nature conservation, and changing production conditions due to climate change. Especially biomass from cellulosic bioenergy crops, such as Miscanthus or poplar, is being proposed to play a substantial role in future energy systems if climate policy aims at stabilizing greenhouse gas (GHG) concentration at low levels. However, the potential of bioenergy for climate change mitigation remains unclear due to large uncertainties about future agricultural yield improvements, land availability for biomass plantations, and implications for the land system. In order to explore the cost-effective contribution of bioenergy to a low carbon transition with special attention to implications for the land system, we present a modeling framework with detailed biophysical and economic representation of the land and energy sector: We have linked the global dynamic vegetation and water balance model LPJmL (Bondeau et al. 2007, Rost et al. 2008), the global land and water use model MAgPIE (Lotze-Campen et al. 2008, Popp et al. 2010), and the global energy-economy-climate model ReMIND (Leimbach et al. 2009). In this modeling framework LPJmL supplies spatially explicit (0.5° resolution) agricultural yields as well as carbon and water stocks and fluxes. Based on this biophysical input MAgPIE delivers cost-optimized land use patterns (0.5° resolution), associated GHG emissions and rates of future yield increases in agricultural production. Moreover, shadow prices are calculated for irrigation water (as an indicator for water scarcity), food commodities, and bioenergy (as an indicator for changes in production costs) under different land use constraints such as forest conservation for climate change mitigation and as a contribution to biodiversity conservation. The energy-economy-climate model ReMIND generates the demand for

Modeling global scene factors in attention

Science.gov (United States)

Torralba, Antonio

2003-07-01

Models of visual attention have focused predominantly on bottom-up approaches that ignored structured contextual and scene information. I propose a model of contextual cueing for attention guidance based on the global scene configuration. It is shown that the statistics of low-level features across the whole image can be used to prime the presence or absence of objects in the scene and to predict their location, scale, and appearance before exploring the image. In this scheme, visual context information can become available early in the visual processing chain, which allows modulation of the saliency of image regions and provides an efficient shortcut for object detection and recognition. 2003 Optical Society of America

The Attentional Drift Diffusion Model of Simple Perceptual Decision-Making

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Gabriela Tavares

2017-08-01

Full Text Available Perceptual decisions requiring the comparison of spatially distributed stimuli that are fixated sequentially might be influenced by fluctuations in visual attention. We used two psychophysical tasks with human subjects to investigate the extent to which visual attention influences simple perceptual choices, and to test the extent to which the attentional Drift Diffusion Model (aDDM provides a good computational description of how attention affects the underlying decision processes. We find evidence for sizable attentional choice biases and that the aDDM provides a reasonable quantitative description of the relationship between fluctuations in visual attention, choices and reaction times. We also find that exogenous manipulations of attention induce choice biases consistent with the predictions of the model.

The Attentional Drift Diffusion Model of Simple Perceptual Decision-Making.

Science.gov (United States)

Tavares, Gabriela; Perona, Pietro; Rangel, Antonio

2017-01-01

Perceptual decisions requiring the comparison of spatially distributed stimuli that are fixated sequentially might be influenced by fluctuations in visual attention. We used two psychophysical tasks with human subjects to investigate the extent to which visual attention influences simple perceptual choices, and to test the extent to which the attentional Drift Diffusion Model (aDDM) provides a good computational description of how attention affects the underlying decision processes. We find evidence for sizable attentional choice biases and that the aDDM provides a reasonable quantitative description of the relationship between fluctuations in visual attention, choices and reaction times. We also find that exogenous manipulations of attention induce choice biases consistent with the predictions of the model.

Visual Attention Modeling for Stereoscopic Video: A Benchmark and Computational Model.

Science.gov (United States)

Fang, Yuming; Zhang, Chi; Li, Jing; Lei, Jianjun; Perreira Da Silva, Matthieu; Le Callet, Patrick

2017-10-01

In this paper, we investigate the visual attention modeling for stereoscopic video from the following two aspects. First, we build one large-scale eye tracking database as the benchmark of visual attention modeling for stereoscopic video. The database includes 47 video sequences and their corresponding eye fixation data. Second, we propose a novel computational model of visual attention for stereoscopic video based on Gestalt theory. In the proposed model, we extract the low-level features, including luminance, color, texture, and depth, from discrete cosine transform coefficients, which are used to calculate feature contrast for the spatial saliency computation. The temporal saliency is calculated by the motion contrast from the planar and depth motion features in the stereoscopic video sequences. The final saliency is estimated by fusing the spatial and temporal saliency with uncertainty weighting, which is estimated by the laws of proximity, continuity, and common fate in Gestalt theory. Experimental results show that the proposed method outperforms the state-of-the-art stereoscopic video saliency detection models on our built large-scale eye tracking database and one other database (DML-ITRACK-3D).

The economic potential of bioenergy for climate change mitigation with special attention given to implications for the land system

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Popp, Alexander; Dietrich, Jan Philipp; Lotze-Campen, Hermann; Klein, David; Bauer, Nico; Krause, Michael; Beringer, Tim; Gerten, Dieter; Edenhofer, Ottmar

2011-01-01

Biomass from cellulosic bioenergy crops is expected to play a substantial role in future energy systems, especially if climate policy aims at stabilizing greenhouse gas concentration at low levels. However, the potential of bioenergy for climate change mitigation remains unclear due to large uncertainties about future agricultural yield improvements and land availability for biomass plantations. This letter, by applying a modelling framework with detailed economic representation of the land and energy sector, explores the cost-effective contribution of bioenergy to a low-carbon transition, paying special attention to implications for the land system. In this modelling framework, bioenergy competes directly with other energy technology options on the basis of costs, including implicit costs due to biophysical constraints on land and water availability. As a result, we find that bioenergy from specialized grassy and woody bioenergy crops, such as Miscanthus or poplar, can contribute approximately 100 EJ in 2055 and up to 300 EJ of primary energy in 2095. Protecting natural forests decreases biomass availability for energy production in the medium, but not in the long run. Reducing the land available for agricultural use can partially be compensated for by means of higher rates of technological change in agriculture. In addition, our trade-off analysis indicates that forest protection combined with large-scale cultivation of dedicated bioenergy is likely to affect bioenergy potentials, but also to increase global food prices and increase water scarcity. Therefore, integrated policies for energy, land use and water management are needed.

User modeling and adaptation for daily routines providing assistance to people with special needs

CERN Document Server

Martín, Estefanía; Carro, Rosa M

2013-01-01

User Modeling and Adaptation for Daily Routines is motivated by the need to bring attention to how people with special needs can benefit from adaptive methods and techniques in their everyday lives. Assistive technologies, adaptive systems and context-aware applications are three well-established research fields. There is, in fact, a vast amount of literature that covers HCI-related issues in each area separately. However, the contributions in the intersection of these areas have been less visible, despite the fact that such synergies may have a great impact on improving daily living.Presentin

Modeling Novo Nordisk Production Systems

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Miller, Thomas Dedenroth

1997-01-01

This report describes attributes of models and systems, and how models can be used for description of production systems. There are special attention on the 'Theory of Domains'.......This report describes attributes of models and systems, and how models can be used for description of production systems. There are special attention on the 'Theory of Domains'....

Sleepiness, On-Task Behavior and Attention in Children with Epilepsy Who Visited a School for Special Education: A Comparative Study

Science.gov (United States)

Didden, Robert; de Moor, Jan M. H.; Korzilius, Hubert

2009-01-01

Children with epilepsy are at risk for problems in daytime functioning. We assessed daytime sleepiness, on-task behavior and attention in 17 children (aged between 7 and 11 years) with epilepsy who visited a school for special education and compared these to 17 children from a control group who visited a regular school. Within the group of…

Effects of methylphenidate on attentional set-shifting in a genetic model of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder.

Science.gov (United States)

Cao, Ai-hua; Yu, Lin; Wang, Yu-wei; Wang, Jun-mei; Yang, Le-jin; Lei, Ge-Fei

2012-02-28

Although deficits of attentional set-shifting have been reported in individuals with attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), it is rarely examined in animal models. This study compared spontaneously hypertensive rats (SHRs; a genetic animal model of ADHD) and Wistar-Kyoto (WKY) and Sprague-Dawley (SD) rats (normoactive control strains), on attentional set-shifting task (ASST) performance. Furthermore, the dose-effects of methylphenidate (MPH) on attentional set-shifting of SHR were investigated. In experiment 1, ASST procedures were conducted in SHR, WKY and SD rats of 8 each at the age of 5 weeks. Mean latencies at the initial phase, error types and numbers, and trials to criteria at each stage were recorded. In experiment 2, 24 SHR rats were randomly assigned to 3 groups of 8 each-- MPH-L (lower dose), MPH-H (higher dose), and SHR-vehicle groups. From 3 weeks, they were administered 2.5 mg/kg or 5 mg/kg MPH or saline respectively for 14 consecutive days. All rats were tested in the ASST at the age of 5 weeks. The SHRs generally exhibited poorer performance on ASST than the control WKY and SD rats. Significant strain effects on mean latency [F (2, 21) = 639.636, p attentional set-shifting. Our study provides evidence that MPH may improve the SHR's performance on attentional set-shifting and lower dose is more effective than higher dose.

The Attentional Drift Diffusion Model of Simple Perceptual Decision-Making

OpenAIRE

Gabriela Tavares; Pietro Perona; Antonio Rangel; Antonio Rangel

2017-01-01

Perceptual decisions requiring the comparison of spatially distributed stimuli that are fixated sequentially might be influenced by fluctuations in visual attention. We used two psychophysical tasks with human subjects to investigate the extent to which visual attention influences simple perceptual choices, and to test the extent to which the attentional Drift Diffusion Model (aDDM) provides a good computational description of how attention affects the underlying decision processes. We find e...

Differing effects of attention in single-units and populations are well predicted by heterogeneous tuning and the normalization model of attention.

Science.gov (United States)

Hara, Yuko; Pestilli, Franco; Gardner, Justin L

2014-01-01

Single-unit measurements have reported many different effects of attention on contrast-response (e.g., contrast-gain, response-gain, additive-offset dependent on visibility), while functional imaging measurements have more uniformly reported increases in response across all contrasts (additive-offset). The normalization model of attention elegantly predicts the diversity of effects of attention reported in single-units well-tuned to the stimulus, but what predictions does it make for more realistic populations of neurons with heterogeneous tuning? Are predictions in accordance with population-scale measurements? We used functional imaging data from humans to determine a realistic ratio of attention-field to stimulus-drive size (a key parameter for the model) and predicted effects of attention in a population of model neurons with heterogeneous tuning. We found that within the population, neurons well-tuned to the stimulus showed a response-gain effect, while less-well-tuned neurons showed a contrast-gain effect. Averaged across the population, these disparate effects of attention gave rise to additive-offsets in contrast-response, similar to reports in human functional imaging as well as population averages of single-units. Differences in predictions for single-units and populations were observed across a wide range of model parameters (ratios of attention-field to stimulus-drive size and the amount of baseline response modifiable by attention), offering an explanation for disparity in physiological reports. Thus, by accounting for heterogeneity in tuning of realistic neuronal populations, the normalization model of attention can not only predict responses of well-tuned neurons, but also the activity of large populations of neurons. More generally, computational models can unify physiological findings across different scales of measurement, and make links to behavior, but only if factors such as heterogeneous tuning within a population are properly accounted for.

Attentional and Contextual Priors in Sound Perception.

Science.gov (United States)

Wolmetz, Michael; Elhilali, Mounya

2016-01-01

Behavioral and neural studies of selective attention have consistently demonstrated that explicit attentional cues to particular perceptual features profoundly alter perception and performance. The statistics of the sensory environment can also provide cues about what perceptual features to expect, but the extent to which these more implicit contextual cues impact perception and performance, as well as their relationship to explicit attentional cues, is not well understood. In this study, the explicit cues, or attentional prior probabilities, and the implicit cues, or contextual prior probabilities, associated with different acoustic frequencies in a detection task were simultaneously manipulated. Both attentional and contextual priors had similarly large but independent impacts on sound detectability, with evidence that listeners tracked and used contextual priors for a variety of sound classes (pure tones, harmonic complexes, and vowels). Further analyses showed that listeners updated their contextual priors rapidly and optimally, given the changing acoustic frequency statistics inherent in the paradigm. A Bayesian Observer model accounted for both attentional and contextual adaptations found with listeners. These results bolster the interpretation of perception as Bayesian inference, and suggest that some effects attributed to selective attention may be a special case of contextual prior integration along a feature axis.

Antiparasitic activity in Asteraceae with special attention to ethnobotanical use by the tribes of Odisha, India

Science.gov (United States)

Panda, Sujogya Kumar; Luyten, Walter

2018-01-01

The purpose of this review is to survey the antiparasitic plants of the Asteraceae family and their applicability in the treatment of parasites. This review is divided into three major parts: (a) literature on traditional uses of Asteraceae plants for the treatment of parasites; (b) description of the major classes of chemical compounds from Asteraceae and their antiparasitic effects; and (c) antiparasitic activity with special reference to flavonoids and terpenoids. This review provides detailed information on the reported Asteraceae plant extracts found throughout the world and on isolated secondary metabolites that can inhibit protozoan parasites such as Plasmodium, Trypanosoma, Leishmania, and intestinal worms. Additionally, special attention is given to the Asteraceae plants of Odisha, used by the tribes of the area as antiparasitics. These plants are compared to the same plants used traditionally in other regions. Finally, we provide information on which plants identified in Odisha, India and related compounds show promise for the development of new drugs against parasitic diseases. For most of the plants discussed in this review, the active compounds still need to be isolated and tested further. PMID:29528842

Modeling the Evolution of Beliefs Using an Attentional Focus Mechanism.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Dimitrije Marković

2015-10-01

Full Text Available For making decisions in everyday life we often have first to infer the set of environmental features that are relevant for the current task. Here we investigated the computational mechanisms underlying the evolution of beliefs about the relevance of environmental features in a dynamical and noisy environment. For this purpose we designed a probabilistic Wisconsin card sorting task (WCST with belief solicitation, in which subjects were presented with stimuli composed of multiple visual features. At each moment in time a particular feature was relevant for obtaining reward, and participants had to infer which feature was relevant and report their beliefs accordingly. To test the hypothesis that attentional focus modulates the belief update process, we derived and fitted several probabilistic and non-probabilistic behavioral models, which either incorporate a dynamical model of attentional focus, in the form of a hierarchical winner-take-all neuronal network, or a diffusive model, without attention-like features. We used Bayesian model selection to identify the most likely generative model of subjects' behavior and found that attention-like features in the behavioral model are essential for explaining subjects' responses. Furthermore, we demonstrate a method for integrating both connectionist and Bayesian models of decision making within a single framework that allowed us to infer hidden belief processes of human subjects.

Brain Inspired Cognitive Model with Attention for Self-Driving Cars

OpenAIRE

Chen, Shitao; Zhang, Songyi; Shang, Jinghao; Chen, Badong; Zheng, Nanning

2017-01-01

Perception-driven approach and end-to-end system are two major vision-based frameworks for self-driving cars. However, it is difficult to introduce attention and historical information of autonomous driving process, which are the essential factors for achieving human-like driving into these two methods. In this paper, we propose a novel model for self-driving cars named brain-inspired cognitive model with attention (CMA). This model consists of three parts: a convolutional neural network for ...

Normal and Special Models of Neutrino Masses and Mixings

CERN Document Server

Altarelli, Guido

2005-01-01

One can make a distinction between "normal" and "special" models. For normal models $\\theta_{23}$ is not too close to maximal and $\\theta_{13}$ is not too small, typically a small power of the self-suggesting order parameter $\\sqrt{r}$, with $r=\\Delta m_{sol}^2/\\Delta m_{atm}^2 \\sim 1/35$. Special models are those where some symmetry or dynamical feature assures in a natural way the near vanishing of $\\theta_{13}$ and/or of $\\theta_{23}- \\pi/4$. Normal models are conceptually more economical and much simpler to construct. Here we focus on special models, in particular a recent one based on A4 discrete symmetry and extra dimensions that leads in a natural way to a Harrison-Perkins-Scott mixing matrix.

Single Canonical Model of Reflexive Memory and Spatial Attention

Science.gov (United States)

Patel, Saumil S.; Red, Stuart; Lin, Eric; Sereno, Anne B.

2015-01-01

Many neurons in the dorsal and ventral visual stream have the property that after a brief visual stimulus presentation in their receptive field, the spiking activity in these neurons persists above their baseline levels for several seconds. This maintained activity is not always correlated with the monkey’s task and its origin is unknown. We have previously proposed a simple neural network model, based on shape selective neurons in monkey lateral intraparietal cortex, which predicts the valence and time course of reflexive (bottom-up) spatial attention. In the same simple model, we demonstrate here that passive maintained activity or short-term memory of specific visual events can result without need for an external or top-down modulatory signal. Mutual inhibition and neuronal adaptation play distinct roles in reflexive attention and memory. This modest 4-cell model provides the first simple and unified physiologically plausible mechanism of reflexive spatial attention and passive short-term memory processes. PMID:26493949

Single Canonical Model of Reflexive Memory and Spatial Attention.

Science.gov (United States)

Patel, Saumil S; Red, Stuart; Lin, Eric; Sereno, Anne B

2015-10-23

Many neurons in the dorsal and ventral visual stream have the property that after a brief visual stimulus presentation in their receptive field, the spiking activity in these neurons persists above their baseline levels for several seconds. This maintained activity is not always correlated with the monkey's task and its origin is unknown. We have previously proposed a simple neural network model, based on shape selective neurons in monkey lateral intraparietal cortex, which predicts the valence and time course of reflexive (bottom-up) spatial attention. In the same simple model, we demonstrate here that passive maintained activity or short-term memory of specific visual events can result without need for an external or top-down modulatory signal. Mutual inhibition and neuronal adaptation play distinct roles in reflexive attention and memory. This modest 4-cell model provides the first simple and unified physiologically plausible mechanism of reflexive spatial attention and passive short-term memory processes.

An amodal shared resource model of language-mediated visual attention

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Alastair Charles Smith

2013-08-01

Full Text Available Language-mediated visual attention describes the interaction of two fundamental components of the human cognitive system, language and vision. Within this paper we present an amodal shared resource model of language-mediated visual attention that offers a description of the information and processes involved in this complex multimodal behaviour and a potential explanation for how this ability is acquired. We demonstrate that the model is not only sufficient to account for the experimental effects of Visual World Paradigm studies but also that these effects are emergent properties of the architecture of the model itself, rather than requiring separate information processing channels or modular processing systems. The model provides an explicit description of the connection between the modality-specific input from language and vision and the distribution of eye gaze in language mediated visual attention. The paper concludes by discussing future applications for the model, specifically its potential for investigating the factors driving observed individual differences in language mediated eye gaze.

Causes of Fiscal Illusion: Lack of Information or Lack of Attention?

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Bækgaard, Martin; Serritzlew, Søren; Blom-Hansen, Jens

2016-01-01

the implications of fiscal illusions, whereas the question why fiscal illusions occur at all has received less attention. According to the standard argument, individuals base their opinion of policy proposals on a valuation of benefits and costs. We formalize the standard argument and show that it is a special......According to fiscal illusion theory, voters misperceive fiscal parameters because of incomplete information. The costs of public services are underestimated, implying that if voters had full information, their support for public services would drop. The literature has focused on testing...... case of the attention model of fiscal illusion. In this model, opinion depends on the saliency of attributes of the proposal. We show that the attention model can better explain fiscal illusion by deriving competing hypotheses, which are tested in a survey experiment. We conclude that the mechanism...

Effects of methylphenidate on attentional set-shifting in a genetic model of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Cao Ai-hua

2012-02-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background Although deficits of attentional set-shifting have been reported in individuals with attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD, it is rarely examined in animal models. Methods This study compared spontaneously hypertensive rats (SHRs; a genetic animal model of ADHD and Wistar-Kyoto (WKY and Sprague-Dawley (SD rats (normoactive control strains, on attentional set-shifting task (ASST performance. Furthermore, the dose-effects of methylphenidate (MPH on attentional set-shifting of SHR were investigated. In experiment 1, ASST procedures were conducted in SHR, WKY and SD rats of 8 each at the age of 5 weeks. Mean latencies at the initial phase, error types and numbers, and trials to criteria at each stage were recorded. In experiment 2, 24 SHR rats were randomly assigned to 3 groups of 8 each-- MPH-L (lower dose, MPH-H (higher dose, and SHR-vehicle groups. From 3 weeks, they were administered 2.5 mg/kg or 5 mg/kg MPH or saline respectively for 14 consecutive days. All rats were tested in the ASST at the age of 5 weeks. Results The SHRs generally exhibited poorer performance on ASST than the control WKY and SD rats. Significant strain effects on mean latency [F (2, 21 = 639.636, p p p p p Conclusions The SHR may be impaired in discrimination learning, reversal learning and attentional set-shifting. Our study provides evidence that MPH may improve the SHR's performance on attentional set-shifting and lower dose is more effective than higher dose.

Disentangling unisensory from fusion effects in the attentional modulation of McGurk effects: a Bayesian modeling study suggests that fusion is attention-dependent

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Schwartz, Jean-Luc; Tiiippana, Kaisa; Andersen, Tobias

2010-01-01

The McGurk effect has been shown to be modulated by attention. However, it remains unclear whether attentional effects are due to changes in unisensory processing or in the fusion mechanism. In this paper, we used published experimental data showing that distraction of visual attention weakens th...... Selection criterion. Our findings suggest that distraction of visual attention affects fusion by decreasing the weight of the visual input.......The McGurk effect has been shown to be modulated by attention. However, it remains unclear whether attentional effects are due to changes in unisensory processing or in the fusion mechanism. In this paper, we used published experimental data showing that distraction of visual attention weakens...... the McGurk effect, to fit either the Fuzzy Logical Model of Perception (FLMP) in which the fusion mechanism is fixed, or a variant of it in which the fusion mechanism could be varied depending on attention. The latter model was associated with a larger likelihood when assessed with a Bayesian Model...

Social isolation induces deficit of latent learning performance in mice: a putative animal model of attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder.

Science.gov (United States)

Ouchi, Hirofumi; Ono, Kazuya; Murakami, Yukihisa; Matsumoto, Kinzo

2013-02-01

Social isolation of rodents (SI) elicits a variety of stress responses such as increased aggressiveness, hyper-locomotion, and reduced susceptibility to pentobarbital. To obtain a better understanding of the relevance of SI-induced behavioral abnormalities to psychiatric disorders, we examined the effect of SI on latent learning as an index of spatial attention, and discussed the availability of SI as an epigenetic model of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Except in specially stated cases, 4-week-old male mice were housed in a group or socially isolated for 3-70 days before experiments. The animals socially isolated for 1 week or more exhibited spatial attention deficit in the water-finding test. Re-socialized rearing for 5 weeks after 1-week SI failed to attenuate the spatial attention deficit. The effect of SI on spatial attention showed no gender difference or correlation with increased aggressive behavior. Moreover, SI had no effect on cognitive performance elucidated in a modified Y-maze or an object recognition test, but it significantly impaired contextual and conditional fear memory elucidated in the fear-conditioning test. Drugs used for ADHD therapy, methylphenidate (1-10 mg/kg, i.p.) and caffeine (0.5-1 mg/kg, i.p.), improved SI-induced latent learning deficit in a manner reversible with cholinergic but not dopaminergic antagonists. Considering the behavioral features of SI mice together with their susceptibility to ADHD drugs, the present findings suggest that SI provides an epigenetic animal model of ADHD and that central cholinergic systems play a role in the effect of methylphenidate on SI-induced spatial attention deficit. Copyright © 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

An object-based visual attention model for robotic applications.

Science.gov (United States)

Yu, Yuanlong; Mann, George K I; Gosine, Raymond G

2010-10-01

By extending integrated competition hypothesis, this paper presents an object-based visual attention model, which selects one object of interest using low-dimensional features, resulting that visual perception starts from a fast attentional selection procedure. The proposed attention model involves seven modules: learning of object representations stored in a long-term memory (LTM), preattentive processing, top-down biasing, bottom-up competition, mediation between top-down and bottom-up ways, generation of saliency maps, and perceptual completion processing. It works in two phases: learning phase and attending phase. In the learning phase, the corresponding object representation is trained statistically when one object is attended. A dual-coding object representation consisting of local and global codings is proposed. Intensity, color, and orientation features are used to build the local coding, and a contour feature is employed to constitute the global coding. In the attending phase, the model preattentively segments the visual field into discrete proto-objects using Gestalt rules at first. If a task-specific object is given, the model recalls the corresponding representation from LTM and deduces the task-relevant feature(s) to evaluate top-down biases. The mediation between automatic bottom-up competition and conscious top-down biasing is then performed to yield a location-based saliency map. By combination of location-based saliency within each proto-object, the proto-object-based saliency is evaluated. The most salient proto-object is selected for attention, and it is finally put into the perceptual completion processing module to yield a complete object region. This model has been applied into distinct tasks of robots: detection of task-specific stationary and moving objects. Experimental results under different conditions are shown to validate this model.

Antiparasitic activity in Asteraceae with special attention to ethnobotanical use by the tribes of Odisha, India

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Panda Sujogya Kumar

2018-01-01

Full Text Available The purpose of this review is to survey the antiparasitic plants of the Asteraceae family and their applicability in the treatment of parasites. This review is divided into three major parts: (a literature on traditional uses of Asteraceae plants for the treatment of parasites; (b description of the major classes of chemical compounds from Asteraceae and their antiparasitic effects; and (c antiparasitic activity with special reference to flavonoids and terpenoids. This review provides detailed information on the reported Asteraceae plant extracts found throughout the world and on isolated secondary metabolites that can inhibit protozoan parasites such as Plasmodium, Trypanosoma, Leishmania, and intestinal worms. Additionally, special attention is given to the Asteraceae plants of Odisha, used by the tribes of the area as antiparasitics. These plants are compared to the same plants used traditionally in other regions. Finally, we provide information on which plants identified in Odisha, India and related compounds show promise for the development of new drugs against parasitic diseases. For most of the plants discussed in this review, the active compounds still need to be isolated and tested further.

Replication Research and Special Education

Science.gov (United States)

Travers, Jason C.; Cook, Bryan G.; Therrien, William J.; Coyne, Michael D.

2016-01-01

Replicating previously reported empirical research is a necessary aspect of an evidence-based field of special education, but little formal investigation into the prevalence of replication research in the special education research literature has been conducted. Various factors may explain the lack of attention to replication of special education…

Modeling selective attention using a neuromorphic analog VLSI device.

Science.gov (United States)

Indiveri, G

2000-12-01

Attentional mechanisms are required to overcome the problem of flooding a limited processing capacity system with information. They are present in biological sensory systems and can be a useful engineering tool for artificial visual systems. In this article we present a hardware model of a selective attention mechanism implemented on a very large-scale integration (VLSI) chip, using analog neuromorphic circuits. The chip exploits a spike-based representation to receive, process, and transmit signals. It can be used as a transceiver module for building multichip neuromorphic vision systems. We describe the circuits that carry out the main processing stages of the selective attention mechanism and provide experimental data for each circuit. We demonstrate the expected behavior of the model at the system level by stimulating the chip with both artificially generated control signals and signals obtained from a saliency map, computed from an image containing several salient features.

Virtual Reality and Special Needs

Science.gov (United States)

Jeffs, Tara L.

2009-01-01

The use of virtual environments for special needs is as diverse as the field of Special Education itself and the individuals it serves. Individuals with special needs often face challenges with attention, language, spatial abilities, memory, higher reasoning and knowledge acquisition. Research in the use of Virtual Learning Environments (VLE)…

The Research of the Driver Attention Field Modeling

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Pengfei Tao

2014-01-01

Full Text Available For expanding the application scope of car-following, based on the basic idea of the noncontact interaction of the objects in physics, establish an attention field model to describe the driving behavior. Firstly, propose the time distance concept to describe the degree of driver perception to the front one-dimensional space and extend its application range to the two-dimensional space. Secondly, connect the point which has the same time distance to constitute the equipotential line of drivers’ attention field equipotent, and establish a model to describe it. Thirdly, define the effective range of the driver’s psychological field with the feature of the driver’s visual distance range increasing and the angle decreasing. Finally, design the calculation method to collect projection of the object in the psychological field scope and calculate the curve points to determine the object’s intensity of psychological field. Preliminarily build the driving behavior model and use the numerical simulation method to simulate the simple transport scenarios; initially verify the validity of the model.

34 CFR 300.606 - Public attention.

Science.gov (United States)

2010-07-01

... 34 Education 2 2010-07-01 2010-07-01 false Public attention. 300.606 Section 300.606 Education Regulations of the Offices of the Department of Education (Continued) OFFICE OF SPECIAL EDUCATION AND..., and Enforcement § 300.606 Public attention. Whenever a State receives notice that the Secretary is...

A cognitive model for visual attention and its application

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Bosse, T.; Maanen, P.P. van; Treur, J.

2007-01-01

In this paper a cognitive model for visual attention is introduced. The cognitive model is part of the design of a software agent that supports a naval warfare officer in its task to compile a tactical picture of the situation in the field. An executable formal specification of the cognitive model

The attention-weighted sample-size model of visual short-term memory: Attention capture predicts resource allocation and memory load.

Science.gov (United States)

Smith, Philip L; Lilburn, Simon D; Corbett, Elaine A; Sewell, David K; Kyllingsbæk, Søren

2016-09-01

We investigated the capacity of visual short-term memory (VSTM) in a phase discrimination task that required judgments about the configural relations between pairs of black and white features. Sewell et al. (2014) previously showed that VSTM capacity in an orientation discrimination task was well described by a sample-size model, which views VSTM as a resource comprised of a finite number of noisy stimulus samples. The model predicts the invariance of [Formula: see text] , the sum of squared sensitivities across items, for displays of different sizes. For phase discrimination, the set-size effect significantly exceeded that predicted by the sample-size model for both simultaneously and sequentially presented stimuli. Instead, the set-size effect and the serial position curves with sequential presentation were predicted by an attention-weighted version of the sample-size model, which assumes that one of the items in the display captures attention and receives a disproportionate share of resources. The choice probabilities and response time distributions from the task were well described by a diffusion decision model in which the drift rates embodied the assumptions of the attention-weighted sample-size model. Copyright © 2016 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Psychology of Game Playing: Introduction to a Special Issue

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Andrew M. Colman

2015-12-01

Full Text Available Game theory has focused attention on different problems at different times in its history. Currently, attention is devoted to investigating how human decision makers with bounded rationality choose strategies in interactive decisions. Behavioral economics, and more generally experimental games, have appeared in the literature with accelerating frequency since 1990, and this cannot continue indefinitely without a proportional expansion of journal space. This Special Issue includes contributions to behavioral economics, experimental games, and evolutionary game theory, using theoretical, experimental, and agent-based modeling techniques.

Wicked Problems in Special and Inclusive Education

Science.gov (United States)

Armstrong, David

2017-01-01

This special paper provides a critical overview of wicked problems in special and inclusive education. Practically, this paper provides a strategic framework for future special issues in the "Journal of Special Educational Needs". Critical attention is also given to the concept of a wicked problem when applied to research in special and…

Attention and executive functions in a rat model of chronic epilepsy.

Science.gov (United States)

Faure, Jean-Baptiste; Marques-Carneiro, José E; Akimana, Gladys; Cosquer, Brigitte; Ferrandon, Arielle; Herbeaux, Karine; Koning, Estelle; Barbelivien, Alexandra; Nehlig, Astrid; Cassel, Jean-Christophe

2014-05-01

Temporal lobe epilepsy is a relatively frequent, invalidating, and often refractory neurologic disorder. It is associated with cognitive impairments that affect memory and executive functions. In the rat lithium-pilocarpine temporal lobe epilepsy model, memory impairment and anxiety disorder are classically reported. Here we evaluated sustained visual attention in this model of epilepsy, a function not frequently explored. Thirty-five Sprague-Dawley rats were subjected to lithium-pilocarpine status epilepticus. Twenty of them received a carisbamate treatment for 7 days, starting 1 h after status epilepticus onset. Twelve controls received lithium and saline. Five months later, attention was assessed in the five-choice serial reaction time task, a task that tests visual attention and inhibitory control (impulsivity/compulsivity). Neuronal counting was performed in brain regions of interest to the functions studied (hippocampus, prefrontal cortex, nucleus basalis magnocellularis, and pedunculopontine tegmental nucleus). Lithium-pilocarpine rats developed motor seizures. When they were able to learn the task, they exhibited attention impairment and a tendency toward impulsivity and compulsivity. These disturbances occurred in the absence of neuronal loss in structures classically related to attentional performance, although they seemed to better correlate with neuronal loss in hippocampus. Globally, rats that received carisbamate and developed motor seizures were as impaired as untreated rats, whereas those that did not develop overt motor seizures performed like controls, despite evidence for hippocampal damage. This study shows that attention deficits reported by patients with temporal lobe epilepsy can be observed in the lithium-pilocarpine model. Carisbamate prevents the occurrence of motor seizures, attention impairment, impulsivity, and compulsivity in a subpopulation of neuroprotected rats. Wiley Periodicals, Inc. © 2014 International League Against Epilepsy.

Attentional switching in humans and flies: rivalry in large and miniature brains

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Steven Mark Miller

2012-01-01

Full Text Available Human perception, and consequently behaviour, is driven by attention dynamics. In the special case of rivalry, where attention alternates between competing percepts, such dynamics can be measured and their determinants investigated. A recent study in the fruit fly, Drosophila melanogaster, now shows that the origins of attentional rivalry may be quite ancient. Furthermore, individual variation exists in the rate of attentional rivalry in both humans and flies, and in humans this is under substantial genetic influence. In the pathophysiological realm, slowing of rivalry rate is associated with the heritable psychiatric condition, bipolar disorder. Fly rivalry may therefore prove a powerful model to examine genetic and molecular influences on rivalry rate, and may even shed light on human cognitive and behavioural dysfunction.

Video Modeling Training Effects on Types of Attention Delivered by Educational Care-Providers.

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Taber, Traci A; Lambright, Nathan; Luiselli, James K

2017-06-01

We evaluated the effects of abbreviated (i.e., one-session) video modeling on delivery of student-preferred attention by educational care-providers. The video depicted a novel care-provider interacting with and delivering attention to the student. Within a concurrent multiple baseline design, video modeling increased delivery of the targeted attention for all participants as well as their delivery of another type of attention that was not trained although these effects were variable within and between care-providers. We discuss the clinical and training implications from these findings.

Effects of Task Performance and Task Complexity on the Validity of Computational Models of Attention

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Koning, L. de; Maanen, P.P. van; Dongen, K. van

2008-01-01

Computational models of attention can be used as a component of decision support systems. For accurate support, a computational model of attention has to be valid and robust. The effects of task performance and task complexity on the validity of three different computational models of attention were

An evaluation of attention models for use in SLAM

Science.gov (United States)

Dodge, Samuel; Karam, Lina

2013-12-01

In this paper we study the application of visual saliency models for the simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM) problem. We consider visual SLAM, where the location of the camera and a map of the environment can be generated using images from a single moving camera. In visual SLAM, the interest point detector is of key importance. This detector must be invariant to certain image transformations so that features can be matched across di erent frames. Recent work has used a model of human visual attention to detect interest points, however it is unclear as to what is the best attention model for this purpose. To this aim, we compare the performance of interest points from four saliency models (Itti, GBVS, RARE, and AWS) with the performance of four traditional interest point detectors (Harris, Shi-Tomasi, SIFT, and FAST). We evaluate these detectors under several di erent types of image transformation and nd that the Itti saliency model, in general, achieves the best performance in terms of keypoint repeatability.

A MODEL FOR MEASURING THE STUDENT BEHAVIOR IN WEB 2.0. CLASS. CASE STUDY OF TOURISM STUDENT SPECIALIZATION.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Ramona Lacurezeanu

2016-07-01

Full Text Available The digitization as a general phenomenon is influencing even the students we meet nowadays, making their expectations grow regarding the experiences offered by the eLearning context. At the global level it is found that the student as consumer of pieces of different content, with different levels of involvement as well as with a different level of attention is hard to be pleased. It is difficult to follow their interests and from here stems the difficulty of measuring the studentsˊ behavior. Our study will provide a model / tool for measuring the involvement of the student specializing in tourism within the courses by capturing levels of involvement in the course of learning and outlining their behaviour. We will compare the achieved results with the model of the student as it was imagined by the teacher when constructing the entire course. Our research will provide the specialized literature with conclusions on the impact of using collaborative environments in teaching and learning with implications and consequences on the improvement of digital skills.

Measuring and modeling salience with the theory of visual attention.

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Krüger, Alexander; Tünnermann, Jan; Scharlau, Ingrid

2017-08-01

For almost three decades, the theory of visual attention (TVA) has been successful in mathematically describing and explaining a wide variety of phenomena in visual selection and recognition with high quantitative precision. Interestingly, the influence of feature contrast on attention has been included in TVA only recently, although it has been extensively studied outside the TVA framework. The present approach further develops this extension of TVA's scope by measuring and modeling salience. An empirical measure of salience is achieved by linking different (orientation and luminance) contrasts to a TVA parameter. In the modeling part, the function relating feature contrasts to salience is described mathematically and tested against alternatives by Bayesian model comparison. This model comparison reveals that the power function is an appropriate model of salience growth in the dimensions of orientation and luminance contrast. Furthermore, if contrasts from the two dimensions are combined, salience adds up additively.

The Dance of Attention: Toward an Aesthetic Dimension of Attention-Deficit.

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Levin, Kasper

2018-03-01

What role does the aesthetics of bodily movement play in the understanding of attention among children diagnosed with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD)? This article animates a phenomenological approach to attention and embodiment with a special focus on the relation between aesthetic or expressive bodily movement and behavioral awareness in children diagnosed with ADHD. However, beyond this it is argued that the aesthetic aspect of movement calls for an expansion of the phenomenological perspective. In this context Gilles Deleuze's notion of aesthetics as a "science of the sensible" is activated and discussed in relation to the phenomenological concept of perception. Empirically the article takes point of departure in a qualitative study conducted with a group of children with attention-deficit practicing the Afro-Brazilian marital art, capoeira. Combining ethnographic and phenomenological methods, it is demonstrated that capoeira can be considered a form of aesthetic movement that offers a transition of attention-deficit into a productive force of expression that changes the notions of sensation and movement in ADHD.

"Special Issue": Regional Dimensions of the Triple Helix Model

Science.gov (United States)

Todeva, Emanuela; Danson, Mike

2016-01-01

This paper introduces the rationale for the special issue and its contributions, which bridge the literature on regional development and the Triple Helix model. The concept of the Triple Helix at the sub-national, and specifically regional, level is established and examined, with special regard to regional economic development founded on…

Social Image Captioning: Exploring Visual Attention and User Attention

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Leiquan Wang

2018-02-01

Full Text Available Image captioning with a natural language has been an emerging trend. However, the social image, associated with a set of user-contributed tags, has been rarely investigated for a similar task. The user-contributed tags, which could reflect the user attention, have been neglected in conventional image captioning. Most existing image captioning models cannot be applied directly to social image captioning. In this work, a dual attention model is proposed for social image captioning by combining the visual attention and user attention simultaneously.Visual attention is used to compress a large mount of salient visual information, while user attention is applied to adjust the description of the social images with user-contributed tags. Experiments conducted on the Microsoft (MS COCO dataset demonstrate the superiority of the proposed method of dual attention.

Social Image Captioning: Exploring Visual Attention and User Attention.

Science.gov (United States)

Wang, Leiquan; Chu, Xiaoliang; Zhang, Weishan; Wei, Yiwei; Sun, Weichen; Wu, Chunlei

2018-02-22

Image captioning with a natural language has been an emerging trend. However, the social image, associated with a set of user-contributed tags, has been rarely investigated for a similar task. The user-contributed tags, which could reflect the user attention, have been neglected in conventional image captioning. Most existing image captioning models cannot be applied directly to social image captioning. In this work, a dual attention model is proposed for social image captioning by combining the visual attention and user attention simultaneously.Visual attention is used to compress a large mount of salient visual information, while user attention is applied to adjust the description of the social images with user-contributed tags. Experiments conducted on the Microsoft (MS) COCO dataset demonstrate the superiority of the proposed method of dual attention.

A Dual-Stage Two-Phase Model of Selective Attention

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Hubner, Ronald; Steinhauser, Marco; Lehle, Carola

2010-01-01

The dual-stage two-phase (DSTP) model is introduced as a formal and general model of selective attention that includes both an early and a late stage of stimulus selection. Whereas at the early stage information is selected by perceptual filters whose selectivity is relatively limited, at the late stage stimuli are selected more efficiently on a…

Advertising for Attention in a Consumer Search Model

OpenAIRE

Marco A. Haan; Jose Luis Moraga-Gonzalez

2009-01-01

We model the idea that when consumers search for products, they first visit the firm whose advertising is more salient. The gains a firm derives from being visited early increase in search costs, so equilibrium advertising increases as search costs rise. This may result in lower firm profits when search costs increase. We extend the basic model by allowing for firm heterogeneity in advertising costs. Firms whose advertising is more salient and therefore raise attention more easily charge lowe...

A Closed-Loop Model of Operator Visual Attention, Situation Awareness, and Performance Across Automation Mode Transitions.

Science.gov (United States)

Johnson, Aaron W; Duda, Kevin R; Sheridan, Thomas B; Oman, Charles M

2017-03-01

This article describes a closed-loop, integrated human-vehicle model designed to help understand the underlying cognitive processes that influenced changes in subject visual attention, mental workload, and situation awareness across control mode transitions in a simulated human-in-the-loop lunar landing experiment. Control mode transitions from autopilot to manual flight may cause total attentional demands to exceed operator capacity. Attentional resources must be reallocated and reprioritized, which can increase the average uncertainty in the operator's estimates of low-priority system states. We define this increase in uncertainty as a reduction in situation awareness. We present a model built upon the optimal control model for state estimation, the crossover model for manual control, and the SEEV (salience, effort, expectancy, value) model for visual attention. We modify the SEEV attention executive to direct visual attention based, in part, on the uncertainty in the operator's estimates of system states. The model was validated using the simulated lunar landing experimental data, demonstrating an average difference in the percentage of attention ≤3.6% for all simulator instruments. The model's predictions of mental workload and situation awareness, measured by task performance and system state uncertainty, also mimicked the experimental data. Our model supports the hypothesis that visual attention is influenced by the uncertainty in system state estimates. Conceptualizing situation awareness around the metric of system state uncertainty is a valuable way for system designers to understand and predict how reallocations in the operator's visual attention during control mode transitions can produce reallocations in situation awareness of certain states.

Treatment of Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder among Children with Special Health Care Needs.

Science.gov (United States)

Visser, Susanna N; Bitsko, Rebecca H; Danielson, Melissa L; Ghandour, Reem M; Blumberg, Stephen J; Schieve, Laura A; Holbrook, Joseph R; Wolraich, Mark L; Cuffe, Steven P

2015-06-01

To describe the parent-reported prevalence of treatments for attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) among a national sample of children with special health care needs (CSHCN), and assess the alignment of ADHD treatment with current American Academy of Pediatrics guidelines. Parent-reported data from the 2009-2010 National Survey of Children with Special Health Care Needs allowed for weighted national and state-based prevalence estimates of medication, behavioral therapy, and dietary supplement use for ADHD treatment among CSHCN aged 4-17 years with current ADHD. National estimates were compared across demographic groups, ADHD severity, and comorbidities. Medication treatment by drug class was described. Of CSHCN with current ADHD, 74.0% had received medication treatment in the past week, 44.0% had received behavioral therapy in the past year, and 10.2% used dietary supplements for ADHD in the past year. Overall, 87.3% had received past week medication treatment or past year behavioral therapy (both, 30.7%; neither, 12.7%). Among preschool-aged CSHCN with ADHD, 25.4% received medication treatment alone, 31.9% received behavioral therapy alone, 21.2% received both treatments, and 21.4% received neither treatment. Central nervous system stimulants were the most common medication class (84.8%) among CSHCN with ADHD, followed by the selective norepinephrine reuptake inhibitor atomoxetine (8.4%). These estimates provide a benchmark of clinical practice for the period directly preceding issuance of the American Academy of Pediatrics' 2011 ADHD guidelines. Most children with ADHD received medication treatment or behavioral therapy; just under one-third received both. Multimodal treatment was most common for CSHCN with severe ADHD and those with comorbidities. Approximately one-half of preschoolers received behavioral therapy, the recommended first-line treatment for this age group. Published by Elsevier Inc.

Attention processes in chronic fatigue syndrome: attentional bias for health-related threat and the role of attentional control.

Science.gov (United States)

Hou, Ruihua; Moss-Morris, Rona; Risdale, Anna; Lynch, Jeannette; Jeevaratnam, Preshan; Bradley, Brendan P; Mogg, Karin

2014-01-01

Cognitive behavioural models of chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) propose that attention processes, specifically, enhanced selective attention to health-threat related cues, may play an important role in symptom maintenance. The current study investigated attentional bias towards health-threat stimuli in CFS. It also examined whether individuals with CFS have impaired executive attention, and whether this was related to attentional bias. 27 participants with CFS and 35 healthy controls completed a Visual Probe Task measuring attentional bias, and an Attention Network Test measuring executive attention, alerting and orienting. Participants also completed self-report measures of CFS and mood symptoms. Compared to the control group, the CFS group showed greater attentional bias for health-threat words than pictures; and the CFS group was significantly impaired in executive attention. Furthermore, CFS individuals with poor executive attention showed greater attentional bias to health-threat related words, compared not only to controls but also to CFS individuals with good executive attention. Thus, this study revealed a significant relationship between attentional bias and executive attention in CFS: attentional bias to threat was primarily evident in those with impaired executive attention control. Taking account of individual differences in executive attention control in current intervention models may be beneficial for CFS. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Special Education Teacher Resilience: A Phenomenological Study of Factors Associated with Retention and Resilience of Highly Resilient Special Educators

Science.gov (United States)

Downing, Brienne

2017-01-01

Special education teachers are in high demand and greatly needed to meet the needs of the growing population of students qualified for special education services under the Individual with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) of 2004. The increasing attrition rates of special education teachers are a social justice issue that needs attention. The…

Towards Cognizant Hearing Aids: Modeling of Content, Affect and Attention

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Karadogan, Seliz

Hearing aids improved significantly after the integration of advanced digital signal processing applications. This improvement will continue and evolve through obtaining intelligent, individualized hearing aids integrating top-down (knowledge-based) and bottom-up (signal-based) approaches by making...... use of research done within cognitive science that is the interdisciplinary study of mind and intelligence bringing together various disciplines including Artificial Intelligence, Cognitive Psychology, and Neuroscience. This thesis focuses on three subjects within cognitive science related to hearing...... attention is studied. A computational top-down attention model is presented and behavioral experiments are carried out to investigate the role of top-down task driven attention in the cocktail party problem. Finally, automatic emotion recognition from speech is studied using a dimensional approach...

BDA special care case mix model.

Science.gov (United States)

Bateman, P; Arnold, C; Brown, R; Foster, L V; Greening, S; Monaghan, N; Zoitopoulos, L

2010-04-10

Routine dental care provided in special care dentistry is complicated by patient specific factors which increase the time taken and costs of treatment. The BDA have developed and conducted a field trial of a case mix tool to measure this complexity. For each episode of care the case mix tool assesses the following on a four point scale: 'ability to communicate', 'ability to cooperate', 'medical status', 'oral risk factors', 'access to oral care' and 'legal and ethical barriers to care'. The tool is reported to be easy to use and captures sufficient detail to discriminate between types of service and special care dentistry provided. It offers potential as a simple to use and clinically relevant source of performance management and commissioning data. This paper describes the model, demonstrates how it is currently being used, and considers future developments in its use.

Racial Inequity in Special Education Undefined

Science.gov (United States)

Losen, Daniel J., Ed.; Orfield, Gary, Ed.

2002-01-01

An illuminating account of a widespread problem that has received little attention, "Racial Inequity in Education" sets the stage for a more fruitful discussion about special education and racial justice. An illuminating account of a widespread problem that has received little attention, "Racial Inequity in Education" sets the…

How do changes in media consumption affect newspaper revenue? : Suggestions on earning more revenue, with a special attention to the Nordic region

OpenAIRE

Shahbazi, Fatemeh

2016-01-01

This thesis is concentrated on the changes in consumer’s newspaper consumption and its impact on newspaper’s revenue in order to find out how printed news can earn more money. This thesis has a special attention on the Nordic region newspaper industry. The aim of this thesis is to explain how changes occurred in news consumption habits of users has impacted on newspaper firms’ revenue in order to find new strategies for newspaper firms for earning more money to remain survived. The research q...

Attention to the Model's Face When Learning from Video Modeling Examples in Adolescents with and without Autism Spectrum Disorder

Science.gov (United States)

van Wermeskerken, Margot; Grimmius, Bianca; van Gog, Tamara

2018-01-01

We investigated the effects of seeing the instructor's (i.e., the model's) face in video modeling examples on students' attention and their learning outcomes. Research with university students suggested that the model's face attracts students' attention away from what the model is doing, but this did not hamper learning. We aimed to investigate…

Timing divided attention.

Science.gov (United States)

Hogendoorn, Hinze; Carlson, Thomas A; VanRullen, Rufin; Verstraten, Frans A J

2010-11-01

Visual attention can be divided over multiple objects or locations. However, there is no single theoretical framework within which the effects of dividing attention can be interpreted. In order to develop such a model, here we manipulated the stage of visual processing at which attention was divided, while simultaneously probing the costs of dividing attention on two dimensions. We show that dividing attention incurs dissociable time and precision costs, which depend on whether attention is divided during monitoring or during access. Dividing attention during monitoring resulted in progressively delayed access to attended locations as additional locations were monitored, as well as a one-off precision cost. When dividing attention during access, time costs were systematically lower at one of the accessed locations than at the other, indicating that divided attention during access, in fact, involves rapid sequential allocation of undivided attention. We propose a model in which divided attention is understood as the simultaneous parallel preparation and subsequent sequential execution of multiple shifts of undivided attention. This interpretation has the potential to bring together diverse findings from both the divided-attention and saccade preparation literature and provides a framework within which to integrate the broad spectrum of divided-attention methodologies.

Deficient attention is hard to find: applying the perceptual load model of selective attention to attention deficit hyperactivity disorder subtypes.

Science.gov (United States)

Huang-Pollock, Cynthia L; Nigg, Joel T; Carr, Thomas H

2005-11-01

Whether selective attention is a primary deficit in childhood Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) remains in active debate. We used the perceptual load paradigm to examine both early and late selective attention in children with the Primarily Inattentive (ADHD-I) and Combined subtypes (ADHD-C) of ADHD. No evidence emerged for selective attention deficits in either of the subtypes, but sluggish cognitive tempo was associated with abnormal early selection. At least some, and possibly most, children with DSM-IV ADHD have normal selective attention. Results support the move away from theories of attention dysfunction as primary in ADHD-C. In ADHD-I, this was one of the first formal tests of posterior attention network dysfunction, and results did not support that theory. However, ADHD children with sluggish cognitive tempo (SCT) warrant more study for possible early selective attention deficits.

Feature and Meta-Models in Clafer: Mixed, Specialized, and Coupled

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Bąk, Kacper; Czarnecki, Krzysztof; Wasowski, Andrzej

2011-01-01

constraints (such as mapping feature configurations to component configurations or model templates). Clafer also allows arranging models into multiple specialization and extension layers via constraints and inheritance. We identify four key mechanisms allowing a meta-modeling language to express feature...

Concurrent Working Memory Load Can Facilitate Selective Attention: Evidence for Specialized Load

Science.gov (United States)

Park, Soojin; Kim, Min-Shik; Chun, Marvin M.

2007-01-01

Load theory predicts that concurrent working memory load impairs selective attention and increases distractor interference (N. Lavie, A. Hirst, J. W. de Fockert, & E. Viding, see record 2004-17825-003). Here, the authors present new evidence that the type of concurrent working memory load determines whether load impairs selective attention or not.…

Overlapping Parietal Activity in Memory and Perception: Evidence for the Attention to Memory Model

Science.gov (United States)

Cabeza, Roberto; Mazuz, Yonatan S.; Stokes, Jared; Kragel, James E.; Woldorff, Marty G.; Ciaramelli, Elisa; Olson, Ingrid R.; Moscovitch, Morris

2011-01-01

The specific role of different parietal regions to episodic retrieval is a topic of intense debate. According to the Attention to Memory (AtoM) model, dorsal parietal cortex (DPC) mediates top-down attention processes guided by retrieval goals, whereas ventral parietal cortex (VPC) mediates bottom-up attention processes captured by the retrieval…

A Comparative Study of the Effects of the Neurocognitive-Based Model and the Conventional Model on Learner Attention, Working Memory and Mood

Science.gov (United States)

Srikoon, Sanit; Bunterm, Tassanee; Nethanomsak, Teerachai; Ngang, Tang Keow

2017-01-01

Purpose: The attention, working memory, and mood of learners are the most important abilities in the learning process. This study was concerned with the comparison of contextualized attention, working memory, and mood through a neurocognitive-based model (5P) and a conventional model (5E). It sought to examine the significant change in attention,…

Towards a new model of attentional biases in the development, maintenance, and management of pain.

Science.gov (United States)

Todd, Jemma; Sharpe, Louise; Johnson, Ameika; Nicholson Perry, Kathryn; Colagiuri, Ben; Dear, Blake F

2015-09-01

Individuals with chronic pain demonstrate attentional biases (ABs) towards pain-related stimuli. However, the clinical importance of these biases is yet to be determined and a sound theoretical model for explaining the role of ABs in the development and maintenance of pain is lacking. Within this article, we (1) systematically review prospective and experimental research exploring ABs and pain outcomes in light of current theoretical models and (2) propose a theoretical framework for understanding AB in pain. Across prospective research, an attentional pattern of vigilance-avoidance was observed. Interventions targeting ABs were less consistent; however, there were promising findings among studies that found attentional training effects, particularly for laboratory research. The proposed Threat Interpretation Model suggests a relationship between threat, interpretation, and stimuli in determining attentional processes, which while tentative generates important testable predictions regarding the role of attention in pain and builds on previous theoretical and empirical work in this area.

Review: Attention and Memory in Autism

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Arash Mirab-Zadeh

2001-12-01

Full Text Available Many investigations have documented about attentional and memorial abnormality in individuals with autism. This study is summary of recent researches about alternations of attention and memory in autism. The most important changes of attention in autism are: 1 Arousal modulatory system dysfunction, leading to fluctuations between states over and under arousal. 2 Reduction of orienting and processing of novel stimuli. 3 Over focused attention, responding to only a subset of environmental cues. 4 Deficit in shifting attention, leading to difficulty moving their attention from one special location to another. The most important changes of memory in autism are: 1 Good rote memory 2 Cued recall is significantly better than free recall 3 Deficit in working memory 4 Deficit in implicit and explicit memory 5 Deficit in verbal memory about material that requires further encoding, organization or use of meaning or semantic cues for recalling 6 High functioning memory in some of the patients for example ability to read well, singing or recognizing musical pieces

Principles of visual attention

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Bundesen, Claus; Habekost, Thomas

research as a field that is fundamentally fragmented. This book takes a different perspective and presents a unified theory of visual attention: the TVA model. The TVA model explains the many aspects of visual attention by just two mechanisms for selection of information: filtering and pigeonholing......The nature of attention is one of the oldest and most central problems in psychology. A huge amount of research has been produced on this subject in the last half century, especially on attention in the visual modality, but a general explanation has remained elusive. Many still view attention....... These mechanisms are described in a set of simple equations, which allow TVA to mathematically model a large number of classical results in the attention literature. The theory explains psychological and neuroscientific findings by the same equations; TVA is a complete theory of visual attention, linking mind...

Focused attention improves working memory: implications for flexible-resource and discrete-capacity models.

Science.gov (United States)

Souza, Alessandra S; Rerko, Laura; Lin, Hsuan-Yu; Oberauer, Klaus

2014-10-01

Performance in working memory (WM) tasks depends on the capacity for storing objects and on the allocation of attention to these objects. Here, we explored how capacity models need to be augmented to account for the benefit of focusing attention on the target of recall. Participants encoded six colored disks (Experiment 1) or a set of one to eight colored disks (Experiment 2) and were cued to recall the color of a target on a color wheel. In the no-delay condition, the recall-cue was presented after a 1,000-ms retention interval, and participants could report the retrieved color immediately. In the delay condition, the recall-cue was presented at the same time as in the no-delay condition, but the opportunity to report the color was delayed. During this delay, participants could focus attention exclusively on the target. Responses deviated less from the target's color in the delay than in the no-delay condition. Mixture modeling assigned this benefit to a reduction in guessing (Experiments 1 and 2) and transposition errors (Experiment 2). We tested several computational models implementing flexible or discrete capacity allocation, aiming to explain both the effect of set size, reflecting the limited capacity of WM, and the effect of delay, reflecting the role of attention to WM representations. Both models fit the data better when a spatially graded source of transposition error is added to its assumptions. The benefits of focusing attention could be explained by allocating to this object a higher proportion of the capacity to represent color.

The attention-weighted sample-size model of visual short-term memory

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Smith, Philip L.; Lilburn, Simon D.; Corbett, Elaine A.

2016-01-01

exceeded that predicted by the sample-size model for both simultaneously and sequentially presented stimuli. Instead, the set-size effect and the serial position curves with sequential presentation were predicted by an attention-weighted version of the sample-size model, which assumes that one of the items...

The quantization of the attention function under a Bayes information theoretic model

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Wynn, H.P.; Sebastiani, P.

2001-01-01

Bayes experimental design using entropy, or equivalently negative information, as a criterion is fairly well developed. The present work applies this model but at a primitive level in statistical sampling. It is assumed that the observer/experimentor is allowed to place a window over the support of a sampling distribution and only 'pay for' observations that fall in this window. The window can be modeled with an 'attention function', simply the indicator function of the window. The understanding is that the cost of the experiment is only the number of paid for observations: n. For fixed n and under the information model it turns out that for standard problems the optimal structure for the window, in the limit amongst all types of window including disjoint regions, is discrete. That is to say it is optimal to observe the world (in this sense) through discrete slits. It also shows that in this case Bayesians with different priors will receive different samples because typically the optimal attention windows will be disjoint. This property we refer to as the quantization of the attention function

A normalization model suggests that attention changes the weighting of inputs between visual areas.

Science.gov (United States)

Ruff, Douglas A; Cohen, Marlene R

2017-05-16

Models of divisive normalization can explain the trial-averaged responses of neurons in sensory, association, and motor areas under a wide range of conditions, including how visual attention changes the gains of neurons in visual cortex. Attention, like other modulatory processes, is also associated with changes in the extent to which pairs of neurons share trial-to-trial variability. We showed recently that in addition to decreasing correlations between similarly tuned neurons within the same visual area, attention increases correlations between neurons in primary visual cortex (V1) and the middle temporal area (MT) and that an extension of a classic normalization model can account for this correlation increase. One of the benefits of having a descriptive model that can account for many physiological observations is that it can be used to probe the mechanisms underlying processes such as attention. Here, we use electrical microstimulation in V1 paired with recording in MT to provide causal evidence that the relationship between V1 and MT activity is nonlinear and is well described by divisive normalization. We then use the normalization model and recording and microstimulation experiments to show that the attention dependence of V1-MT correlations is better explained by a mechanism in which attention changes the weights of connections between V1 and MT than by a mechanism that modulates responses in either area. Our study shows that normalization can explain interactions between neurons in different areas and provides a framework for using multiarea recording and stimulation to probe the neural mechanisms underlying neuronal computations.

ATTENTION MAINTENANCE IN NOVICE DRIVERS: ASSESSMENT AND TRAINING

OpenAIRE

Pradhan, Anuj; Masserang, Kathleen M.; Divekar, Gautam; Reagan, Ian; Thomas, F. Dennis; Blomberg, Richard; Pollatsek, Alexander; Fisher, Donald

2009-01-01

All programs assessing attention maintenance inside the vehicle have required eye trackers and either a driving simulator or a specially equipped field vehicle. Ideally, one would like a way to assess attention maintenance that could be implemented on a desktop PC. Additionally, one would like to have a program that could be used to train novice drivers to maintain their attention more safely on the forward roadway. An experiment was run (a) to determine whether a program FOCAL (Focused Conce...

A New Approach to Special Education Finance: The Resource Cost Model.

Science.gov (United States)

Geske, Terry G.; Johnston, Mary Jo

1985-01-01

Describes current practices in Illinois where a personnel reimbursement formula is used to finance special education. Summarizes the basic components of the Resource Cost Model (RCM), a complex school finance formula, and compares and contrasts RCM with Illinois' current method of financing special education. (MLF)

Special issue: Plasma Conversion

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Nozaki, T.; Bogaerts, A.; Tu, X.; van de Sanden, M. C. M.

2017-01-01

With growing concern of energy and environmental issues, the combination of plasma and heterogeneous catalysts receives special attention in greenhouse gas conversion, nitrogen fixation and hydrocarbon chemistry. Plasma gas conversion driven by renewable electricity is particularly important for the

Attentional models of multitask pilot performance using advanced display technology.

Science.gov (United States)

Wickens, Christopher D; Goh, Juliana; Helleberg, John; Horrey, William J; Talleur, Donald A

2003-01-01

In the first part of the reported research, 12 instrument-rated pilots flew a high-fidelity simulation, in which air traffic control presentation of auditory (voice) information regarding traffic and flight parameters was compared with advanced display technology presentation of equivalent information regarding traffic (cockpit display of traffic information) and flight parameters (data link display). Redundant combinations were also examined while pilots flew the aircraft simulation, monitored for outside traffic, and read back communications messages. The data suggested a modest cost for visual presentation over auditory presentation, a cost mediated by head-down visual scanning, and no benefit for redundant presentation. The effects in Part 1 were modeled by multiple-resource and preemption models of divided attention. In the second part of the research, visual scanning in all conditions was fit by an expected value model of selective attention derived from a previous experiment. This model accounted for 94% of the variance in the scanning data and 90% of the variance in a second validation experiment. Actual or potential applications of this research include guidance on choosing the appropriate modality for presenting in-cockpit information and understanding task strategies induced by introducing new aviation technology.

Attention-based Memory Selection Recurrent Network for Language Modeling

OpenAIRE

Liu, Da-Rong; Chuang, Shun-Po; Lee, Hung-yi

2016-01-01

Recurrent neural networks (RNNs) have achieved great success in language modeling. However, since the RNNs have fixed size of memory, their memory cannot store all the information about the words it have seen before in the sentence, and thus the useful long-term information may be ignored when predicting the next words. In this paper, we propose Attention-based Memory Selection Recurrent Network (AMSRN), in which the model can review the information stored in the memory at each previous time ...

Caffeine improves attention deficit in neonatal 6-OHDA lesioned rats, an animal model of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).

Science.gov (United States)

Caballero, Miguel; Núñez, Fabiana; Ahern, Siobhán; Cuffí, Maria L; Carbonell, Lourdes; Sánchez, Silvia; Fernández-Dueñas, Víctor; Ciruela, Francisco

2011-04-20

Nowadays the pharmacological treatment of the attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is based on amphetamine derivatives (i.e. methylphenidate). However, these drugs induce a large array of adverse side effects, thus less aggressive psychostimulant drugs (i.e. caffeine) are being proposed in the management of ADHD. Following this tendency, we decided to study the possible therapeutic use of caffeine in an animal model of ADHD, namely the neonatal 6-hydroxy-dopamine (6-OHDA)-lesioned rat. Therefore, at postnatal day 7 rats were lesioned at the left striatum with 6-OHDA or with saline. Thereafter, at postnatal day 25 their activity and attention were measured with the Olton maze before caffeine was administered ad libitum in the drinking water. Next, after 14 days of caffeine treatment, we repeated these measurements to assess the effect of caffeine on motor activity and attention deficit. Interestingly, while no changes in the motor activity measurements were observed before and after caffeine administration, a significant improvement in the attention deficit of the 6-OHDA lesioned rats was achieved after caffeine treatment. Thus, our results led us to hypothesize that caffeine might be useful to manage the attention deficit during the prepubertal period of ADHD. Copyright © 2011 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

Attention capture by contour onsets and offsets: no special role for onsets.

Science.gov (United States)

Watson, D G; Humphreys, G W

1995-07-01

In five experiments, we investigated the power of targets defined by the onset or offset of one of an object's parts (contour onsets and offsets) either to guide or to capture visual attention. In Experiment 1, search for a single contour onset target was compared with search for a single contour offset target against a static background of distractors; no difference was found between the efficiency with which each could be detected. In Experiment 2, onsets and offsets were compared for automatic attention capture, when both occurred simultaneously. Unlike in previous studies, the effects of overall luminance change, new-object creation, and number of onset and offset items were controlled. It was found that contour onset and offset items captured attention equally well. However, display size effects on both target types were also apparent. Such effects may have been due to competition for selection between multiple onset and offset stimuli. In Experiments 3 and 4, single onset and offset stimuli were presented simultaneously and pitted directly against one another among a background of static distractors. In Experiment 3, we examined "guided search," for a target that was formed either from an onset or from an offset among static items. In Experiment 4, the onsets and offsets were uncorrelated with the target location. Similar results occurred in both experiments: target onsets and offsets were detected more efficiently than static stimuli which needed serial search; there remained effects of display size on performance; but there was still no advantage for onsets. In Experiment 5, we examined automatic attention capture by single onset and offset stimuli presented individually among static distractors. Again, there was no advantage for onset over offset targets and a display size effect was also present. These results suggest that, both in isolation and in competition, onsets that do not form new objects neither guide nor gain automatic attention more efficiently

What does Attention in Neural Machine Translation Pay Attention to?

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Ghader, H.; Monz, C.; Kondrak, G.; Watanabe, T.

2017-01-01

Attention in neural machine translation provides the possibility to encode relevant parts of the source sentence at each translation step. As a result, attention is considered to be an alignment model as well. However, there is no work that specifically studies attention and provides analysis of

Attention increases the temporal precision of conscious perception: verifying the Neural-ST Model.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Srivas Chennu

2009-11-01

Full Text Available What role does attention play in ensuring the temporal precision of visual perception? Behavioural studies have investigated feature selection and binding in time using fleeting sequences of stimuli in the Rapid Serial Visual Presentation (RSVP paradigm, and found that temporal accuracy is reduced when attentional control is diminished. To reduce the efficacy of attentional deployment, these studies have employed the Attentional Blink (AB phenomenon. In this article, we use electroencephalography (EEG to directly investigate the temporal dynamics of conscious perception. Specifically, employing a combination of experimental analysis and neural network modelling, we test the hypothesis that the availability of attention reduces temporal jitter in the latency between a target's visual onset and its consolidation into working memory. We perform time-frequency analysis on data from an AB study to compare the EEG trials underlying the P3 ERPs (Event-related Potential evoked by targets seen outside vs. inside the AB time window. We find visual differences in phase-sorted ERPimages and statistical differences in the variance of the P3 phase distributions. These results argue for increased variation in the latency of conscious perception during the AB. This experimental analysis is complemented by a theoretical exploration of temporal attention and target processing. Using activation traces from the Neural-ST(2 model, we generate virtual ERPs and virtual ERPimages. These are compared to their human counterparts to propose an explanation of how target consolidation in the context of the AB influences the temporal variability of selective attention. The AB provides us with a suitable phenomenon with which to investigate the interplay between attention and perception. The combination of experimental and theoretical elucidation in this article contributes to converging evidence for the notion that the AB reflects a reduction in the temporal acuity of

Attention and choice

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Orquin, Jacob Lund; Mueller Loose, Simone

2013-01-01

satisfaction models. Although most theories were confirmed with regard to certain predictions, none of the theories adequately accounted for the role of attention during decision making. Several observations emerged concerning the drivers and down-stream effects of attention on choice, suggesting......This paper reviews studies on eye movements in decision making, and compares their observations to theoretical predictions concerning the role of attention in decision making. Four decision theories are examined: rational models, bounded rationality, evidence accumulation, and parallel constraint...... that attention processes plays an active role in constructing decisions. So far, decision theories have largely ignored the constructive role of attention by assuming that it is entirely determined by heuristics, or that it consists of stochastic information sampling. The empirical observations reveal...

76 FR 71865 - Special Conditions: Gulfstream Aerospace Corporation, Model GVI Airplane; Windshield Coating in...

Science.gov (United States)

2011-11-21

...; Special Conditions No. 25-452-SC] Special Conditions: Gulfstream Aerospace Corporation, Model GVI Airplane... Aerospace Corporation Model GVI airplane. This airplane will have a novel or unusual design feature(s..., Gulfstream Aerospace Corporation (GAC) applied for an FAA type certificate for its new Model GVI passenger...

Attentional load and attentional boost: A review of data and theory

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Khena M Swallow

2013-05-01

Full Text Available Both perceptual and cognitive processes are limited in capacity. As a result, attention is selective, prioritizing items and tasks that are important for adaptive behavior. However, a number of recent behavioral and neuroimaging studies suggest that, at least under some circumstances, increasing attention to one task can enhance performance in a second task (e.g., the attentional boost effect. Here we review these findings and suggest a new theoretical framework, the dual-task interaction model, that integrates these findings with current views of attentional selection. To reconcile the attentional boost effect with the effects of attentional load, we suggest that temporal selection results in a temporally specific enhancement across modalities, tasks, and spatial locations. Moreover, the effects of temporal selection may be best observed when the attentional system is optimally tuned to the temporal dynamics of incoming stimuli. Several avenues of research motivated by the dual-task interaction model are then discussed.

Attentional load and attentional boost: a review of data and theory.

Science.gov (United States)

Swallow, Khena M; Jiang, Yuhong V

2013-01-01

Both perceptual and cognitive processes are limited in capacity. As a result, attention is selective, prioritizing items and tasks that are important for adaptive behavior. However, a number of recent behavioral and neuroimaging studies suggest that, at least under some circumstances, increasing attention to one task can enhance performance in a second task (e.g., the attentional boost effect). Here we review these findings and suggest a new theoretical framework, the dual-task interaction model, that integrates these findings with current views of attentional selection. To reconcile the attentional boost effect with the effects of attentional load, we suggest that temporal selection results in a temporally specific enhancement across modalities, tasks, and spatial locations. Moreover, the effects of temporal selection may be best observed when the attentional system is optimally tuned to the temporal dynamics of incoming stimuli. Several avenues of research motivated by the dual-task interaction model are then discussed.

Attentional Load and Attentional Boost: A Review of Data and Theory

Science.gov (United States)

Swallow, Khena M.; Jiang, Yuhong V.

2013-01-01

Both perceptual and cognitive processes are limited in capacity. As a result, attention is selective, prioritizing items and tasks that are important for adaptive behavior. However, a number of recent behavioral and neuroimaging studies suggest that, at least under some circumstances, increasing attention to one task can enhance performance in a second task (e.g., the attentional boost effect). Here we review these findings and suggest a new theoretical framework, the dual-task interaction model, that integrates these findings with current views of attentional selection. To reconcile the attentional boost effect with the effects of attentional load, we suggest that temporal selection results in a temporally specific enhancement across modalities, tasks, and spatial locations. Moreover, the effects of temporal selection may be best observed when the attentional system is optimally tuned to the temporal dynamics of incoming stimuli. Several avenues of research motivated by the dual-task interaction model are then discussed. PMID:23730294

Research Article Special Issue

African Journals Online (AJOL)

2016-05-15

May 15, 2016 ... of specific musical terms; attention to the Quran and Ahl al-Bayt and special devotion to ... Another factor that plays a role in making the poetry of Shahriar .... world, they start reading the masterpieces of world literature and ...

Top-down beta rhythms support selective attention via interlaminar interaction: a model.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Jung H Lee

Full Text Available Cortical rhythms have been thought to play crucial roles in our cognitive abilities. Rhythmic activity in the beta frequency band, around 20 Hz, has been reported in recent studies that focused on neural correlates of attention, indicating that top-down beta rhythms, generated in higher cognitive areas and delivered to earlier sensory areas, can support attentional gain modulation. To elucidate functional roles of beta rhythms and underlying mechanisms, we built a computational model of sensory cortical areas. Our simulation results show that top-down beta rhythms can activate ascending synaptic projections from L5 to L4 and L2/3, responsible for biased competition in superficial layers. In the simulation, slow-inhibitory interneurons are shown to resonate to the 20 Hz input and modulate the activity in superficial layers in an attention-related manner. The predicted critical roles of these cells in attentional gain provide a potential mechanism by which cholinergic drive can support selective attention.

Virtues and Well-Being of Korean Special Education Teachers

Science.gov (United States)

Kim, So-Young; Lim, Young-Jin

2016-01-01

Although much emphasis has been paid to stress and burnout among special education teachers, little attention has been paid to their well-being. This study aimed to examine relations between virtues and well-being among Korean special education teachers. Virtues and well-being of 115 Korean special education teachers were assessed using the…

Attention capture by abrupt onsets: re-visiting the priority tag model

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Meera Mary Sunny

2013-12-01

Full Text Available Abrupt onsets have been shown to strongly attract attention in a stimulus-driven, bottom-up manner. However, the precise mechanism that drives capture by onsets is still debated. According to the new object account, abrupt onsets capture attention because they signal the appearance of a new object. Yantis and Johnson (1990 used a visual search task and showed that up to four onsets can be automatically prioritized. However, in their study the number of onsets co-varied with the total number of items in the display, allowing for a possible confound between these two variables. In the present study, display size was fixed at eight items while the number of onsets was systematically varied between zero and eight. Experiment 1 showed a systematic increase in reactions times with increasing number of onsets. This increase was stronger when the target was an onset than when it was a no-onset item, a result that is best explained by a model according to which only one onset is automatically prioritized. Even when the onsets were marked in red (Experiment 2, nearly half of the participants continued to prioritize only one onset item. Only when onset and no-onset targets were blocked (Experiment 3, participants started to search selectively through the set of only the relevant target type. These results further support the finding that only one onset captures attention. Many bottom-up models of attention capture, like masking or saliency accounts, can efficiently explain this finding.

Attention capture by abrupt onsets: re-visiting the priority tag model.

Science.gov (United States)

Sunny, Meera M; von Mühlenen, Adrian

2013-01-01

Abrupt onsets have been shown to strongly attract attention in a stimulus-driven, bottom-up manner. However, the precise mechanism that drives capture by onsets is still debated. According to the new object account, abrupt onsets capture attention because they signal the appearance of a new object. Yantis and Johnson (1990) used a visual search task and showed that up to four onsets can be automatically prioritized. However, in their study the number of onsets co-varied with the total number of items in the display, allowing for a possible confound between these two variables. In the present study, display size was fixed at eight items while the number of onsets was systematically varied between zero and eight. Experiment 1 showed a systematic increase in reactions times with increasing number of onsets. This increase was stronger when the target was an onset than when it was a no-onset item, a result that is best explained by a model according to which only one onset is automatically prioritized. Even when the onsets were marked in red (Experiment 2), nearly half of the participants continued to prioritize only one onset item. Only when onset and no-onset targets were blocked (Experiment 3), participants started to search selectively through the set of only the relevant target type. These results further support the finding that only one onset captures attention. Many bottom-up models of attention capture, like masking or saliency accounts, can efficiently explain this finding.

The attentional drift-diffusion model extends to simple purchasing decisions

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Ian eKrajbich

2012-06-01

Full Text Available How do we make simple purchasing decisions (e.g., whether or not to buy a product ata given price? Previous work has shown that the Attentional-Drift-Diffusion-Model (aDDMcan provide accurate descriptions of the psychometric data for binary and trinary value-based choices, and of how the choice process is guided by visual attention. However, the computational processes used to make purchasing decisions are unknown. Here we extend the aDDM to the case of purchasing decisions, and test it using an eye-tracking experiment. We find that the model provides a quantitatively accurate description of the relationship between choice, reaction time, and visual fixations using parameters that are very similar to those that best fit the previous data. The only critical difference is that the choice biases induced by the fixations are about half as big in purchasing decisions as in binary choices.This suggests that the brain uses similar computational processes in these varied decision situations.

The attentional drift-diffusion model extends to simple purchasing decisions.

Science.gov (United States)

Krajbich, Ian; Lu, Dingchao; Camerer, Colin; Rangel, Antonio

2012-01-01

How do we make simple purchasing decisions (e.g., whether or not to buy a product at a given price)? Previous work has shown that the attentional drift-diffusion model (aDDM) can provide accurate quantitative descriptions of the psychometric data for binary and trinary value-based choices, and of how the choice process is guided by visual attention. Here we extend the aDDM to the case of purchasing decisions, and test it using an eye-tracking experiment. We find that the model also provides a reasonably accurate quantitative description of the relationship between choice, reaction time, and visual fixations using parameters that are very similar to those that best fit the previous data. The only critical difference is that the choice biases induced by the fixations are about half as big in purchasing decisions as in binary choices. This suggests that a similar computational process is used to make binary choices, trinary choices, and simple purchasing decisions.

Right hemisphere control of visuospatial attention in near space.

Science.gov (United States)

Longo, Matthew R; Trippier, Sarah; Vagnoni, Eleonora; Lourenco, Stella F

2015-04-01

Traditionally, the right cerebral hemisphere has been considered to be specialized for spatial attention and orienting. A large body of research has demonstrated dissociable representations of the near space immediately surrounding the body and the more distance far space. In this study, we investigated whether right hemisphere activations commonly reported for tasks involving spatial attention (such as the line bisection and landmark tasks) are specific to stimuli presented in near space. In separate blocks of trials, participants judged either whether a vertical transector was to the left or right of the centre of a line (landmark task) or whether the line was red or blue (colour task). Stimuli were seen from four distances (30, 60, 90, 120 cm). We used EEG to measure an ERP component (the 'line-bisection effect') specific to the direction of spatial attention (i.e., landmark minus colour). Consistent with previous results, spatial attention produced a right-lateralized negativity over occipito-parietal channels. The magnitude of this negativity was inversely related to viewing distance, being largest in near space and reduced in far space. These results suggest that the right occipito-temporal cortex may be specialized not just for the orientation of spatial attention generally, but specifically for orienting attention in the near space immediately surrounding the body. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

A model of selective visual attention for a stereo pair of images

Science.gov (United States)

Park, Min Chul; Kim, Sung Kyu; Son, Jung-Young

2005-11-01

Human visual attention system has a remarkable ability to interpret complex scenes with the ease and simplicity by selecting or focusing on a small region of visual field without scanning the whole images. In this paper, a novel selective visual attention model by using 3D image display system for a stereo pair of images is proposed. It is based on the feature integration theory and locates ROI(region of interest) or FOA(focus of attention). The disparity map obtained from a stereo pair of images is exploited as one of spatial visual features to form a set of topographic feature maps in our approach. Though the true human cognitive mechanism on the analysis and integration process might be different from our assumption the proposed attention system matches well with the results found by human observers.

Neuromorphic VLSI Models of Selective Attention: From Single Chip Vision Sensors to Multi-chip Systems.

Science.gov (United States)

Indiveri, Giacomo

2008-09-03

Biological organisms perform complex selective attention operations continuously and effortlessly. These operations allow them to quickly determine the motor actions to take in response to combinations of external stimuli and internal states, and to pay attention to subsets of sensory inputs suppressing non salient ones. Selective attention strategies are extremely effective in both natural and artificial systems which have to cope with large amounts of input data and have limited computational resources. One of the main computational primitives used to perform these selection operations is the Winner-Take-All (WTA) network. These types of networks are formed by arrays of coupled computational nodes that selectively amplify the strongest input signals, and suppress the weaker ones. Neuromorphic circuits are an optimal medium for constructing WTA networks and for implementing efficient hardware models of selective attention systems. In this paper we present an overview of selective attention systems based on neuromorphic WTA circuits ranging from single-chip vision sensors for selecting and tracking the position of salient features, to multi-chip systems implement saliency-map based models of selective attention.

Neuromorphic VLSI Models of Selective Attention: From Single Chip Vision Sensors to Multi-chip Systems

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Giacomo Indiveri

2008-09-01

Full Text Available Biological organisms perform complex selective attention operations continuously and effortlessly. These operations allow them to quickly determine the motor actions to take in response to combinations of external stimuli and internal states, and to pay attention to subsets of sensory inputs suppressing non salient ones. Selective attention strategies are extremely effective in both natural and artificial systems which have to cope with large amounts of input data and have limited computational resources. One of the main computational primitives used to perform these selection operations is the Winner-Take-All (WTA network. These types of networks are formed by arrays of coupled computational nodes that selectively amplify the strongest input signals, and suppress the weaker ones. Neuromorphic circuits are an optimal medium for constructing WTA networks and for implementing efficient hardware models of selective attention systems. In this paper we present an overview of selective attention systems based on neuromorphic WTA circuits ranging from single-chip vision sensors for selecting and tracking the position of salient features, to multi-chip systems implement saliency-map based models of selective attention.

Training of attention functions in children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder

OpenAIRE

Tucha, Oliver; Tucha, Lara; Kaumann, Gesa; König, Sebastian; Lange, Katharina M.; Stasik, Dorota; Streather, Zoe; Engelschalk, Tobias; Lange, Klaus W.

2011-01-01

Pharmacological treatment of children with ADHD has been shown to be successful; however, medication may not normalize attention functions. The present study was based on a neuropsychological model of attention and assessed the effect of an attention training program on attentional functioning of children with ADHD. Thirty-two children with ADHD and 16 healthy children participated in the study. Children with ADHD were randomly assigned to one of the two conditions, i.e., an attention trainin...

Intraoperative delineation of brain tumors with special attention of photodynamic diagnosis

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Hofmann, G.M.

2001-07-01

This dissertation gives an overview of the intraoperative techniques of detection of malignant gliomas with special attention of photodynamic diagnosis. The exact identification of infiltrating parts of the malignoma allows the neurosurgeon to perform a resection as complete as possible with sparing eloquent areas. The quality of the m-THPC-induced fluorescence and the influence of the fluorescence-guided resection on the extent of resection are evaluated by histology and on early postoperative MR-imagings. 22 patients suffering from malignant brain tumors receive m-THPC (Foscan: 0,15 mg/kg KG) intravenously four days before operation. After excitation with violet-blue light (370 to 440 nm) tumor-associated red fluorescence is observed either by the naked eye, either by a standard CCD camera and verified by analysis of fluorescence spectra. The surgeon removes fluorescing tissue whenever it is considered safely possible. 138 biopsis are taken of fluorescing and non fluorescing areas in order to correlate them with history. Furthermore the presence of residual enhancement on early postoperative MR-imaging and its congruence in localization with the intraoperative fluorescence are studied. Histological analysis demonstrate 87,9 % sensitivity and 95,7 % specificity for predicting the presence of malignant tissue from visible m-THPC-fluorescence. In 75 % further fluorescence-guided resection is performed. The percentage of postoperative MR-Imagings without residual enhancement after application of PDD rises distinctly. A sensitivity of 100 % and a specificity of 84,6 % are evaluated in the correlation between the presence of m-THPC-fluorescence after resection and the presence of residual enhancement on postoperative MRI. The anatomical localization of the residual tumor on imaging corresponds with the localization of the intraoperative residual fluorescence in all cases. m-THPC-guided resection is a safe and selective method to detect intraoperatively infiltrating

The Coherence Formation Model of Illustrated Text Comprehension: A Path Model of Attention to Multimedia Text

Science.gov (United States)

Fitzhugh, Shannon Leigh

2012-01-01

The study reported here tests a model that includes several factors thought to contribute to the comprehension of static multimedia learning materials (i.e. background knowledge, working memory, attention to components as measured with eye movement measures). The model examines the effects of working memory capacity, domain specific (biology) and…

Research Article Special Issue

African Journals Online (AJOL)

pc

2017-08-08

Aug 8, 2017 ... Special attention is paid to human capital agglomeration, which is regarded as a .... the innovation sector, on the periphery of the ... Agglomeration is an effective form of concentration of human capital, intellectual ... participants of social relations (public, entrepreneurs) or the formation of clusters, emerging.

Deficient Attention Is Hard to Find: Applying the Perceptual Load Model of Selective Attention to Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder Subtypes

Science.gov (United States)

Huang-Pollock, Cynthia L.; Nigg, Joel T.; Carr, Thomas H.

2005-01-01

Background: Whether selective attention is a primary deficit in childhood Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) remains in active debate. Methods: We used the "perceptual load" paradigm to examine both early and late selective attention in children with the Primarily Inattentive (ADHD-I) and Combined subtypes (ADHD-C) of ADHD. Results:…

78 FR 76254 - Special Conditions: Airbus, Model A350-900 Series Airplane; Control Surface Awareness and Mode...

Science.gov (United States)

2013-12-17

...-0899; Notice No. 25-13-15-SC] Special Conditions: Airbus, Model A350-900 Series Airplane; Control... of proposed special conditions. SUMMARY: This action proposes special conditions for the Airbus Model..., data, or views. The most helpful comments reference a specific portion of the proposed special...

76 FR 17022 - Special Conditions: Gulfstream Model GVI Airplane; High Incidence Protection

Science.gov (United States)

2011-03-28

... Special Conditions No. 25-423-SC] Special Conditions: Gulfstream Model GVI Airplane; High Incidence... for transport category airplanes associated with the use of high incidence protection. The applicable... with an executive cabin interior. The maximum takeoff weight will be 99,600 pounds, with a maximum...

Inclusion of Religion and Spirituality in the Special Education Literature

Science.gov (United States)

Ault, Melinda Jones

2010-01-01

Although traditionally not an area of service delivered by special educators, the area of religion and spirituality for persons with disabilities is receiving more attention as a quality-of-life outcome. This literature review examined the special education literature to determine the extent to which special educators are exposed to literature…

Model of Providing Assistive Technologies in Special Education Schools.

Science.gov (United States)

Lersilp, Suchitporn; Putthinoi, Supawadee; Chakpitak, Nopasit

2015-05-14

Most students diagnosed with disabilities in Thai special education schools received assistive technologies, but this did not guarantee the greatest benefits. The purpose of this study was to survey the provision, use and needs of assistive technologies, as well as the perspectives of key informants regarding a model of providing them in special education schools. The participants were selected by the purposive sampling method, and they comprised 120 students with visual, physical, hearing or intellectual disabilities from four special education schools in Chiang Mai, Thailand; and 24 key informants such as parents or caregivers, teachers, school principals and school therapists. The instruments consisted of an assistive technology checklist and a semi-structured interview. Results showed that a category of assistive technologies was provided for students with disabilities, with the highest being "services", followed by "media" and then "facilities". Furthermore, mostly students with physical disabilities were provided with assistive technologies, but those with visual disabilities needed it more. Finally, the model of providing assistive technologies was composed of 5 components: Collaboration; Holistic perspective; Independent management of schools; Learning systems and a production manual for users; and Development of an assistive technology center, driven by 3 major sources such as Government and Private organizations, and Schools.

75 FR 80735 - Special Conditions: Gulfstream Model GVI Airplane; High Incidence Protection

Science.gov (United States)

2010-12-23

... Special Conditions No. 25-10-03-SC] Special Conditions: Gulfstream Model GVI Airplane; High Incidence... airworthiness standards for transport category airplanes associated with the use of high incidence protection... transport airplane with an executive cabin interior. The maximum takeoff weight will be 99,600 pounds, with...

Project-oriented teaching model about specialized courses in the information age

Science.gov (United States)

Chen, Xiaodong; Wang, Jinjiang; Tian, Qingguo; Wang, Yi; Cai, Huaiyu

2017-08-01

Specialized courses play a significant role in the usage of basic knowledge in the practical application for engineering college students. The engineering data available has sharply increased since the beginning of the information age in the 20th century, providing much more approaches to study and practice. Therefore, how to guide students to make full use of resources for active engineering practice learning has become one of the key problems for specialized courses. This paper took the digital image processing course for opto-electronic information science and technology major as an example, discussed the teaching model of specialized course in the information age, put forward the "engineering resource oriented model", and fostered the ability of engineering students to use the basic knowledge to innovate and deal with specific project objectives. The fusion of engineering examples into practical training and teaching encourages students to practice independent engineering thinking.

77 FR 32006 - Special Conditions: Gulfstream Model GVI Airplane; High Incidence Protection

Science.gov (United States)

2012-05-31

... Special Conditions No. 25-423-SC] Special Conditions: Gulfstream Model GVI Airplane; High Incidence... pertaining to a high incidence protection system that replaces the stall warning system during normal... the condition existing in the test or performance standard in which V SR is being used. (3) The weight...

The association between hemispheric specialization for language production and for spatial attention depends on left-hand preference strength.

Science.gov (United States)

Zago, Laure; Petit, Laurent; Mellet, Emmanuel; Jobard, Gaël; Crivello, Fabrice; Joliot, Marc; Mazoyer, Bernard; Tzourio-Mazoyer, Nathalie

2016-12-01

Cerebral lateralization for language production and spatial attention and their relationships with manual preference strength (MPS) were assessed in a sample of 293 healthy volunteers, including 151 left-handers, using fMRI during covert sentence production (PROD) and line bisection judgment (LBJ) tasks, as compared to high- and low-level reference tasks. At the group level, we found the expected complementary hemispheric specialization (HS) with leftward asymmetries for PROD within frontal and temporal regions and rightward asymmetries for LBJ within frontal and posterior occipito-parieto-temporal regions. Individual hemispheric (HLI) and regional (frontal and occipital) lateralization indices (LI) were then calculated on the activation maps for PROD and LBJ. We found a correlation between the degree of rightward cerebral asymmetry and the leftward behavioral attentional bias recorded during LBJ task. This correlation was found when LBJ-LI was computed over the hemispheres, in the frontal lobes, but not in the occipital lobes. We then investigated whether language production and spatial attention cerebral lateralization relate to each other, and whether manual preference was a variable that impacted the complementary HS of these functions. No correlation was found between spatial and language LIs in the majority of our sample of participants, including right-handers with a strong right-hand preference (sRH, n=97) and mixed-handers (MH, n=97), indicating that these functions lateralized independently. By contrast, in the group of left-handers with a strong left-hand preference (sLH, n= 99), a negative correlation was found between language and spatial lateralization. This negative correlation was found when LBJ-LI and PROD-LI were computed over the hemispheres, in the frontal lobes and between the occipital lobes for LBJ and the frontal lobes for PROD. These findings underline the importance to include sLH in the study sample to reveal the underlying mechanisms of

Inhibition in the Dynamics of Selective Attention: An Integrative Model for Negative Priming

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Hecke eSchrobsdorff

2012-11-01

Full Text Available We introduce a computational model of the negative priming (NP effect that includes perception, memory, attention, decision making, and action. The model is designed to provide a coherent picture across competing theories of NP and to relate psychological experiments to physiological measurements. The model is formulated in terms of an abstract dynamics of activations of features, their binding into object entities or their semantic categorization as well as related memories and implied reactions. The dynamical variables interact in a connectionist network which is shown to be adaptable to a variety of experimental paradigms. We find that selective attention can be modeled by means of inhibitory processes and by a threshold dynamics. Considering the implementation it becomes obvious that the specificity of the experimental paradigm must be taken into account when predicting the nature of the NP effect.

75 FR 47798 - Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services-Special Demonstration Programs-Model...

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2010-08-09

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2010-03-26

... DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services--Special... of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services, Department of Education. ACTION: Notice of proposed... for Special Education and Rehabilitative Services proposes a priority under the Special Demonstration...

Altered attentional processing in male and female rats in a prenatal valproic acid exposure model of autism spectrum disorder.

Science.gov (United States)

Anshu, Kumari; Nair, Ajay Kumar; Kumaresan, U D; Kutty, Bindu M; Srinath, Shoba; Laxmi, T Rao

2017-12-01

Attention is foundational to efficient perception and optimal goal driven behavior. Intact attentional processing is crucial for the development of social and communication skills. Deficits in attention are therefore likely contributors to the core pathophysiology of autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Clinical evidence in ASD is suggestive of impairments in attention and its control, but the underlying mechanisms remain elusive. We examined sustained, spatially divided attention in a prenatal valproic acid (VPA) model of ASD using the 5-choice serial reaction time task (5-CSRTT). As compared to controls, male and female VPA rats had progressively lower accuracy and higher omissions with increasing attentional demands during 5-CSRTT training, and showed further performance decrements when subjected to parametric task manipulations. It is noteworthy that although VPA exposure induced attentional deficits in both sexes, there were task parameter specific sex differences. Importantly, we did not find evidence of impulsivity or motivational deficits in VPA rats but we did find reduced social preference, as well as sensorimotor deficits that suggest pre-attentional information processing impairments. Importantly, with fixed rules, graded difficulty levels, and more time, VPA rats could be successfully trained on the attentional task. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study examining attentional functions in a VPA model. Our work underscores the need for studying both sexes in ASD animal models and validates the use of the VPA model in the quest for mechanistic understanding of aberrant attentional functions and for evaluating suitable therapeutic targets. Autism Res 2017, 10: 1929-1944. © 2017 International Society for Autism Research, Wiley Periodicals, Inc. We studied rats prenatally exposed to valproic acid (VPA), an established rodent model of autism. Both male and female VPA rats had a range of attentional impairments with sex-specific characteristics

How attention influences perceptual decision making: Single-trial EEG correlates of drift-diffusion model parameters

Science.gov (United States)

Nunez, Michael D.; Vandekerckhove, Joachim; Srinivasan, Ramesh

2016-01-01

Perceptual decision making can be accounted for by drift-diffusion models, a class of decision-making models that assume a stochastic accumulation of evidence on each trial. Fitting response time and accuracy to a drift-diffusion model produces evidence accumulation rate and non-decision time parameter estimates that reflect cognitive processes. Our goal is to elucidate the effect of attention on visual decision making. In this study, we show that measures of attention obtained from simultaneous EEG recordings can explain per-trial evidence accumulation rates and perceptual preprocessing times during a visual decision making task. Models assuming linear relationships between diffusion model parameters and EEG measures as external inputs were fit in a single step in a hierarchical Bayesian framework. The EEG measures were features of the evoked potential (EP) to the onset of a masking noise and the onset of a task-relevant signal stimulus. Single-trial evoked EEG responses, P200s to the onsets of visual noise and N200s to the onsets of visual signal, explain single-trial evidence accumulation and preprocessing times. Within-trial evidence accumulation variance was not found to be influenced by attention to the signal or noise. Single-trial measures of attention lead to better out-of-sample predictions of accuracy and correct reaction time distributions for individual subjects. PMID:28435173

How attention influences perceptual decision making: Single-trial EEG correlates of drift-diffusion model parameters.

Science.gov (United States)

Nunez, Michael D; Vandekerckhove, Joachim; Srinivasan, Ramesh

2017-02-01

Perceptual decision making can be accounted for by drift-diffusion models, a class of decision-making models that assume a stochastic accumulation of evidence on each trial. Fitting response time and accuracy to a drift-diffusion model produces evidence accumulation rate and non-decision time parameter estimates that reflect cognitive processes. Our goal is to elucidate the effect of attention on visual decision making. In this study, we show that measures of attention obtained from simultaneous EEG recordings can explain per-trial evidence accumulation rates and perceptual preprocessing times during a visual decision making task. Models assuming linear relationships between diffusion model parameters and EEG measures as external inputs were fit in a single step in a hierarchical Bayesian framework. The EEG measures were features of the evoked potential (EP) to the onset of a masking noise and the onset of a task-relevant signal stimulus. Single-trial evoked EEG responses, P200s to the onsets of visual noise and N200s to the onsets of visual signal, explain single-trial evidence accumulation and preprocessing times. Within-trial evidence accumulation variance was not found to be influenced by attention to the signal or noise. Single-trial measures of attention lead to better out-of-sample predictions of accuracy and correct reaction time distributions for individual subjects.

Vertical specialization and industrial upgrading: a preliminary note

OpenAIRE

Xiao Jiang; William Milberg

2012-01-01

Abstract Vertical specialization is a measure of the import content of exports. Given the widely recognized importance of trade in tasks and global production networks, vertical specialization has recently gained the attention of international trade researchers and policy makers. In this note, we use measured changes in the within-country pattern of vertical specialization to gauge the relevance of task trade for industrial upgrading and economic development. We first calculate vertical speci...

Paying attention through eye movements: a computational investigation of the premotor theory of spatial attention.

Science.gov (United States)

Casarotti, Marco; Lisi, Matteo; Umiltà, Carlo; Zorzi, Marco

2012-07-01

Growing evidence indicates that planning eye movements and orienting visuospatial attention share overlapping brain mechanisms. A tight link between endogenous attention and eye movements is maintained by the premotor theory, in contrast to other accounts that postulate the existence of specific attention mechanisms that modulate the activity of information processing systems. The strong assumption of equivalence between attention and eye movements, however, is challenged by demonstrations that human observers are able to keep attention on a specific location while moving the eyes elsewhere. Here we investigate whether a recurrent model of saccadic planning can account for attentional effects without requiring additional or specific mechanisms separate from the circuits that perform sensorimotor transformations for eye movements. The model builds on the basis function approach and includes a circuit that performs spatial remapping using an "internal forward model" of how visual inputs are modified as a result of saccadic movements. Simulations show that the latter circuit is crucial to account for dissociations between attention and eye movements that may be invoked to disprove the premotor theory. The model provides new insights into how spatial remapping may be implemented in parietal cortex and offers a computational framework for recent proposals that link visual stability with remapping of attention pointers.

Location model of specialized terminals for soybe an exports in Brazil

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Alessandra Fraga Dubke

2011-04-01

Full Text Available The purpose of this work is the development of a location model for specialized terminals used as transshipment points in the supply chain of soybeans. The theoretical basis of the study relies on the association of a transshipment model with a multi-commodity, multi-facility capacitated location model. The shipping ports might be seen as specialized terminals that add value to the exported products by transforming raw soy grains into soy oil and soy meal. The proposed model also considers service activities in each terminal and the capacity of the maritime ports. Using representative data from the year 2004, the model is illustrated by a small case study, which considers six points of production in inland Brazil, all served by railways, one maritime port on the north and five on the east coast, and three destination ports in Europe and Asia. The study includes a rough sensitivity analysis regarding volumes, capacities, prices, and transportation costs

Modulation of human extrastriate visual processing by selective attention to colours and words.

Science.gov (United States)

Nobre, A C; Allison, T; McCarthy, G

1998-07-01

The present study investigated the effect of visual selective attention upon neural processing within functionally specialized regions of the human extrastriate visual cortex. Field potentials were recorded directly from the inferior surface of the temporal lobes in subjects with epilepsy. The experimental task required subjects to focus attention on words from one of two competing texts. Words were presented individually and foveally. Texts were interleaved randomly and were distinguishable on the basis of word colour. Focal field potentials were evoked by words in the posterior part of the fusiform gyrus. Selective attention strongly modulated long-latency potentials evoked by words. The attention effect co-localized with word-related potentials in the posterior fusiform gyrus, and was independent of stimulus colour. The results demonstrated that stimuli receive differential processing within specialized regions of the extrastriate cortex as a function of attention. The late onset of the attention effect and its co-localization with letter string-related potentials but not with colour-related potentials recorded from nearby regions of the fusiform gyrus suggest that the attention effect is due to top-down influences from downstream regions involved in word processing.

76 FR 65105 - Special Conditions: Gulfstream Aerospace Corporation, Model GIV-X Airplane; Isolation or Aircraft...

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2011-10-20

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Compact Polarimetric SAR Ship Detection with m-δ Decomposition Using Visual Attention Model

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Lu Xu

2016-09-01

Full Text Available A few previous studies have illustrated the potentials of compact polarimetric Synthetic Aperture Radar (CP SAR in ship detection. In this paper, we design a ship detection algorithm of CP SAR from the perspective of computer vision. A ship detection algorithm using the pulsed cosine transform (PCT visual attention model is proposed to suppress background clutter and highlight conspicuous ship targets. It is the first time that a visual attention model is introduced to CP SAR application. The proposed algorithm is a quick and complete framework for practical use. Polarimetric features—the relative phase δ and volume scattering component—are extracted from m-δ decomposition to eliminate false alarms and modify the PCT model. The constant false alarm rate (CFAR algorithm based on lognormal distribution is adopted to detect ship targets, after a clutter distribution fitting procedure of the modified saliency map. The proposed method is then tested on three simulated circular-transmit-linear-receive (CTLR mode images, which covering East Sea of China. Compared with the detection results of SPAN and the saliency map with only single-channel amplitude, the proposed method achieves the highest detection rates and the lowest misidentification rate and highest figure of merit, proving the effectiveness of polarimetric information of compact polarimetric SAR ship detection and the enhancement from the visual attention model.

The importance of assessing for validity of symptom report and performance in attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD): Introduction to the special section on noncredible presentation in ADHD.

Science.gov (United States)

Suhr, Julie A; Berry, David T R

2017-12-01

Invalid self-report and invalid performance occur with high base rates in attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD; Harrison, 2006; Musso & Gouvier, 2014). Although much research has focused on the development and validation of symptom validity tests (SVTs) and performance validity tests (PVTs) for psychiatric and neurological presentations, less attention has been given to the use of SVTs and PVTs in ADHD evaluation. This introduction to the special section describes a series of studies examining the use of SVTs and PVTs in adult ADHD evaluation. We present the series of studies in the context of prior research on noncredible presentation and call for future research using improved research methods and with a focus on assessment issues specific to ADHD evaluation. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2017 APA, all rights reserved).

Visual attention and flexible normalization pools

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Schwartz, Odelia; Coen-Cagli, Ruben

2013-01-01

Attention to a spatial location or feature in a visual scene can modulate the responses of cortical neurons and affect perceptual biases in illusions. We add attention to a cortical model of spatial context based on a well-founded account of natural scene statistics. The cortical model amounts to a generalized form of divisive normalization, in which the surround is in the normalization pool of the center target only if they are considered statistically dependent. Here we propose that attention influences this computation by accentuating the neural unit activations at the attended location, and that the amount of attentional influence of the surround on the center thus depends on whether center and surround are deemed in the same normalization pool. The resulting form of model extends a recent divisive normalization model of attention (Reynolds & Heeger, 2009). We simulate cortical surround orientation experiments with attention and show that the flexible model is suitable for capturing additional data and makes nontrivial testable predictions. PMID:23345413

Attention and normalization circuits in macaque V1

Science.gov (United States)

Sanayei, M; Herrero, J L; Distler, C; Thiele, A

2015-01-01

Attention affects neuronal processing and improves behavioural performance. In extrastriate visual cortex these effects have been explained by normalization models, which assume that attention influences the circuit that mediates surround suppression. While normalization models have been able to explain attentional effects, their validity has rarely been tested against alternative models. Here we investigate how attention and surround/mask stimuli affect neuronal firing rates and orientation tuning in macaque V1. Surround/mask stimuli provide an estimate to what extent V1 neurons are affected by normalization, which was compared against effects of spatial top down attention. For some attention/surround effect comparisons, the strength of attentional modulation was correlated with the strength of surround modulation, suggesting that attention and surround/mask stimulation (i.e. normalization) might use a common mechanism. To explore this in detail, we fitted multiplicative and additive models of attention to our data. In one class of models, attention contributed to normalization mechanisms, whereas in a different class of models it did not. Model selection based on Akaike's and on Bayesian information criteria demonstrated that in most cells the effects of attention were best described by models where attention did not contribute to normalization mechanisms. This demonstrates that attentional influences on neuronal responses in primary visual cortex often bypass normalization mechanisms. PMID:25757941

76 FR 41041 - Special Conditions: Gulfstream Aerospace LP (GALP) Model G250 Airplane, Interaction of Systems...

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2011-07-13

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Is memory for music special?

Science.gov (United States)

Schulkind, Matthew D

2009-07-01

Although psychologists since Hermann Ebbinghaus have studied memory, research in this area has focused on visual and verbal stimuli with little attention paid to music. This bias is surprising because of the ubiquity of music in human cultures across history as well as current cultural beliefs that memory for music is "special." This paper examines the question of whether memory for music is special by addressing two related questions: First, do cultural beliefs about the mnemonic power of music stand up to empirical test? Second, can theories designed to explain memory for non-musical stimuli be applied to musical stimuli? A review of the literature suggests that music is special in some circumstances but not others and that some theories designed to explain cognitive processing of linguistic stimuli apply reasonably well to musical stimuli. Thus, although the question of whether memory for music is special remains open, the unique structure of musical stimuli strongly suggests that memory for music is indeed special.

76 FR 72087 - Special Conditions: Diamond Aircraft Industries, Model DA-40NG; Electronic Engine Control (EEC...

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2011-11-22

...; Special Conditions No. 23-253-SC] Special Conditions: Diamond Aircraft Industries, Model DA-40NG..., Model DA-40NG airplane. This airplane will have a novel or unusual design feature(s) associated with an... include the new model DA- 40NG with the Austro Engine GmbH model E4 Aircraft Diesel Engine (ADE). The...

Attention and normalization circuits in macaque V1.

Science.gov (United States)

Sanayei, M; Herrero, J L; Distler, C; Thiele, A

2015-04-01

Attention affects neuronal processing and improves behavioural performance. In extrastriate visual cortex these effects have been explained by normalization models, which assume that attention influences the circuit that mediates surround suppression. While normalization models have been able to explain attentional effects, their validity has rarely been tested against alternative models. Here we investigate how attention and surround/mask stimuli affect neuronal firing rates and orientation tuning in macaque V1. Surround/mask stimuli provide an estimate to what extent V1 neurons are affected by normalization, which was compared against effects of spatial top down attention. For some attention/surround effect comparisons, the strength of attentional modulation was correlated with the strength of surround modulation, suggesting that attention and surround/mask stimulation (i.e. normalization) might use a common mechanism. To explore this in detail, we fitted multiplicative and additive models of attention to our data. In one class of models, attention contributed to normalization mechanisms, whereas in a different class of models it did not. Model selection based on Akaike's and on Bayesian information criteria demonstrated that in most cells the effects of attention were best described by models where attention did not contribute to normalization mechanisms. This demonstrates that attentional influences on neuronal responses in primary visual cortex often bypass normalization mechanisms. © 2015 The Authors. European Journal of Neuroscience published by Federation of European Neuroscience Societies and John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Computational Model of Primary Visual Cortex Combining Visual Attention for Action Recognition.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Na Shu

Full Text Available Humans can easily understand other people's actions through visual systems, while computers cannot. Therefore, a new bio-inspired computational model is proposed in this paper aiming for automatic action recognition. The model focuses on dynamic properties of neurons and neural networks in the primary visual cortex (V1, and simulates the procedure of information processing in V1, which consists of visual perception, visual attention and representation of human action. In our model, a family of the three-dimensional spatial-temporal correlative Gabor filters is used to model the dynamic properties of the classical receptive field of V1 simple cell tuned to different speeds and orientations in time for detection of spatiotemporal information from video sequences. Based on the inhibitory effect of stimuli outside the classical receptive field caused by lateral connections of spiking neuron networks in V1, we propose surround suppressive operator to further process spatiotemporal information. Visual attention model based on perceptual grouping is integrated into our model to filter and group different regions. Moreover, in order to represent the human action, we consider the characteristic of the neural code: mean motion map based on analysis of spike trains generated by spiking neurons. The experimental evaluation on some publicly available action datasets and comparison with the state-of-the-art approaches demonstrate the superior performance of the proposed model.

Special Needs Adoption and Foster Exigencies (SAFE: A Model for Case Managers

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Kristen Linton

2014-05-01

Full Text Available Children with special needs disproportionately receive child welfare services in out-of-home placements, such as foster and adoptive homes. This theoretical model has been developed to describe or explain exigencies of adoptive and foster families of children with special needs (n = 82. A web content analysis, including theme, feature, link, exchange, and language analyses, of online discussion forums of adoptive and foster parents of children with special needs using a phenomenological framework was conducted. Inductive and quantitative web content analyses were conducted on themes. Parenting concerns were clustered into two main themes, disability and placement issues, and focused on children’s pre and post placement needs. A phenomenological analysis resulted in the development of the Special Needs Adoption and Foster Exigencies (SAFE, which outlines exigencies of adoptive and foster parents of children with special needs during engagement, assessment, and intervention phases of case management.

Evaluating the Relationship between Team Performance and Joint Attention with Longitudinal Multivariate Mixed Models

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2016-09-23

Sweller, J. (2005). Cognitive load theory and complex learning: Recent developments and future directions. Educational Psychology Review, 17(2), 147–177...Relationship between Team Performance and Joint Attention with Longitudinal Multivariate Mixed Models 5a. CONTRACT NUMBER FA8650-14-D-6501-0009 5b...Annual Meeting, 19-23 September 2016. 14. Previous research indicates that measures of joint attention provide unique insight into team cognition

A Stochastic Location-Allocation Model for Specialized Services in a Multihospital System

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Khadijeh Naboureh

2016-01-01

Full Text Available Rising costs, increasing demand, wasteful spending, and limited resources in the healthcare industry lead to an increasing pressure on hospital administrators to become as efficient as possible in all aspects of their operations including location-allocation. Some promising strategies for tackling these challenges are joining some hospitals to form multihospital systems (MHSs, specialization, and using the benefits of pooling resources. We develop a stochastic optimization model to determine the number, capacity, and location of hospitals in a MHS offering specialized services while they leverage benefits of pooling resources. The model minimizes the total cost borne by the MHS and its patients and incorporates patient service level, patient retention rates, and type of demand. Some computational analyses are carried out to gauge the benefits of optimally sharing resources for delivering specialized services across a subset of hospitals in the MHS against complete decentralization (CD and full centralization (FC policies.

Unraveling the sub-processes of selective attention: insights from dynamic modeling and continuous behavior.

Science.gov (United States)

Frisch, Simon; Dshemuchadse, Maja; Görner, Max; Goschke, Thomas; Scherbaum, Stefan

2015-11-01

Selective attention biases information processing toward stimuli that are relevant for achieving our goals. However, the nature of this bias is under debate: Does it solely rely on the amplification of goal-relevant information or is there a need for additional inhibitory processes that selectively suppress currently distracting information? Here, we explored the processes underlying selective attention with a dynamic, modeling-based approach that focuses on the continuous evolution of behavior over time. We present two dynamic neural field models incorporating the diverging theoretical assumptions. Simulations with both models showed that they make similar predictions with regard to response times but differ markedly with regard to their continuous behavior. Human data observed via mouse tracking as a continuous measure of performance revealed evidence for the model solely based on amplification but no indication of persisting selective distracter inhibition.

Integrated Specialized Early-Course Psychosis Treatment Services - University Psychiatric Hospital Vrapce Model.

Science.gov (United States)

Ostojić, DraŽenka; Čulo, Ilaria; Silić, Ante; Kos, Suzana; Savić, Aleksandar

2018-06-01

First episode of psychosis presents a critical period in terms of numerous associated risks, but also possibilities for effective therapeutic interventions. There is a continued focus on early interventions in prodromal states and early course of frank psychosis, aimed at ensuring faster remission, reducing relapses, achieving better long-term functioning, and preventing adverse outcomes linked to untreated psychosis and chronic psychotic disorders. A number of different specialized treatment models and services exist trying to close knowledge gaps and provide clinical interventions to first-episode psychosis (FEP) patients, but there is still no generally accepted standard of care informing our every-day practice. FEP and early-course psychosis specialized treatment model developed in 2004 in University Psychiatric Hospital Vrapce rests on integration of care across different organization units and clinical presentation acuity levels and patient needs (intensive care, FEP inpatient unit, FEP outpatient services including day hospital). Such integration of FEP services allows for flexible entry point on multiple levels, earlier structuring of therapeutic alliance for those requiring inpatient care, reduction of risks associated with FEP, quicker formation of long-term treatment plans, reduction of delay in accessing specialized services, and a more coordinated diagnostic process and recruitment of FEP patient population. Detailed evaluations of outcomes and comparisons with different treatment models are necessary in order to assess strengths and weaknesses of each specific model and inform modifications to current practice models.

Finding regions of interest in pathological images: an attentional model approach

Science.gov (United States)

Gómez, Francisco; Villalón, Julio; Gutierrez, Ricardo; Romero, Eduardo

2009-02-01

This paper introduces an automated method for finding diagnostic regions-of-interest (RoIs) in histopathological images. This method is based on the cognitive process of visual selective attention that arises during a pathologist's image examination. Specifically, it emulates the first examination phase, which consists in a coarse search for tissue structures at a "low zoom" to separate the image into relevant regions.1 The pathologist's cognitive performance depends on inherent image visual cues - bottom-up information - and on acquired clinical medicine knowledge - top-down mechanisms -. Our pathologist's visual attention model integrates the latter two components. The selected bottom-up information includes local low level features such as intensity, color, orientation and texture information. Top-down information is related to the anatomical and pathological structures known by the expert. A coarse approximation to these structures is achieved by an oversegmentation algorithm, inspired by psychological grouping theories. The algorithm parameters are learned from an expert pathologist's segmentation. Top-down and bottom-up integration is achieved by calculating a unique index for each of the low level characteristics inside the region. Relevancy is estimated as a simple average of these indexes. Finally, a binary decision rule defines whether or not a region is interesting. The method was evaluated on a set of 49 images using a perceptually-weighted evaluation criterion, finding a quality gain of 3dB when comparing to a classical bottom-up model of attention.

Realistic Avatar Eye and Head Animation Using a Neurobiological Model of Visual Attention

National Research Council Canada - National Science Library

Itti, L; Dhavale, N; Pighin, F

2003-01-01

We describe a neurobiological model of visual attention and eye/head movements in primates, and its application to the automatic animation of a realistic virtual human head watching an unconstrained...

Hemispheric lateralization in top-down attention during spatial relation processing: a Granger causal model approach.

Science.gov (United States)

Falasca, N W; D'Ascenzo, S; Di Domenico, A; Onofrj, M; Tommasi, L; Laeng, B; Franciotti, R

2015-04-01

Magnetoencephalography was recorded during a matching-to-sample plus cueing paradigm, in which participants judged the occurrence of changes in either categorical (CAT) or coordinate (COO) spatial relations. Previously, parietal and frontal lobes were identified as key areas in processing spatial relations and it was shown that each hemisphere was differently involved and modulated by the scope of the attention window (e.g. a large and small cue). In this study, Granger analysis highlighted the patterns of causality among involved brain areas--the direction of information transfer ran from the frontal to the visual cortex in the right hemisphere, whereas it ran in the opposite direction in the left side. Thus, the right frontal area seems to exert top-down influence, supporting the idea that, in this task, top-down signals are selectively related to the right side. Additionally, for CAT change preceded by a small cue, the right frontal gyrus was not involved in the information transfer, indicating a selective specialization of the left hemisphere for this condition. The present findings strengthen the conclusion of the presence of a remarkable hemispheric specialization for spatial relation processing and illustrate the complex interactions between the lateralized parts of the neural network. Moreover, they illustrate how focusing attention over large or small regions of the visual field engages these lateralized networks differently, particularly in the frontal regions of each hemisphere, consistent with the theory that spatial relation judgements require a fronto-parietal network in the left hemisphere for categorical relations and on the right hemisphere for coordinate spatial processing. © 2015 Federation of European Neuroscience Societies and John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Training of attention functions in children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.

Science.gov (United States)

Tucha, Oliver; Tucha, Lara; Kaumann, Gesa; König, Sebastian; Lange, Katharina M; Stasik, Dorota; Streather, Zoe; Engelschalk, Tobias; Lange, Klaus W

2011-09-01

Pharmacological treatment of children with ADHD has been shown to be successful; however, medication may not normalize attention functions. The present study was based on a neuropsychological model of attention and assessed the effect of an attention training program on attentional functioning of children with ADHD. Thirty-two children with ADHD and 16 healthy children participated in the study. Children with ADHD were randomly assigned to one of the two conditions, i.e., an attention training program which trained aspects of vigilance, selective attention and divided attention, or a visual perception training which trained perceptual skills, such as perception of figure and ground, form constancy and position in space. The training programs were applied in individual sessions, twice a week, for a period of four consecutive weeks. Healthy children did not receive any training. Alertness, vigilance, selective attention, divided attention, and flexibility were examined prior to and following the interventions. Children with ADHD were assessed and trained while on ADHD medications. Data analysis revealed that the attention training used in the present study led to significant improvements of various aspects of attention, including vigilance, divided attention, and flexibility, while the visual perception training had no specific effects. The findings indicate that attention training programs have the potential to facilitate attentional functioning in children with ADHD treated with ADHD drugs.

Attentive novelty detection in humans is governed by pre-attentive sensory memory.

Science.gov (United States)

Tiitinen, H; May, P; Reinikainen, K; Näätänen, R

1994-11-03

Being able to detect unusual, possibly dangerous events in the environment is a fundamental ability that helps ensure the survival of biological organisms. Novelty detection requires a memory system that models (builds neural representations of) events in the environment, so that changes are detected because they violate the predictions of the model. The earliest physiologically measurable brain response to novel auditory stimuli is the mismatch negativity, MMN, a component of the event-related potential. It is elicited when a predictable series of unvarying stimuli is unexpectedly followed by a deviating stimulus. As the occurrence of MMN is not usually affected by the direction of attention, MMN reflects the operation of automatic sensory (echoic) memory, the earliest memory system that builds traces of the acoustic environment against which new stimuli can be compared. The dependence of attentive novelty detection on earlier, pre-attentive processes, however, has remained elusive. Previous, related studies seem to suggest a relationship between MMN and attentive processes, although no conclusive evidence has so far been shown. Here we address novelty detection in humans both on a physiological and behavioural level, and show how attentive novelty detection is governed by a pre-attentive sensory memory mechanism.

Attention affects visual perceptual processing near the hand.

Science.gov (United States)

Cosman, Joshua D; Vecera, Shaun P

2010-09-01

Specialized, bimodal neural systems integrate visual and tactile information in the space near the hand. Here, we show that visuo-tactile representations allow attention to influence early perceptual processing, namely, figure-ground assignment. Regions that were reached toward were more likely than other regions to be assigned as foreground figures, and hand position competed with image-based information to bias figure-ground assignment. Our findings suggest that hand position allows attention to influence visual perceptual processing and that visual processes typically viewed as unimodal can be influenced by bimodal visuo-tactile representations.

Applications of the SWAT Model Special Section: Overview and Insights.

Science.gov (United States)

Gassman, Philip W; Sadeghi, Ali M; Srinivasan, Raghavan

2014-01-01

The Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) model has emerged as one of the most widely used water quality watershed- and river basin-scale models worldwide, applied extensively for a broad range of hydrologic and/or environmental problems. The international use of SWAT can be attributed to its flexibility in addressing water resource problems, extensive networking via dozens of training workshops and the several international conferences that have been held during the past decade, comprehensive online documentation and supporting software, and an open source code that can be adapted by model users for specific application needs. The catalyst for this special collection of papers was the 2011 International SWAT Conference & Workshops held in Toledo, Spain, which featured over 160 scientific presentations representing SWAT applications in 37 countries. This special collection presents 22 specific SWAT-related studies, most of which were presented at the 2011 SWAT Conference; it represents SWAT applications on five different continents, with the majority of studies being conducted in Europe and North America. The papers cover a variety of topics, including hydrologic testing at a wide range of watershed scales, transport of pollutants in northern European lowland watersheds, data input and routing method effects on sediment transport, development and testing of potential new model algorithms, and description and testing of supporting software. In this introduction to the special section, we provide a synthesis of these studies within four main categories: (i) hydrologic foundations, (ii) sediment transport and routing analyses, (iii) nutrient and pesticide transport, and (iv) scenario analyses. We conclude with a brief summary of key SWAT research and development needs. Copyright © by the American Society of Agronomy, Crop Science Society of America, and Soil Science Society of America, Inc.

Stimulation of postsynapse adrenergic α2A receptor improves attention/cognition performance in an animal model of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.

Science.gov (United States)

Kawaura, Kazuaki; Karasawa, Jun-ichi; Chaki, Shigeyuki; Hikichi, Hirohiko

2014-08-15

A 5-trial inhibitory avoidance test using spontaneously hypertensive rat (SHR) pups has been used as an animal model of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). However, the roles of noradrenergic systems, which are involved in the pathophysiology of ADHD, have not been investigated in this model. In the present study, the effects of adrenergic α2 receptor stimulation, which has been an effective treatment for ADHD, on attention/cognition performance were investigated in this model. Moreover, neuronal mechanisms mediated through adrenergic α2 receptors were investigated. We evaluated the effects of both clonidine, a non-selective adrenergic α2 receptor agonist, and guanfacine, a selective adrenergic α2A receptor agonist, using a 5-trial inhibitory avoidance test with SHR pups. Juvenile SHR exhibited a shorter transfer latency, compared with juvenile Wistar Kyoto (WKY) rats. Both clonidine and guanfacine significantly prolonged the transfer latency of juvenile SHR. The effects of clonidine and guanfacine were significantly blocked by pretreatment with an adrenergic α2A receptor antagonist. In contrast, the effect of clonidine was not attenuated by pretreatment with an adrenergic α2B receptor antagonist, or an adrenergic α2C receptor antagonist, while it was attenuated by a non-selective adrenergic α2 receptor antagonist. Furthermore, the effects of neither clonidine nor guanfacine were blocked by pretreatment with a selective noradrenergic neurotoxin. These results suggest that the stimulation of the adrenergic α2A receptor improves the attention/cognition performance of juvenile SHR in the 5-trial inhibitory avoidance test and that postsynaptic, rather than presynaptic, adrenergic α2A receptor is involved in this effect. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Predicting bias in perceived position using attention field models

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Klein, Barrie P; Paffen, Chris L E; Pas, Susan F Te; Dumoulin, Serge O

2016-01-01

Attention is the mechanism through which we select relevant information from our visual environment. We have recently demonstrated that attention attracts receptive fields across the visual hierarchy (Klein, Harvey, & Dumoulin, 2014). We captured this receptive field attraction using an attention

Data Prospecting with CORPRAL: Pre-attentive Vision Model at Work

Science.gov (United States)

Galkin, I. A.; Reinisch, B. W.; Khmyrov, G. M.; Kozlov, A. V.; Grinstein, J.; Fung, S. F.

2005-12-01

The Cognitive Online Rpi Plasmagram Rating Algorithm (CORPRAL) is the automated data prospecting tool developed to find interesting examples of signal propagation in the 1.2 million plasmagram image archive from the Radio Plasma Imager (RPI) onboard the IMAGE spacecraft. The RPI instrument is a spaceborne radar whose transmitted radio waves may reflect from important magnetospheric structures, such as the plasmapause and the magnetopause, and return to the spacecraft location to be detected. The CORPRAL prospector draws attention of the human analysts to the RPI plasmagrams that contain traces of remote reflections (~18% of all images), thus helping to relieve the search efforts in the otherwise overwhelming RPI data repository. To find the echo traces in plasmagrams, CORPRAL employs a pre-attentive vision model that replicates human ability to identify important objects in the field of view without willful concentration of attention. The importance of such objects is determined by their `saliency', the ability to stand out against the background. The saliency evaluation is done subconsciously, without a priori concepts of the object shape. The RPI imagery dataset providesd an excellent testbed for studies of the model performance on low saliency objects immersed in irregular background noise. The paper discusses results of statistical evaluation of the CORPRAL performance on a collection of ~25,000 plasmagram images interpreted manually. Overall accuracy of plasmagram interpretation varies depending on the applied measuring program but remains in the mid-90% range. As the prevalence of plasmagrams that contain traces goes below 10%, we do observe lower positive predicted values (PPV) of the CORPRAL analysis (~50%), indicating that automatically selected plasmagrams are interesting only with 50% chance. We will discuss future development efforts and provide examples and scenarios where RPI data prospecting is instrumental in knowledge discovery.

Fixed-dose combinations of antimicrobials: A need for special attention

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

N Shafiq

2016-01-01

Full Text Available Objective: To highlight the issue of freely available fixed-dose combinations (FDCs of antimicrobials. Methods: A critique of two such antimicrobial FDCs was undertaken wherein the following aspects were assessed - rational and regulatory issues and justification for clinical use. Available in vitro, in vivo (animals and humans evidence from published literature was analysed. Conclusions: There are several inadequately addressed aspects of the considered FDCs which are available in Indian market. In view of the growing problem of antimicrobial resistance, this issue must get the required attention.

Attentional Resource Allocation and Cultural Modulation in a Computational Model of Ritualized Behavior

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Nielbo, Kristoffer Laigaard; Sørensen, Jesper

2016-01-01

studies have tried to answer by focusing on ritualized behavior instead of ritual. Ritualized behavior (i.e., a set of behavioral features embedded in rituals) increases attention to detail and induces cognitive resource depletion, which together support distinct modes of action categorization. While......How do cultural and religious rituals influence human perception and cognition, and what separates the highly patterned behaviors of communal ceremonies from perceptually similar precautionary and compulsive behaviors? These are some of the questions that recent theoretical models and empirical...... patterns and the simulation data were subjected to linear and non-linear analysis. The results are used to exemplify how action perception of ritualized behavior a) might influence allocation of attentional resources; and b) can be modulated by cultural priors. Further explorations of the model show why...

Language Interpretation for Diverse Families: Considerations for Special Education Teachers

Science.gov (United States)

More, Cori M.; Hart, Juliet E.; Cheatham, Gregory A.

2013-01-01

The special education field is challenged by a lack of attention to and recruitment of well-trained language interpreters in schools. As such, special education teachers need to take a leadership role in working with interpreters to ensure diverse families are collaborative members of individualized education program (IEP) teams. Using the…

76 FR 81360 - Special Conditions: Gulfstream Aerospace LP (GALP) Model G280 Airplane, Operation Without Normal...

Science.gov (United States)

2011-12-28

... DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION Federal Aviation Administration 14 CFR Part 25 [Docket No. FAA-2011-1172: Special Conditions No. 25-453-SC] Special Conditions: Gulfstream Aerospace LP (GALP) Model G280... Aerospace LP (GALP) Model G280 airplane. This airplane will have a novel or unusual design feature...

Discrimination learning and attentional set formation in a mouse model of Fragile X.

Science.gov (United States)

Casten, Kimberly S; Gray, Annette C; Burwell, Rebecca D

2011-06-01

Fragile X Syndrome is the most prevalent genetic cause of mental retardation. Selective deficits in executive function, including inhibitory control and attention, are core features of the disorder. In humans, Fragile X results from a trinucleotide repeat in the Fmr1 gene that renders it functionally silent and has been modeled in mice by targeted deletion of the Fmr1 gene. Fmr1 knockout (KO) mice recapitulate many features of Fragile X syndrome, but evidence for deficits in executive function is inconsistent. To address this issue, we trained wild-type and Fmr1 KO mice on an experimental paradigm that assesses attentional set-shifting. Mice learned to discriminate between stimuli differing in two of three perceptual dimensions. Successful discrimination required attending only to the relevant dimension, while ignoring irrelevant dimensions. Mice were trained on three discriminations in the same perceptual dimension, each followed by a reversal. This procedure normally results in the formation of an attentional set to the relevant dimension. Mice were then required to shift attention and discriminate based on a previously irrelevant perceptual dimension. Wild-type mice exhibited the increase in trials to criterion expected when shifting attention from one perceptual dimension to another. In contrast, the Fmr1 KO group failed to show the expected increase, suggesting impairment in forming an attentional set. Fmr1 KO mice also exhibited a general impairment in learning discriminations and reversals. This is the first demonstration that Fmr1 KO mice show a deficit in attentional set formation.

Fundamentals of Agent Perception and Attention Modelling

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Peters, Christopher; Castellano, Ginevra; Rehm, Matthias

2011-01-01

Perception and attention mechanisms are of great importance for entities situated within complex dynamic environments. With roles extending greatly beyond passive information services about the external environment, such mechanisms actively prioritise, augment and expedite information to ensure t...... agents can achieve a more substantial connection with their environment for the purposes of reacting, planning, decision making and, ultimately, behaving.......Perception and attention mechanisms are of great importance for entities situated within complex dynamic environments. With roles extending greatly beyond passive information services about the external environment, such mechanisms actively prioritise, augment and expedite information to ensure...... that the potentially relevant is made available so appropriate action can take place. Here, we describe the rationale behind endowing artificial entities, or virtual agents, with real-time perception and attention systems. We cover the fundamentals of designing and building such systems. Once equipped, the resulting...

76 FR 25229 - Special Conditions: Gulfstream Aerospace LP (GALP) Model G250 Airplane, Dynamic Test Requirements...

Science.gov (United States)

2011-05-04

... Memorandum ``Side-Facing Seats on Transport Category Airplanes'' and draft Issue Paper ``Dynamic Test...; Special Conditions No. 25-425-SC] Special Conditions: Gulfstream Aerospace LP (GALP) Model G250 Airplane... are issued for the Gulfstream Aerospace LP (GALP) model G250 airplane. This airplane will have a novel...

Attentional prioritization of threatening information: examining the role of the size of the attentional window

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Notebaert, L; Crombez, G.; van Damme, S; Durnez, W.; Theeuwes, J.

2013-01-01

In line with most models of emotion, research has shown that threatening information receives attentional priority over neutral information. Recently, it has been suggested that the degree to which participants divide their attention across the visual field (the attentional window) may modulate the

The analysis of thermoplastic characteristics of special polymer sulfur composite

Science.gov (United States)

Książek, Mariusz

2017-01-01

Specific chemical environments step out in the industry objects. Portland cement composites (concrete and mortar) were impregnated by using the special polymerized sulfur and technical soot as a filler (polymer sulfur composite). Sulfur and technical soot was applied as the industrial waste. Portland cement composites were made of the same aggregate, cement and water. The process of special polymer sulfur composite applied as the industrial waste is a thermal treatment process in the temperature of about 150-155°C. The result of such treatment is special polymer sulfur composite in a liquid state. This paper presents the plastic constants and coefficients of thermal expansion of special polymer sulfur composites, with isotropic porous matrix, reinforced by disoriented ellipsoidal inclusions with orthotropic symmetry of the thermoplastic properties. The investigations are based on the stochastic differential equations of solid mechanics. A model and algorithm for calculating the effective characteristics of special polymer sulfur composites are suggested. The effective thermoplastic characteristics of special polymer sulfur composites, with disoriented ellipsoidal inclusions, are calculated in two stages: First, the properties of materials with oriented inclusions are determined, and then effective constants of a composite with disoriented inclusions are determined on the basis of the Voigt or Rice scheme. A brief summary of new products related to special polymer sulfur composites is given as follows: Impregnation, repair, overlays and precast polymer concrete will be presented. Special polymer sulfur as polymer coating impregnation, which has received little attention in recent years, currently has some very interesting applications.

78 FR 11089 - Special Conditions: Bombardier Aerospace, Model BD-500-1A10 and BD-500-1A11 Airplanes; Sidestick...

Science.gov (United States)

2013-02-15

...; Special Conditions No. 25-477-SC] Special Conditions: Bombardier Aerospace, Model BD-500-1A10 and BD-500... special conditions. SUMMARY: These special conditions are issued for the Bombardier Aerospace Model BD-500...: Background On December 10, 2009, Bombardier Aerospace applied for a type certificate for their new Model BD...

Four-dimensional strings: Phenomenology and model building

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Quiros, M.

1989-01-01

In these lectures we will review some of the last developments in string theories leading to the construction of realistic four-dimensional string models. Special attention will be paid to world-sheet and space-time supersymmetry, modular invariance and model building for supersymmetric and (tachyon-free) nonsupersymmetric ten and four-dimensional models. (orig.)

Granite metallogenic specialization study based on RS information model-A case of hydrothermal uranium and tungsten deposits in Nanling region

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Huang Hongye; Qin Qiming

2009-01-01

According to the granite hydrothermal metallogenic principle, metallogenic specialization information model for uranium producing and tungsten producing granites in Nanling region is built up and the group factor system of granite metallogenic specialization is initially proposed by using RS information model. On the basis of the above aspects, the geographical index and coefficients of information model of granite metallogenic specialization are respectively analyzed, metallogenic specialization discrimination criterion is built up. After the non-discriminatory massif is forecasted, the results are basically accordant with geological fact, at the same time they are used in the geological metallogenic research, which indicates that metallogenic specialization information model is objective and operative, realizes quantitative appraisal on metallogenic specialization and provides a scientific basis for further discriminating the ore-forming massif. (authors)

Attention competition with advertisement

Science.gov (United States)

Cetin, Uzay; Bingol, Haluk O.

2014-09-01

In the new digital age, information is available in large quantities. Since information consumes primarily the attention of its recipients, the scarcity of attention is becoming the main limiting factor. In this study, we investigate the impact of advertisement pressure on a cultural market where consumers have a limited attention capacity. A model of competition for attention is developed and investigated analytically and by simulation. Advertisement is found to be much more effective when the attention capacity of agents is extremely scarce. We have observed that the market share of the advertised item improves if dummy items are introduced to the market while the strength of the advertisement is kept constant.

Attention and memory protection: Interactions between retrospective attention cueing and interference.

Science.gov (United States)

Makovski, Tal; Pertzov, Yoni

2015-01-01

Visual working memory (VWM) and attention have a number of features in common, but despite extensive research it is still unclear how the two interact. Can focused attention improve VWM precision? Can it protect VWM from interference? Here we used a partial-report, continuous-response orientation memory task to examine how attention and interference affect different aspects of VWM and how they interact with one another. Both attention and interference were orthogonally manipulated during the retention interval. Attention was manipulated by presenting informative retro-cues, whereas interference was manipulated by introducing a secondary interfering task. Mixture-model analyses revealed that retro-cues, compared to uninformative cues, improved all aspects of performance: Attention increased recall precision and decreased guessing rate and swap-errors (reporting a wrong item in memory). Similarly, performing a secondary task impaired all aspects of the VWM task. In particular, an interaction between retro-cue and secondary task interference was found primarily for swap-errors. Together these results suggest that both the quantity and quality of VWM representations are sensitive to attention cueing and interference modulations, and they highlight the role of attention in protecting the feature-location associations needed to access the correct items in memory.

A Unified Model of Attention and Problem Solving.

Science.gov (United States)

1984-02-01

paradigma deocribed boro. In confliot condition. In a facolitation condition GREEN Stroup sitnations signls are preented simultaneously o would be plinted In...and perforlao. paradigma similar to theae studied .. . .. ’ Attention and Problem solInS Page 65 Attention and Problem Solving Page 66 her.. Mis

MEDIATION IN THE OFFENCES FROM THE SPECIAL LAWS

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Gabriel-Cristian Constantinescu

2016-11-01

Full Text Available Changesin Romanian penal laws coming into force from 1st February 2014 brought an increasing number of offenses for which it is possible a penal mediation, including the offenses from the special laws (not included in the main Penal Code, for which the withdrawal of the advance complaint or the reconciliation of the parties removes the penal responsibility. These offences from the special laws are reviewed and detailed by the author with the mark of the removal mode of the penal responsibility, achieving a practical table for practitioners. Mediation procedure in the special laws crimes is similar into the general criminal mediation, but the application of the most favourable in time law may require special attention.

Deep Visual Attention Prediction

Science.gov (United States)

Wang, Wenguan; Shen, Jianbing

2018-05-01

In this work, we aim to predict human eye fixation with view-free scenes based on an end-to-end deep learning architecture. Although Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs) have made substantial improvement on human attention prediction, it is still needed to improve CNN based attention models by efficiently leveraging multi-scale features. Our visual attention network is proposed to capture hierarchical saliency information from deep, coarse layers with global saliency information to shallow, fine layers with local saliency response. Our model is based on a skip-layer network structure, which predicts human attention from multiple convolutional layers with various reception fields. Final saliency prediction is achieved via the cooperation of those global and local predictions. Our model is learned in a deep supervision manner, where supervision is directly fed into multi-level layers, instead of previous approaches of providing supervision only at the output layer and propagating this supervision back to earlier layers. Our model thus incorporates multi-level saliency predictions within a single network, which significantly decreases the redundancy of previous approaches of learning multiple network streams with different input scales. Extensive experimental analysis on various challenging benchmark datasets demonstrate our method yields state-of-the-art performance with competitive inference time.

Facilitating Transition from High School and Special Education to Adult Life: Focus on Youth with Learning Disorders, Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder, and Speech/Language Impairments.

Science.gov (United States)

Ascherman, Lee I; Shaftel, Julia

2017-04-01

Youth with learning disorders, speech/language disorders, and/or attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder may experience significant struggles during the transition from high school to postsecondary education and employment. These disorders often occur in combination or concurrently with behavioral and emotional difficulties. Incomplete evaluation may not fully identify the factors underlying academic and personal challenges. This article reviews these disorders, the role of special education law for transitional age youth in public schools, and the Americans with Disabilities Act in postsecondary educational and employment settings. The role of the child and adolescent psychiatrist and the importance of advocacy for these youth are presented. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Announcements to Attentive Agents

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Bolander, Thomas; van Ditmarsch, Hans; Herzig, Andreas

2016-01-01

-based announcement can also be described as an action model. We extend our logic by integrating attention change. Finally, we add the notion of common belief to the language, we exploit this to formalize the concept of joint attention, that has been widely discussed in the philosophical and cognitive science...... literature, and we provide a corresponding axiomatization. This axiomatization also employs the auxiliary notion of attention-based relativized common belief....

Attention Gating in Short-Term Visual Memory.

Science.gov (United States)

Reeves, Adam; Sperling, George

1986-01-01

An experiment is conducted showing that an attention shift to a stream of numerals presented in rapid serial visual presentation mode produces not a total loss, but a systematic distortion of order. An attention gating model (AGM) is developed from a more general attention model. (Author/LMO)

The Regional Special Operations Headquarters: Franchising the NATO Model as a Hedge in Lean Times

Science.gov (United States)

2012-04-01

1 AIR FORCE FELLOWS AIR UNIVERSITY THE REGIONAL SPECIAL OPERATIONS HEADQUARTERS: FRANCHISING THE NATO MODEL AS A HEDGE IN LEAN...Headquarters: Franchising The NATO Model As A Hedge In Lean Times 5a. CONTRACT NUMBER 5b. GRANT NUMBER 5c. PROGRAM ELEMENT NUMBER 6. AUTHOR(S) 5d...it is not copyrighted, but is the property of the United States government. 3 The Regional Special Operations Headquarters: Franchising the

Regulation of Specialized Metabolism by WRKY Transcription Factors

Science.gov (United States)

Schluttenhofer, Craig; Yuan, Ling

2015-01-01

WRKY transcription factors (TFs) are well known for regulating plant abiotic and biotic stress tolerance. However, much less is known about how WRKY TFs affect plant-specialized metabolism. Analysis of WRKY TFs regulating the production of specialized metabolites emphasizes the values of the family outside of traditionally accepted roles in stress tolerance. WRKYs with conserved roles across plant species seem to be essential in regulating specialized metabolism. Overall, the WRKY family plays an essential role in regulating the biosynthesis of important pharmaceutical, aromatherapy, biofuel, and industrial components, warranting considerable attention in the forthcoming years. PMID:25501946

Attentional modulation of neural processing of shape, color, and velocity in humans

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Corbetta, M.; Miezin, F.M.; Dobmeyer, S.; Shulman, G.L.; Petersen, S.E.

1990-01-01

Positron emission tomography (PET) was used to measure changes in regional cerebral blood flow of normal subjects, while they were discriminating different attributes (shape, color, and velocity) of the same set of visual stimuli. Psychophysical evidence indicated that the sensitivity for discriminating subtle stimulus changes was higher when subjects focused attention on one attribute than when they divided attention among several attributes. Correspondingly, attention enhanced the activity of different regions of extrastriate visual cortex that appear to be specialized for processing information related to the selected attribute

Exposure to lead and specific attentional problems in schoolchildren.

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Minder, B.; Das-Smaal, E.A.; Brand, E.F.J.M.; Orlebeke, J.F.

1994-01-01

A pilot study was carried out to investigate the relationship between exposure to lead and attention in children. The participants were 43 boys, 8 to 12 years of age, attending special schools for children with educational and/or learning problems (so called LOM schools). Children with probable

Considerations about the licensing process of special nuclear industrial facilities

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Talarico, M.A., E-mail: talaricomarco@hotmail.com [Marinha do Brasil, Rio de Janeiro, RJ (Brazil). Coordenacao do Porgrama de Submarino com Propulsao Nuclear; Melo, P.F. Frutuoso e [Coordenacao dos Programas de Pos-Graduacao em Engenharia (COPPE/UFRJ), Rio de Janeiro, RJ (Brazil). Programa de Engenharia Nuclear

2015-07-01

This paper brings a discussion about the challenges involved in the development of a new kind of nuclear facility in Brazil, a naval base for nuclear submarines, with attention to the licensing process and considerations about the risk-informed decision making application to the licensing process. Initially, a model of such a naval base, called in this work, special industrial facility, is proposed, with its systems and respective sets of basic requirements, in order to make it possible the accomplishment of the special industrial facility support function to the nuclear submarine. A discussion about current challenges to overcome in this project is presented: the challenges due to the new characteristics of this type of nuclear facility; existence of several interfaces between the special industrial facilities systems and nuclear submarine systems in design activities; lack of specific regulation in Brazil to allow the licensing process of special industrial facilities by the nuclear safety authority; and comments about the lack of information from reference nuclear facilities, as is the case with nuclear power reactors (for example, the German Grafenrheinfeld nuclear plant is the reference plant for the Brazilian Angra 2 nuclear plant). Finally, in view of these challenges, an analysis method of special industrial facility operational scenarios to assist the licensing process is proposed. Also, considerations about the application of risk-informed decision making to the special industrial facility activity and licensing process in Brazil are presented. (author)

Considerations about the licensing process of special nuclear industrial facilities

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Talarico, M.A.; Melo, P.F. Frutuoso e

2015-01-01

This paper brings a discussion about the challenges involved in the development of a new kind of nuclear facility in Brazil, a naval base for nuclear submarines, with attention to the licensing process and considerations about the risk-informed decision making application to the licensing process. Initially, a model of such a naval base, called in this work, special industrial facility, is proposed, with its systems and respective sets of basic requirements, in order to make it possible the accomplishment of the special industrial facility support function to the nuclear submarine. A discussion about current challenges to overcome in this project is presented: the challenges due to the new characteristics of this type of nuclear facility; existence of several interfaces between the special industrial facilities systems and nuclear submarine systems in design activities; lack of specific regulation in Brazil to allow the licensing process of special industrial facilities by the nuclear safety authority; and comments about the lack of information from reference nuclear facilities, as is the case with nuclear power reactors (for example, the German Grafenrheinfeld nuclear plant is the reference plant for the Brazilian Angra 2 nuclear plant). Finally, in view of these challenges, an analysis method of special industrial facility operational scenarios to assist the licensing process is proposed. Also, considerations about the application of risk-informed decision making to the special industrial facility activity and licensing process in Brazil are presented. (author)

Temporal constraints on visual perception: A psychophysical investigation of the relation between attention capture and the attentional blink

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Nielsen, Simon

in processing targets, which effectively causes a perceptual bottleneck (Chun & Potter, 1995). According to bottleneck models, making the first target easier to perceive should improve processing in the bottleneck and reduce the attentional blink. However, recent studies suggest that an attentional blink may...... is often reduced in the first half second. This phenomenon is known as the attentional blink (Raymond, Shapiro & Arnell, 1992) and as suggests by the name is assumed to pertain to how fast attention can be reallocated. Bottleneck models suggest that the attentional blink is caused by limited capacity...... be triggered by attention capture to the first object (Folk, Leber & Egeth, 2008) and that if making the first target easier to perceive increase its saliency this may increase the attentional blink (Chua, 2005). This thesis examines the attention capture hypothesis with focus on empirical investigations...

[Inadequacy of the paradigms of special education to subjects with severe and profound grade intellectual disability - the need for pragmatic realism in psychiatry and special pedagogy].

Science.gov (United States)

Sipowicz, Kasper; Żuraw, Hanna; Witusik, Andrzej; Mokros, Łukasz; Najbert, Edyta; Pietras, Tadeusz

2018-05-25

People with severe and profound grade disabilities are the subject of interest in psychiatry, clinical psychology and special pedagogy. Unfortunately, the paradigmatic approach to special education based on postmodern philosophy is in contrast to the biomedical approach that is based on the positivist and Cartesian models. The paper is an attempt to systematize the similarities and differences between the humanistic approach and the modern biomedical model, which, despite the apparent differences, do not differ so much from each other. Work with a person disabled intellectually in the severe or profound degree is governed by the principles of methodical realism, taking into account to an equal extent the principal deficits, the concomitant diseases, limitations and the social context. The deeper the impairment and disability is, the smaller is the role of the humanistic paradigm in work with the client in the medical management and educational process. Changing the paradigms of special pedagogy has drawn attention to the social context of disability, separating, however, special pedagogy from modern medicine and psychology, cognitive-oriented and psychometry-based. The postmodern paradigm has become an ideology, which makes it difficult to work with deeply disabled people. Only the multidirectional approach including a variety of paradigms makes it possible to provide integrational aid to people with severe and profound grade intellectual disabilities. Working with such a disabled person should take into account equally the biomedical and humanistic aspects. © 2018 MEDPRESS.

Components of Attention in Grapheme-Color Synesthesia: A Modeling Approach.

Science.gov (United States)

Ásgeirsson, Árni Gunnar; Nordfang, Maria; Sørensen, Thomas Alrik

2015-01-01

Grapheme-color synesthesia is a condition where the perception of graphemes consistently and automatically evokes an experience of non-physical color. Many have studied how synesthesia affects the processing of achromatic graphemes, but less is known about the synesthetic processing of physically colored graphemes. Here, we investigated how the visual processing of colored letters is affected by the congruence or incongruence of synesthetic grapheme-color associations. We briefly presented graphemes (10-150 ms) to 9 grapheme-color synesthetes and to 9 control observers. Their task was to report as many letters (targets) as possible, while ignoring digit (distractors). Graphemes were either congruently or incongruently colored with the synesthetes' reported grapheme-color association. A mathematical model, based on Bundesen's (1990) Theory of Visual Attention (TVA), was fitted to each observer's data, allowing us to estimate discrete components of visual attention. The models suggested that the synesthetes processed congruent letters faster than incongruent ones, and that they were able to retain more congruent letters in visual short-term memory, while the control group's model parameters were not significantly affected by congruence. The increase in processing speed, when synesthetes process congruent letters, suggests that synesthesia affects the processing of letters at a perceptual level. To account for the benefit in processing speed, we propose that synesthetic associations become integrated into the categories of graphemes, and that letter colors are considered as evidence for making certain perceptual categorizations in the visual system. We also propose that enhanced visual short-term memory capacity for congruently colored graphemes can be explained by the synesthetes' expertise regarding their specific grapheme-color associations.

Components of Attention in Grapheme-Color Synesthesia: A Modeling Approach

Science.gov (United States)

Ásgeirsson, Árni Gunnar; Nordfang, Maria; Sørensen, Thomas Alrik

2015-01-01

Grapheme-color synesthesia is a condition where the perception of graphemes consistently and automatically evokes an experience of non-physical color. Many have studied how synesthesia affects the processing of achromatic graphemes, but less is known about the synesthetic processing of physically colored graphemes. Here, we investigated how the visual processing of colored letters is affected by the congruence or incongruence of synesthetic grapheme-color associations. We briefly presented graphemes (10–150 ms) to 9 grapheme-color synesthetes and to 9 control observers. Their task was to report as many letters (targets) as possible, while ignoring digit (distractors). Graphemes were either congruently or incongruently colored with the synesthetes’ reported grapheme-color association. A mathematical model, based on Bundesen’s (1990) Theory of Visual Attention (TVA), was fitted to each observer’s data, allowing us to estimate discrete components of visual attention. The models suggested that the synesthetes processed congruent letters faster than incongruent ones, and that they were able to retain more congruent letters in visual short-term memory, while the control group’s model parameters were not significantly affected by congruence. The increase in processing speed, when synesthetes process congruent letters, suggests that synesthesia affects the processing of letters at a perceptual level. To account for the benefit in processing speed, we propose that synesthetic associations become integrated into the categories of graphemes, and that letter colors are considered as evidence for making certain perceptual categorizations in the visual system. We also propose that enhanced visual short-term memory capacity for congruently colored graphemes can be explained by the synesthetes’ expertise regarding their specific grapheme-color associations. PMID:26252019

Components of Attention in Grapheme-Color Synesthesia: A Modeling Approach.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Árni Gunnar Ásgeirsson

Full Text Available Grapheme-color synesthesia is a condition where the perception of graphemes consistently and automatically evokes an experience of non-physical color. Many have studied how synesthesia affects the processing of achromatic graphemes, but less is known about the synesthetic processing of physically colored graphemes. Here, we investigated how the visual processing of colored letters is affected by the congruence or incongruence of synesthetic grapheme-color associations. We briefly presented graphemes (10-150 ms to 9 grapheme-color synesthetes and to 9 control observers. Their task was to report as many letters (targets as possible, while ignoring digit (distractors. Graphemes were either congruently or incongruently colored with the synesthetes' reported grapheme-color association. A mathematical model, based on Bundesen's (1990 Theory of Visual Attention (TVA, was fitted to each observer's data, allowing us to estimate discrete components of visual attention. The models suggested that the synesthetes processed congruent letters faster than incongruent ones, and that they were able to retain more congruent letters in visual short-term memory, while the control group's model parameters were not significantly affected by congruence. The increase in processing speed, when synesthetes process congruent letters, suggests that synesthesia affects the processing of letters at a perceptual level. To account for the benefit in processing speed, we propose that synesthetic associations become integrated into the categories of graphemes, and that letter colors are considered as evidence for making certain perceptual categorizations in the visual system. We also propose that enhanced visual short-term memory capacity for congruently colored graphemes can be explained by the synesthetes' expertise regarding their specific grapheme-color associations.

Remote sensing image ship target detection method based on visual attention model

Science.gov (United States)

Sun, Yuejiao; Lei, Wuhu; Ren, Xiaodong

2017-11-01

The traditional methods of detecting ship targets in remote sensing images mostly use sliding window to search the whole image comprehensively. However, the target usually occupies only a small fraction of the image. This method has high computational complexity for large format visible image data. The bottom-up selective attention mechanism can selectively allocate computing resources according to visual stimuli, thus improving the computational efficiency and reducing the difficulty of analysis. Considering of that, a method of ship target detection in remote sensing images based on visual attention model was proposed in this paper. The experimental results show that the proposed method can reduce the computational complexity while improving the detection accuracy, and improve the detection efficiency of ship targets in remote sensing images.

Attention: oscillations and neuropharmacology.

Science.gov (United States)

Deco, Gustavo; Thiele, Alexander

2009-08-01

Attention is a rich psychological and neurobiological construct that influences almost all aspects of cognitive behaviour. It enables enhanced processing of behaviourally relevant stimuli at the expense of irrelevant stimuli. At the cellular level, rhythmic synchronization at local and long-range spatial scales complements the attention-induced firing rate changes of neurons. The former is hypothesized to enable efficient communication between neuronal ensembles tuned to spatial and featural aspects of the attended stimulus. Recent modelling studies suggest that the rhythmic synchronization in the gamma range may be mediated by a fine balance between N-methyl-D-aspartate and alpha-amino-3-hydroxy-5-methylisoxazole-4-propionate postsynaptic currents, whereas other studies have highlighted the possible contribution of the neuromodulator acetylcholine. This review summarizes some recent modelling and experimental studies investigating mechanisms of attention in sensory areas and discusses possibilities of how glutamatergic and cholinergic systems could contribute to increased processing abilities at the cellular and network level during states of top-down attention.

Introduction to the Special Volume on "Ecology and Ecological Modeling in R"

OpenAIRE

Kneib, Thomas; Petzoldt, Thomas

2007-01-01

The third special volume in the "Foometrics in R" series of the Journal of Statistical Software collects a number of contributions describing statistical methodology and corresponding implementations related to ecology and ecological modelling. The scope of the papers ranges from theoretical ecology and ecological modelling to statistical methodology relevant for data analyses in ecological applications.

A Structural Equation Model of Customer Satisfaction and Future Purchase of Mail-Order Speciality Food

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Mai, L.W.

2006-01-01

Full Text Available Analyses the relationship between satisfaction with mail-order speciality food attributes, overall satisfaction, and likelihood of future purchase using a structural equation model. The results indicate that customer satisfaction is associated with both service and product features of mail order speciality food.

Trajectories of Attentional Development: An Exploration with the Master Activation Map Model

Science.gov (United States)

Michael, George A.; Lete, Bernard; Ducrot, Stephanie

2013-01-01

The developmental trajectories of several attention components, such as orienting, inhibition, and the guidance of selection by relevance (i.e., advance knowledge relevant to the task) were investigated in 498 participants (ages 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, and 20). The paradigm was based on Michael et al.'s (2006) master activation map model and consisted of…

Prediction-oriented modeling in business research by means of PLS path modeling : Introduction to a JBR special section

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Cepeda Carrion, Gabriel; Henseler, Jörg; Ringle, Christian M.; Roldan, Jose Luis

2016-01-01

Under the main theme “prediction-oriented modeling in business research by means of partial least squares path modeling” (PLS), the special issue presents 17 papers. Most contributions include content from presentations at the 2nd International Symposium on Partial Least Squares Path Modeling: The

Psychopathology and special education enrollment in children with prenatal cocaine exposure.

Science.gov (United States)

Levine, Todd P; Lester, Barry; Lagasse, Linda; Shankaran, Seetha; Bada, Henrietta S; Bauer, Charles R; Whitaker, Toni M; Higgins, Rosemary; Hammond, Jane; Roberts, Mary B

2012-06-01

This study evaluated how enrollment in special education services in 11-year-old children relates to prenatal cocaine exposure (PCE), psychopathology, and other risk factors. Participants were 498 children enrolled in The Maternal Lifestyle Study, a prospective, longitudinal, multisite study examining outcomes of children with PCE. Logistic regression was used to examine the effect of PCE and psychopathology on enrollment in an individualized education plan (IEP; a designation specific to children with special education needs), with environmental, maternal, and infant medical variables as covariates. PCE, an interaction of PCE and oppositional defiant disorder, child attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, parent-reported internalizing behaviors, and teacher-reported externalizing behaviors, predicted enrollment in an IEP. Other statistically significant variables in the model were male gender, low birth weight, being small for gestational age, white race, caregiver change, low socioeconomic status, low child intelligence quotient, caregiver depression, and prenatal marijuana exposure. PCE increased the likelihood of receiving an IEP with adjustment for covariates. Psychopathology also predicted this special education outcome, in combination with and independent of prenatal cocaine exposure.

Algorithmically specialized parallel computers

CERN Document Server

Snyder, Lawrence; Gannon, Dennis B

1985-01-01

Algorithmically Specialized Parallel Computers focuses on the concept and characteristics of an algorithmically specialized computer.This book discusses the algorithmically specialized computers, algorithmic specialization using VLSI, and innovative architectures. The architectures and algorithms for digital signal, speech, and image processing and specialized architectures for numerical computations are also elaborated. Other topics include the model for analyzing generalized inter-processor, pipelined architecture for search tree maintenance, and specialized computer organization for raster

The attention schema theory: a mechanistic account of subjective awareness.

Science.gov (United States)

Graziano, Michael S A; Webb, Taylor W

2015-01-01

We recently proposed the attention schema theory, a novel way to explain the brain basis of subjective awareness in a mechanistic and scientifically testable manner. The theory begins with attention, the process by which signals compete for the brain's limited computing resources. This internal signal competition is partly under a bottom-up influence and partly under top-down control. We propose that the top-down control of attention is improved when the brain has access to a simplified model of attention itself. The brain therefore constructs a schematic model of the process of attention, the 'attention schema,' in much the same way that it constructs a schematic model of the body, the 'body schema.' The content of this internal model leads a brain to conclude that it has a subjective experience. One advantage of this theory is that it explains how awareness and attention can sometimes become dissociated; the brain's internal models are never perfect, and sometimes a model becomes dissociated from the object being modeled. A second advantage of this theory is that it explains how we can be aware of both internal and external events. The brain can apply attention to many types of information including external sensory information and internal information about emotions and cognitive states. If awareness is a model of attention, then this model should pertain to the same domains of information to which attention pertains. A third advantage of this theory is that it provides testable predictions. If awareness is the internal model of attention, used to help control attention, then without awareness, attention should still be possible but should suffer deficits in control. In this article, we review the existing literature on the relationship between attention and awareness, and suggest that at least some of the predictions of the theory are borne out by the evidence.

The attention schema theory: a mechanistic account of subjective awareness

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Taylor W. Webb

2015-04-01

Full Text Available We recently proposed the attention schema theory, a novel way to explain the brain basis of subjective awareness in a mechanistic and scientifically testable manner. The theory begins with attention, the process by which signals compete for the brain’s limited computing resources. This internal signal competition is partly under a bottom-up influence and partly under top-down control. We propose that the top-down control of attention is improved when the brain has access to a simplified model of attention itself. The brain therefore constructs a schematic model of the process of attention, the ‘attention schema’, in much the same way that it constructs a schematic model of the body, the ‘body schema’. The content of this internal model leads a brain to conclude that it has a subjective experience. One advantage of this theory is that it explains how awareness and attention can sometimes become dissociated; the brain’s internal models are never perfect, and sometimes a model becomes dissociated from the object being modeled. A second advantage of this theory is that it explains how we can be aware of both internal and external events. The brain can apply attention to many types of information including external sensory information and internal information about emotions and cognitive states. If awareness is a model of attention, then this model should pertain to the same domains of information to which attention pertains. A third advantage of this theory is that it provides testable predictions. If awareness is the internal model of attention, used to help control attention, then without awareness, attention should still be possible but should suffer deficits in control. In this article, we review the existing literature on the relationship between attention and awareness, and suggest that at least some of the predictions of the theory are borne out by the evidence.

Attention and competition in figure-ground perception.

Science.gov (United States)

Peterson, Mary A; Salvagio, Elizabeth

2009-01-01

What are the roles of attention and competition in determining where objects lie in the visual field, a phenomenon known as figure-ground perception? In this chapter, we review evidence that attention and other high-level factors such as familiarity affect figure-ground perception, and we discuss models that implement these effects. Next, we consider the Biased Competition Model of Attention in which attention is used to resolve the competition for neural representation between two nearby stimuli; in this model the response to the stimulus that loses the competition is suppressed. In the remainder of the chapter we discuss recent behavioral evidence that figure-ground perception entails between-object competition in which the response to the shape of the losing competitor is suppressed. We also describe two experiments testing whether more attention is drawn to resolve greater figure-ground competition, as would be expected if the Biased Competition Model of Attention extends to figure-ground perception. In these experiments we find that responses to targets on the location of a losing strong competitor are slowed, consistent with the idea that the location of the losing competitor is suppressed, but responses to targets on the winning competitor are not speeded, which is inconsistent with the hypothesis that attention is used to resolve figure-ground competition. In closing, we discuss evidence that attention can operate by suppression as well as by facilitation.

76 FR 39763 - Special Conditions: Boeing Model 787-8 Airplane; Interaction of Systems and Structures...

Science.gov (United States)

2011-07-07

... Conditions No. 25-354A-SC] Special Conditions: Boeing Model 787-8 Airplane; Interaction of Systems and..., electronic flight control system control surface awareness, HIRF protection, limit engine torque loads for... standards. A special condition is needed to require consideration of the effects of systems on the...

Investigations on the size of inhibitory region in selective tuning model of attention

Czech Academy of Sciences Publication Activity Database

Lukavský, Jiří

2008-01-01

Roč. 37, Supplement (2008), 53 s. [European Conferenceon Visual Perception ,. 24.08.2008-28.08.2008, Utrecht] R&D Projects: GA ČR GA406/07/1676 Institutional research plan: CEZ:AV0Z70250504 Keywords : attention * visual perception * inhibition model Subject RIV: AN - Psychology

Too much control can hurt : A threaded cognition model of the attentional blink

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Taatgen, Niels A.; Juvina, Ion; Schipper, Marc; Borst, Jelmer P.; Martens, Sander

Explanations for the attentional blink (AB; a deficit in identifying the second of two targets when presented 200-500 ms after the first) have recently shifted from limitations in memory consolidation to disruptions in cognitive control. With a new model based on the threaded cognition theory of

Attention profiles in autism spectrum disorder and subtypes of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder.

Science.gov (United States)

Boxhoorn, Sara; Lopez, Eva; Schmidt, Catharina; Schulze, Diana; Hänig, Susann; Freitag, Christine M

2018-03-06

Attention problems are observed in attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Most neuropsychological studies that compared both disorders focused on complex executive functions (EF), but missed to contrast basic attention functions, as well as ASD- and ADHD subtypes. The present study compared EF as well as basic attention functioning of children with the combined subtype (ADHD-C), the predominantly inattentive subtype (ADHD-I), and autism spectrum disorder without ADHD (ASD-) with typically developing controls (TD). Basic attention functions and EF profiles were analysed by testing the comprehensive attention function model of van Zomeren and Brouwer using profile analysis. Additionally, neurocognitive impairments in ASD- and ADHD were regressed on dimensional measures of attention- and hyperactive-impulsive symptoms across and within groups. ADHD-C revealed a strong impairment across measures of EF compared to ASD- and TD. The ADHD-C profile furthermore showed disorder specific impairments in interference control, whereas the ASD- profile showed a disorder specific impairment in basic attention component divided attention. Attention- and hyperactive-impulsive symptom severity did not predict neurocognitive impairments across- or within groups. Study findings thus support disorder and subtype specific attention/EF profiles, which refute the idea of a continuum of ADHD-I, ADHD-C, and ASD with increasing neurocognitive impairments.

Examination on ICT Integration into Special Education Schools for Developing Countries

Science.gov (United States)

Aksal, Fahriye Altinay; Gazi, Zehra Altinay

2015-01-01

Information, communication and technology (ICT) is a bridge in fostering learning who have special needs in education. It becomes a medium of connecting their way of lives and their socialization within education life. Integration of ICT plays a great role in special education. Most of the developing countries pay attention to ICT practices in…

Cold-Blooded Attention: Finger Temperature Predicts Attentional Performance.

Science.gov (United States)

Vergara, Rodrigo C; Moënne-Loccoz, Cristóbal; Maldonado, Pedro E

2017-01-01

Thermal stress has been shown to increase the chances of unsafe behavior during industrial and driving performances due to reductions in mental and attentional resources. Nonetheless, establishing appropriate safety standards regarding environmental temperature has been a major problem, as modulations are also be affected by the task type, complexity, workload, duration, and previous experience with the task. To bypass this attentional and thermoregulatory problem, we focused on the body rather than environmental temperature. Specifically, we measured tympanic, forehead, finger and environmental temperatures accompanied by a battery of attentional tasks. We considered a 10 min baseline period wherein subjects were instructed to sit and relax, followed by three attentional tasks: a continuous performance task (CPT), a flanker task (FT) and a counting task (CT). Using multiple linear regression models, we evaluated which variable(s) were the best predictors of performance. The results showed a decrement in finger temperature due to instruction and task engagement that was absent when the subject was instructed to relax. No changes were observed in tympanic or forehead temperatures, while the environmental temperature remained almost constant for each subject. Specifically, the magnitude of the change in finger temperature was the best predictor of performance in all three attentional tasks. The results presented here suggest that finger temperature can be used as a predictor of alertness, as it predicted performance in attentional tasks better than environmental temperature. These findings strongly support that peripheral temperature can be used as a tool to prevent unsafe behaviors and accidents.

Cold-Blooded Attention: Finger Temperature Predicts Attentional Performance

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Rodrigo C. Vergara

2017-09-01

Full Text Available Thermal stress has been shown to increase the chances of unsafe behavior during industrial and driving performances due to reductions in mental and attentional resources. Nonetheless, establishing appropriate safety standards regarding environmental temperature has been a major problem, as modulations are also be affected by the task type, complexity, workload, duration, and previous experience with the task. To bypass this attentional and thermoregulatory problem, we focused on the body rather than environmental temperature. Specifically, we measured tympanic, forehead, finger and environmental temperatures accompanied by a battery of attentional tasks. We considered a 10 min baseline period wherein subjects were instructed to sit and relax, followed by three attentional tasks: a continuous performance task (CPT, a flanker task (FT and a counting task (CT. Using multiple linear regression models, we evaluated which variable(s were the best predictors of performance. The results showed a decrement in finger temperature due to instruction and task engagement that was absent when the subject was instructed to relax. No changes were observed in tympanic or forehead temperatures, while the environmental temperature remained almost constant for each subject. Specifically, the magnitude of the change in finger temperature was the best predictor of performance in all three attentional tasks. The results presented here suggest that finger temperature can be used as a predictor of alertness, as it predicted performance in attentional tasks better than environmental temperature. These findings strongly support that peripheral temperature can be used as a tool to prevent unsafe behaviors and accidents.

Explicit goal-driven attention, unlike implicitly learned attention, spreads to secondary tasks.

Science.gov (United States)

Addleman, Douglas A; Tao, Jinyi; Remington, Roger W; Jiang, Yuhong V

2018-03-01

To what degree does spatial attention for one task spread to all stimuli in the attended region, regardless of task relevance? Most models imply that spatial attention acts through a unitary priority map in a task-general manner. We show that implicit learning, unlike endogenous spatial cuing, can bias spatial attention within one task without biasing attention to a spatially overlapping secondary task. Participants completed a visual search task superimposed on a background containing scenes, which they were told to encode for a later memory task. Experiments 1 and 2 used explicit instructions to bias spatial attention to one region for visual search; Experiment 3 used location probability cuing to implicitly bias spatial attention. In location probability cuing, a target appeared in one region more than others despite participants not being told of this. In all experiments, search performance was better in the cued region than in uncued regions. However, scene memory was better in the cued region only following endogenous guidance, not after implicit biasing of attention. These data support a dual-system view of top-down attention that dissociates goal-driven and implicitly learned attention. Goal-driven attention is task general, amplifying processing of a cued region across tasks, whereas implicit statistical learning is task-specific. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2018 APA, all rights reserved).

Multimodal computational attention for scene understanding and robotics

CERN Document Server

Schauerte, Boris

2016-01-01

This book presents state-of-the-art computational attention models that have been successfully tested in diverse application areas and can build the foundation for artificial systems to efficiently explore, analyze, and understand natural scenes. It gives a comprehensive overview of the most recent computational attention models for processing visual and acoustic input. It covers the biological background of visual and auditory attention, as well as bottom-up and top-down attentional mechanisms and discusses various applications. In the first part new approaches for bottom-up visual and acoustic saliency models are presented and applied to the task of audio-visual scene exploration of a robot. In the second part the influence of top-down cues for attention modeling is investigated. .

From classic to current: a look back on attention research in the American Journal of Psychology.

Science.gov (United States)

Mounts, Jeffrey R W

2012-01-01

This review examines attention research appearing in The American Journal of Psychology over the journal's rich 125-year history. In particular, the review examines studies focused on selective attention's role in modulating the influence of distraction and the methods used to capture the nature of selective attention. Special attention is given to classic articles by Treisman (1964a, 1964b), Neisser (1963), and Eriksen and Rohrbaugh (1970), whose methods and results are examined in detail in light of current theory and research in selective attention.

A structural model of family empowerment for families of children with special needs.

Science.gov (United States)

Han, Kuem Sun; Yang, Yunkyung; Hong, Yeong Seon

2018-03-01

To explain and predict family empowerment in families of children with special needs. Family empowerment of families of children with special needs can be explained using the Double ABCX model. Although constant stressors such as parenting stress and family demands can have negative effects on family empowerment, family resources and parenting efficacy can mediate the negative effect through effective coping strategies. A cross-sectional research design was employed. A survey was conducted with 240 parents of children with special needs. Upon exclusion of four responses deemed inadequate to the statistics process, 236 responses were selected for the analysis. Based on the items used in the previous research, we used the scale of family demands 38, the scale of parenting stress 24, the scale of parenting efficacy 37, the scale of pattern of organisation 30, the scale of communication process 16 and the scale of family empowerment 32. In families of children with special needs, parenting stress had a negative effect on parenting efficacy and family resources, namely, pattern of organisation and communication process. Family needs had a positive effect on parenting efficacy. Parenting stress and family demands influenced family empowerment through parenting efficacy and family resources (pattern of organisation and communication process), while parenting efficacy contributed to family empowerment. This study empirically analysed the usefulness of the Double ABCX model in predicting family empowerment. Family resource factors (organisation pattern and communication process) and perception or judgement factors (such as parenting efficacy) were found to mediate the negative impact of various stressors experienced by families of children with special needs. The study findings suggest that clinical practice and management should focus on providing efficient intervention methods to lower stress in families of children with special needs. Reinforcing factors contributing to

Energy, a crucial environmental subject. Special issue

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

2001-01-01

In this issue of the magazine ArenA special attention is paid the use of energy in the Netherlands, the related problems and solutions, and the agenda for the Section Energy of the Dutch Association of Environmental Professionals (VVM) resulting from the technological, administrative and economical problems and solutions

Attentional selection in visual perception, memory and action: a quest for cross-domain integration.

Science.gov (United States)

Schneider, Werner X; Einhäuser, Wolfgang; Horstmann, Gernot

2013-10-19

For decades, the cognitive and neural sciences have benefitted greatly from a separation of mind and brain into distinct functional domains. The tremendous success of this approach notwithstanding, it is self-evident that such a view is incomplete. Goal-directed behaviour of an organism requires the joint functioning of perception, memory and sensorimotor control. A prime candidate for achieving integration across these functional domains are attentional processes. Consequently, this Theme Issue brings together studies of attentional selection from many fields, both experimental and theoretical, that are united in their quest to find overreaching integrative principles of attention between perception, memory and action. In all domains, attention is understood as combination of competition and priority control ('bias'), with the task as a decisive driving factor to ensure coherent goal-directed behaviour and cognition. Using vision as the predominant model system for attentional selection, many studies of this Theme Issue focus special emphasis on eye movements as a selection process that is both a fundamental action and serves a key function in perception. The Theme Issue spans a wide range of methods, from measuring human behaviour in the real word to recordings of single neurons in the non-human primate brain. We firmly believe that combining such a breadth in approaches is necessary not only for attentional selection, but also to take the next decisive step in all of the cognitive and neural sciences: to understand cognition and behaviour beyond isolated domains.

Attentional selection in visual perception, memory and action: a quest for cross-domain integration

Science.gov (United States)

Schneider, Werner X.; Einhäuser, Wolfgang; Horstmann, Gernot

2013-01-01

For decades, the cognitive and neural sciences have benefitted greatly from a separation of mind and brain into distinct functional domains. The tremendous success of this approach notwithstanding, it is self-evident that such a view is incomplete. Goal-directed behaviour of an organism requires the joint functioning of perception, memory and sensorimotor control. A prime candidate for achieving integration across these functional domains are attentional processes. Consequently, this Theme Issue brings together studies of attentional selection from many fields, both experimental and theoretical, that are united in their quest to find overreaching integrative principles of attention between perception, memory and action. In all domains, attention is understood as combination of competition and priority control (‘bias’), with the task as a decisive driving factor to ensure coherent goal-directed behaviour and cognition. Using vision as the predominant model system for attentional selection, many studies of this Theme Issue focus special emphasis on eye movements as a selection process that is both a fundamental action and serves a key function in perception. The Theme Issue spans a wide range of methods, from measuring human behaviour in the real word to recordings of single neurons in the non-human primate brain. We firmly believe that combining such a breadth in approaches is necessary not only for attentional selection, but also to take the next decisive step in all of the cognitive and neural sciences: to understand cognition and behaviour beyond isolated domains. PMID:24018715

The impact of a model-based clinical regional registry for attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder.

Science.gov (United States)

Zanetti, Michele; Cartabia, Massimo; Didoni, Anna; Fortinguerra, Filomena; Reale, Laura; Mondini, Matteo; Bonati, Maurizio

2017-09-01

This article describes the development and clinical impact of the Italian Regional ADHD Registry, aimed at collecting and monitoring diagnostic and therapeutic pathways of care for attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder children and adolescents, launched by the Italian Lombardy Region in June 2011. In particular, the model-based software used to run the registry and manage clinical care data acquisition and monitoring, is described. This software was developed using the PROSAFE programme, which is already used for data collection in many Italian intensive care units, as a stand-alone interface case report form. The use of the attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder regional registry led to an increase in the appropriateness of the clinical management of all patients included in the registry, proving to be an important instrument in ensuring an appropriate healthcare strategy for children and adolescents with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder.

Prospect theory reflects selective allocation of attention.

Science.gov (United States)

Pachur, Thorsten; Schulte-Mecklenbeck, Michael; Murphy, Ryan O; Hertwig, Ralph

2018-02-01

There is a disconnect in the literature between analyses of risky choice based on cumulative prospect theory (CPT) and work on predecisional information processing. One likely reason is that for expectation models (e.g., CPT), it is often assumed that people behaved only as if they conducted the computations leading to the predicted choice and that the models are thus mute regarding information processing. We suggest that key psychological constructs in CPT, such as loss aversion and outcome and probability sensitivity, can be interpreted in terms of attention allocation. In two experiments, we tested hypotheses about specific links between CPT parameters and attentional regularities. Experiment 1 used process tracing to monitor participants' predecisional attention allocation to outcome and probability information. As hypothesized, individual differences in CPT's loss-aversion, outcome-sensitivity, and probability-sensitivity parameters (estimated from participants' choices) were systematically associated with individual differences in attention allocation to outcome and probability information. For instance, loss aversion was associated with the relative attention allocated to loss and gain outcomes, and a more strongly curved weighting function was associated with less attention allocated to probabilities. Experiment 2 manipulated participants' attention to losses or gains, causing systematic differences in CPT's loss-aversion parameter. This result indicates that attention allocation can to some extent cause choice regularities that are captured by CPT. Our findings demonstrate an as-if model's capacity to reflect characteristics of information processing. We suggest that the observed CPT-attention links can be harnessed to inform the development of process models of risky choice. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2018 APA, all rights reserved).

Models of neural networks IV early vision and attention

CERN Document Server

Cowan, Jack; Domany, Eytan

2002-01-01

Close this book for a moment and look around you. You scan the scene by directing your attention, and gaze, at certain specific objects. Despite the background, you discern them. The process is partially intentional and partially preattentive. How all this can be done is described in the fourth volume of Models of Neural Networks devoted to Early Vision and Atten­ tion that you are holding in your hands. Early vision comprises the first stages of visual information processing. It is as such a scientific challenge whose clarification calls for a penetrating review. Here you see the result. The Heraeus Foundation (Hanau) is to be thanked for its support during the initial phase of this project. John Hertz, who has extensive experience in both computational and ex­ perimental neuroscience, provides in "Neurons, Networks, and Cognition" to neural modeling. John Van Opstal explains in a theoretical introduction "The Gaze Control System" how the eye's gaze control is performed and presents a novel theoretical des...

One hundred years of the special theory of relativity

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Chernikov, N.A.

2006-01-01

Special theory of relativity is considered here as an episode from non-Euclidean geometry. Special attention is drawn to the fact that the replacement of the fifth Euclidean postulate with the Lobachevsky postulate about the parallel straight lines in the velocity space of a material point leads to the replacement of the postulate about one and the same time rate with the postulate about one and the same light velocity in all inertial reference systems

A kinetic model for the glucose/glycine Maillard reaction pathways

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Martins, S.I.F.S.; Boekel, van M.A.J.S.

2005-01-01

A comprehensive kinetic model for the glucose/glycine Maillard reaction is proposed based on an approach called multiresponse kinetic modelling. Special attention was paid to reactants, intermediates and end products: -fructose, N-(1-deoxy--fructos-1-yl)-glycine (DFG), 1-deoxy-2,3-hexodiulose and

Assessment of efficiency of functioning the infocommunication systems a special purpose in the conditions of violation quality of relevance information

Science.gov (United States)

Parinov, A. V.; Korotkikh, L. P.; Desyatov, D. B.; Stepanov, L. V.

2018-03-01

The uniqueness of information processing mechanisms in special-purpose infocommunication systems and the increased interest of intruders lead to an increase in the relevance of the problems associated with their protection. The paper considers the issues of building risk-models for the violation of the relevance and value of information in infocommunication systems for special purposes. Also, special attention is paid to the connection between the qualities of relevance and the value of information obtained as a result of the operation of infocommunication systems for special purposes. Analytical expressions for the risk and damage function in the time range in special-purpose infocommunication systems are obtained, which can serve as a mathematical basis for risk assessment. Further, an analytical expression is obtained to assess the chance of obtaining up-to-date information in the operation of infocommunication systems up to the time the information quality is violated. An analytical expression for estimating the chance can be used to calculate the effectiveness of a special-purpose infocommunication system.

Deep hierarchical attention network for video description

Science.gov (United States)

Li, Shuohao; Tang, Min; Zhang, Jun

2018-03-01

Pairing video to natural language description remains a challenge in computer vision and machine translation. Inspired by image description, which uses an encoder-decoder model for reducing visual scene into a single sentence, we propose a deep hierarchical attention network for video description. The proposed model uses convolutional neural network (CNN) and bidirectional LSTM network as encoders while a hierarchical attention network is used as the decoder. Compared to encoder-decoder models used in video description, the bidirectional LSTM network can capture the temporal structure among video frames. Moreover, the hierarchical attention network has an advantage over single-layer attention network on global context modeling. To make a fair comparison with other methods, we evaluate the proposed architecture with different types of CNN structures and decoders. Experimental results on the standard datasets show that our model has a more superior performance than the state-of-the-art techniques.

75 FR 47801 - Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services; Overview Information; Special...

Science.gov (United States)

2010-08-09

... DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services; Overview Information; Special Demonstration Programs--Model Demonstration Projects To Improve Outcomes for Individuals.... Alexa Posny, Assistant Secretary for Special Education and Rehabilitative Services. [FR Doc. 2010-19585...

Object selection costs in visual working memory: A diffusion model analysis of the focus of attention.

Science.gov (United States)

Sewell, David K; Lilburn, Simon D; Smith, Philip L

2016-11-01

A central question in working memory research concerns the degree to which information in working memory is accessible to other cognitive processes (e.g., decision-making). Theories assuming that the focus of attention can only store a single object at a time require the focus to orient to a target representation before further processing can occur. The need to orient the focus of attention implies that single-object accounts typically predict response time costs associated with object selection even when working memory is not full (i.e., memory load is less than 4 items). For other theories that assume storage of multiple items in the focus of attention, predictions depend on specific assumptions about the way resources are allocated among items held in the focus, and how this affects the time course of retrieval of items from the focus. These broad theoretical accounts have been difficult to distinguish because conventional analyses fail to separate components of empirical response times related to decision-making from components related to selection and retrieval processes associated with accessing information in working memory. To better distinguish these response time components from one another, we analyze data from a probed visual working memory task using extensions of the diffusion decision model. Analysis of model parameters revealed that increases in memory load resulted in (a) reductions in the quality of the underlying stimulus representations in a manner consistent with a sample size model of visual working memory capacity and (b) systematic increases in the time needed to selectively access a probed representation in memory. The results are consistent with single-object theories of the focus of attention. The results are also consistent with a subset of theories that assume a multiobject focus of attention in which resource allocation diminishes both the quality and accessibility of the underlying representations. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016

Visuospatial selective attention in chickens.

Science.gov (United States)

Sridharan, Devarajan; Ramamurthy, Deepa L; Schwarz, Jason S; Knudsen, Eric I

2014-05-13

Voluntary control of attention promotes intelligent, adaptive behaviors by enabling the selective processing of information that is most relevant for making decisions. Despite extensive research on attention in primates, the capacity for selective attention in nonprimate species has never been quantified. Here we demonstrate selective attention in chickens by applying protocols that have been used to characterize visual spatial attention in primates. Chickens were trained to localize and report the vertical position of a target in the presence of task-relevant distracters. A spatial cue, the location of which varied across individual trials, indicated the horizontal, but not vertical, position of the upcoming target. Spatial cueing improved localization performance: accuracy (d') increased and reaction times decreased in a space-specific manner. Distracters severely impaired perceptual performance, and this impairment was greatly reduced by spatial cueing. Signal detection analysis with an "indecision" model demonstrated that spatial cueing significantly increased choice certainty in localizing targets. By contrast, error-aversion certainty (certainty of not making an error) remained essentially constant across cueing protocols, target contrasts, and individuals. The results show that chickens shift spatial attention rapidly and dynamically, following principles of stimulus selection that closely parallel those documented in primates. The findings suggest that the mechanisms that control attention have been conserved through evolution, and establish chickens--a highly visual species that is easily trained and amenable to cutting-edge experimental technologies--as an attractive model for linking behavior to neural mechanisms of selective attention.

Visual attention: The past 25 years

Science.gov (United States)

Carrasco, Marisa

2012-01-01

This review focuses on covert attention and how it alters early vision. I explain why attention is considered a selective process, the constructs of covert attention, spatial endogenous and exogenous attention, and feature-based attention. I explain how in the last 25 years research on attention has characterized the effects of covert attention on spatial filters and how attention influences the selection of stimuli of interest. This review includes the effects of spatial attention on discriminability and appearance in tasks mediated by contrast sensitivity and spatial resolution; the effects of feature-based attention on basic visual processes, and a comparison of the effects of spatial and feature-based attention. The emphasis of this review is on psychophysical studies, but relevant electrophysiological and neuroimaging studies and models regarding how and where neuronal responses are modulated are also discussed. PMID:21549742

Urinary Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbon Metabolites and Attention/Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, Learning Disability, and Special Education in U.S. Children Aged 6 to 15

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Zaynah Abid

2014-01-01

Full Text Available Exposure to polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs adversely affects child neurodevelopment, but little is known about the relationship between PAHs and clinically significant developmental disorders. We examined the relationship between childhood measures of PAH exposure and prevalence of attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD, learning disability (LD, and special education (SE in a nationally representative sample of 1,257 U.S. children 6–15 years of age. Data were obtained from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES 2001–2004. PAH exposure was measured by urinary metabolite concentrations. Outcomes were defined by parental report of (1 ever doctor-diagnosed ADHD, (2 ever doctor- or school representative-identified LD, and (3 receipt of SE or early intervention services. Multivariate logistic regression accounting for survey sampling was used to determine the associations between PAH metabolites and ADHD, LD, and SE. Children exposed to higher levels of fluorine metabolites had a 2-fold increased odds (95% C.I. 1.1, 3.8 of SE, and this association was more apparent in males (OR 2.3; 95% C.I. 1.2, 4.1 than in females (OR 1.8; 95% C.I. 0.6, 5.4. No other consistent pattern of developmental disorders was associated with urinary PAH metabolites. However, concurrent exposure to PAH fluorine metabolites may increase use of special education services among U.S. children.

Training Public School Special Educators to Implement Two Functional Analysis Models

Science.gov (United States)

Rispoli, Mandy; Neely, Leslie; Healy, Olive; Gregori, Emily

2016-01-01

The purpose of this study was to investigate the efficacy and efficiency of a training package to teach public school special educators to conduct functional analyses of challenging behavior. Six public school educators were divided into two cohorts of three and were taught two models of functional analysis of challenging behavior: traditional and…

Time Sharing Between Robotics and Process Control: Validating a Model of Attention Switching.

Science.gov (United States)

Wickens, Christopher Dow; Gutzwiller, Robert S; Vieane, Alex; Clegg, Benjamin A; Sebok, Angelia; Janes, Jess

2016-03-01

The aim of this study was to validate the strategic task overload management (STOM) model that predicts task switching when concurrence is impossible. The STOM model predicts that in overload, tasks will be switched to, to the extent that they are attractive on task attributes of high priority, interest, and salience and low difficulty. But more-difficult tasks are less likely to be switched away from once they are being performed. In Experiment 1, participants performed four tasks of the Multi-Attribute Task Battery and provided task-switching data to inform the role of difficulty and priority. In Experiment 2, participants concurrently performed an environmental control task and a robotic arm simulation. Workload was varied by automation of arm movement and both the phases of environmental control and existence of decision support for fault management. Attention to the two tasks was measured using a head tracker. Experiment 1 revealed the lack of influence of task priority and confirmed the differing roles of task difficulty. In Experiment 2, the percentage attention allocation across the eight conditions was predicted by the STOM model when participants rated the four attributes. Model predictions were compared against empirical data and accounted for over 95% of variance in task allocation. More-difficult tasks were performed longer than easier tasks. Task priority does not influence allocation. The multiattribute decision model provided a good fit to the data. The STOM model is useful for predicting cognitive tunneling given that human-in-the-loop simulation is time-consuming and expensive. © 2016, Human Factors and Ergonomics Society.

Knowledge, attitudes, and smoking behaviours among physicians specializing in public health: a multicentre study.

Science.gov (United States)

La Torre, Giuseppe; Saulle, Rosella; Unim, Brigid; Angelillo, Italo Francesco; Baldo, Vincenzo; Bergomi, Margherita; Cacciari, Paolo; Castaldi, Silvana; Del Corno, Giuseppe; Di Stanislao, Francesco; Panà, Augusto; Gregorio, Pasquale; Grillo, Orazio Claudio; Grossi, Paolo; La Rosa, Francesco; Nante, Nicola; Pavia, Maria; Pelissero, Gabriele; Quarto, Michele; Ricciardi, Walter; Romano, Gabriele; Schioppa, Francesco Saverio; Fallico, Roberto; Siliquini, Roberta; Triassi, Maria; Vitale, Francesco; Boccia, Antonio

2014-01-01

Healthcare professionals have an important role to play both as advisers-influencing smoking cessation-and as role models. However, many of them continue to smoke. The aims of this study were to examine smoking prevalence, knowledge, attitudes, and behaviours among four cohorts physicians specializing in public health, according to the Global Health Profession Students Survey (GHPSS) approach. A multicentre cross-sectional study was carried out in 24 Italian schools of public health. The survey was conducted between January and April 2012 and it was carried out a census of students in the selected schools for each years of course (from first to fourth year of attendance), therefore among four cohorts of physicians specializing in Public Health (for a total of n. 459 medical doctors). The GHPSS questionnaires were self-administered via a special website which is created ad hoc for the survey. Logistic regression model was used to identify possible associations with tobacco smoking status. Hosmer-Lemeshow test was performed. The level of significance was P ≤ 0.05. A total of 388 answered the questionnaire on the website (85%), of which 81 (20.9%) declared to be smokers, 309 (79.6%) considered health professionals as behavioural models for patients, and 375 (96.6%) affirmed that health professionals have a role in giving advice or information about smoking cessation. Although 388 (89.7%) heard about smoking related issues during undergraduate courses, only 17% received specific smoking cessation training during specialization. The present study highlights the importance of focusing attention on smoking cessation training, given the high prevalence of smokers among physicians specializing in public health, their key role both as advisers and behavioural models, and the limited tobacco training offered in public health schools.

Knowledge, Attitudes, and Smoking Behaviours among Physicians Specializing in Public Health: A Multicentre Study

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Giuseppe La Torre

2014-01-01

Full Text Available Background. Healthcare professionals have an important role to play both as advisers—influencing smoking cessation—and as role models. However, many of them continue to smoke. The aims of this study were to examine smoking prevalence, knowledge, attitudes, and behaviours among four cohorts physicians specializing in public health, according to the Global Health Profession Students Survey (GHPSS approach. Materials and Methods. A multicentre cross-sectional study was carried out in 24 Italian schools of public health. The survey was conducted between January and April 2012 and it was carried out a census of students in the selected schools for each years of course (from first to fourth year of attendance, therefore among four cohorts of physicians specializing in Public Health (for a total of n. 459 medical doctors. The GHPSS questionnaires were self-administered via a special website which is created ad hoc for the survey. Logistic regression model was used to identify possible associations with tobacco smoking status. Hosmer-Lemeshow test was performed. The level of significance was P≤0.05. Results. A total of 388 answered the questionnaire on the website (85%, of which 81 (20.9% declared to be smokers, 309 (79.6% considered health professionals as behavioural models for patients, and 375 (96.6% affirmed that health professionals have a role in giving advice or information about smoking cessation. Although 388 (89.7% heard about smoking related issues during undergraduate courses, only 17% received specific smoking cessation training during specialization. Conclusions. The present study highlights the importance of focusing attention on smoking cessation training, given the high prevalence of smokers among physicians specializing in public health, their key role both as advisers and behavioural models, and the limited tobacco training offered in public health schools.

THE WALDORF - PEDAGOGY AND CHILDREN WITH SPECIAL NEEDS

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Lena DAMOVSKA

2005-06-01

Full Text Available In the first half of the 20th century, with the opening of the first Waldorf School in 1919, Rudolph Steiner who is the ideological creator of the Waldorf pedagogy presented his own philosophy of education before the scholars. This was done by presenting a complete educational system designed for preschool, elementary school and high school children. To date, this educational model that is thought to be original by many of its characteristics, is successfully established and being practiced in many countries throughout the world. Within the framework of the Waldorf Pedagogy, children with special education needs are given the required attention and particularities that result from the needs of a concrete category of children are being respected.

Three Models of Education: Rights, Capabilities and Human Capital

Science.gov (United States)

Robeyns, Ingrid

2006-01-01

This article analyses three normative accounts that can underlie educational policies, with special attention to gender issues. These three models of education are human capital theory, rights discourses and the capability approach. I first outline five different roles that education can play. Then I analyse these three models of educational…

The (neurocognitive mechanisms behind attention bias modification in anxiety: Proposals based on theoretical accounts of attentional bias

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Alexandre eHeeren

2013-04-01

Full Text Available Recently, researchers have investigated the causal nature of attentional bias for threat (AB in the maintenance of anxiety disorders by experimentally manipulating it. They found that training anxious individuals to attend to nonthreat stimuli reduces AB, which, in turn, reduces anxiety. This effect supports the hypothesis that AB can causally impact the maintenance of anxiety. At a fundamental level, however, uncertainty still abounds regarding the nature of the processes that mediate this effect. In the present paper, we propose that two contrasting approaches may be derived from theoretical accounts of AB. According to a first class of models, called the valence-specific bias models, modifying AB requires the modification of valence-specific attentional selectivity. According to a second class of models, called the attention control models, modifying AB requires the modification of attention control, driven by the recruitment of the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex. We formulate a series of specific predictions, to provide suggestions to trial these two approaches one against the other. This knowledge is critical for understanding the mechanisms of AB in anxiety disorders, which bares important clinical implications.

ATTENTIONAL NETWORKS AND SELECTIVE VISUAL SYSTEM

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ALEJANDRO CASTILLO MORENO

2006-05-01

Full Text Available In this paper we checked the principal researches and theories to explain the attention system functioning.We are going to start reviewing along time about the concept of attention, from filter theories andresources distributor theories, to the current theories in which attention is conceived as a control system.From this last point of view, we will emphasize on the attentional networks theory of Posner, thatproposes different systems to explain diverse aspects of attention, but they are related to each other. Atlast in this paper, we will mention experimental results that have been important to characterize theselective attentional mechanisms of the human visual system, using the attentional spotlight model forthis aim.

Editorial safety science special issue road safety management.

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Wegman, F.C.M. & Hagezieker, M.P.

2014-01-01

The articles presented in this Special Issue on Road Safety Management represent an illustration of the growing interest in policy-related research in the area of road safety. The complex nature of this type of research combined with the observation that scientific journals pay limited attention to

Measuring and Modeling Shared Visual Attention

Science.gov (United States)

Mulligan, Jeffrey B.; Gontar, Patrick

2016-01-01

Multi-person teams are sometimes responsible for critical tasks, such as flying an airliner. Here we present a method using gaze tracking data to assess shared visual attention, a term we use to describe the situation where team members are attending to a common set of elements in the environment. Gaze data are quantized with respect to a set of N areas of interest (AOIs); these are then used to construct a time series of N dimensional vectors, with each vector component representing one of the AOIs, all set to 0 except for the component corresponding to the currently fixated AOI, which is set to 1. The resulting sequence of vectors can be averaged in time, with the result that each vector component represents the proportion of time that the corresponding AOI was fixated within the given time interval. We present two methods for comparing sequences of this sort, one based on computing the time-varying correlation of the averaged vectors, and another based on a chi-square test testing the hypothesis that the observed gaze proportions are drawn from identical probability distributions. We have evaluated the method using synthetic data sets, in which the behavior was modeled as a series of "activities," each of which was modeled as a first-order Markov process. By tabulating distributions for pairs of identical and disparate activities, we are able to perform a receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analysis, allowing us to choose appropriate criteria and estimate error rates. We have applied the methods to data from airline crews, collected in a high-fidelity flight simulator (Haslbeck, Gontar & Schubert, 2014). We conclude by considering the problem of automatic (blind) discovery of activities, using methods developed for text analysis.

Voluntary physical exercise alters attentional orienting and social behavior in a rat model of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder.

Science.gov (United States)

Hopkins, Michael E; Sharma, Mita; Evans, Gretchen C; Bucci, David J

2009-06-01

The effects of voluntary physical exercise on attentional function and social behavior were examined in male and female spontaneously hypertensive rats (SHR), a commonly used animal model of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Rats in the exercise groups had free access to a running wheel for 2 weeks and then all rats received nonreinforced presentations of a visual stimulus (light) during the 1st training session, followed by daily sessions in which the light was paired with food. Nonexercising male and female SHR rats exhibited more unconditioned orienting behavior than Wistar-Kyoto rats. SHRs also exhibited impaired conditioning when the light was paired with food. Exercise reduced orienting in female SHRs but not in male SHRs. In the social interaction task, nonexercising male and female SHRs interacted more with an unfamiliar rat than Wistar-Kyoto rats. Exercise reduced the number of social interactions in female SHRs but not male SHRs. There were no differences in general locomotor activity observed between the nonexercising and exercising SHRs. These data indicate that exercise may preferentially benefit female SHRs, and has implications for using exercise as an intervention for ADHD and for understanding sex differences in the effects of exercise on behavior. Copyright (c) 2009 APA, all rights reserved.

A conceptual framework for a long-term economic model for the treatment of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder.

Science.gov (United States)

Nagy, Balázs; Setyawan, Juliana; Coghill, David; Soroncz-Szabó, Tamás; Kaló, Zoltán; Doshi, Jalpa A

2017-06-01

Models incorporating long-term outcomes (LTOs) are not available to assess the health economic impact of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Develop a conceptual modelling framework capable of assessing long-term economic impact of ADHD therapies. Literature was reviewed; a conceptual structure for the long-term model was outlined with attention to disease characteristics and potential impact of treatment strategies. The proposed model has four layers: i) multi-state short-term framework to differentiate between ADHD treatments; ii) multiple states being merged into three core health states associated with LTOs; iii) series of sub-models in which particular LTOs are depicted; iv) outcomes collected to be either used directly for economic analyses or translated into other relevant measures. This conceptual model provides a framework to assess relationships between short- and long-term outcomes of the disease and its treatment, and to estimate the economic impact of ADHD treatments throughout the course of the disease.

Introduction to the special section on mixture modeling in personality assessment.

Science.gov (United States)

Wright, Aidan G C; Hallquist, Michael N

2014-01-01

Latent variable models offer a conceptual and statistical framework for evaluating the underlying structure of psychological constructs, including personality and psychopathology. Complex structures that combine or compare categorical and dimensional latent variables can be accommodated using mixture modeling approaches, which provide a powerful framework for testing nuanced theories about psychological structure. This special series includes introductory primers on cross-sectional and longitudinal mixture modeling, in addition to empirical examples applying these techniques to real-world data collected in clinical settings. This group of articles is designed to introduce personality assessment scientists and practitioners to a general latent variable framework that we hope will stimulate new research and application of mixture models to the assessment of personality and its pathology.

The Theory of Visual Attention without the race: a new model of visual selection

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Andersen, Tobias; Kyllingsbæk, Søren

2012-01-01

constrained by a limited processing capacity or rate, which is distributed among target and distractor objects with distractor objects receiving a smaller proportion of resources due to attentional filtering. Encoding into a limited visual short-term memory is implemented as a race model. Given its major...

Infant joint attention, neural networks and social cognition.

Science.gov (United States)

Mundy, Peter; Jarrold, William

2010-01-01

Neural network models of attention can provide a unifying approach to the study of human cognitive and emotional development (Posner & Rothbart, 2007). In this paper we argue that a neural network approach to the infant development of joint attention can inform our understanding of the nature of human social learning, symbolic thought process and social cognition. At its most basic, joint attention involves the capacity to coordinate one's own visual attention with that of another person. We propose that joint attention development involves increments in the capacity to engage in simultaneous or parallel processing of information about one's own attention and the attention of other people. Infant practice with joint attention is both a consequence and an organizer of the development of a distributed and integrated brain network involving frontal and parietal cortical systems. This executive distributed network first serves to regulate the capacity of infants to respond to and direct the overt behavior of other people in order to share experience with others through the social coordination of visual attention. In this paper we describe this parallel and distributed neural network model of joint attention development and discuss two hypotheses that stem from this model. One is that activation of this distributed network during coordinated attention enhances the depth of information processing and encoding beginning in the first year of life. We also propose that with development, joint attention becomes internalized as the capacity to socially coordinate mental attention to internal representations. As this occurs the executive joint attention network makes vital contributions to the development of human symbolic thinking and social cognition. Copyright © 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Molecular modelling of a chemodosimeter for the selective detection ...

Indian Academy of Sciences (India)

Wintec

Molecular modelling of a chemodosimeter for the selective detection of. As(III) ion in water. † ... high levels of arsenic cause severe skin diseases in- cluding skin cancer ..... Special Attention to Groundwater in SE Asia (eds) D. Chakraborti, A ...

Electrophysiological evidence for spatiotemporal flexibility in the ventrolateral attention network.

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Jelena Ristic

Full Text Available Successful completion of many everyday tasks depends on interactions between voluntary attention, which acts to maintain current goals, and reflexive attention, which enables responding to unexpected events by interrupting the current focus of attention. Past studies, which have mostly examined each attentional mechanism in isolation, indicate that volitional and reflexive orienting depend on two functionally specialized cortical networks in the human brain. Here we investigated how the interplay between these two cortical networks affects sensory processing and the resulting overt behavior. By combining measurements of human performance and electrocortical recordings with a novel analytical technique for estimating spatiotemporal activity in the human cortex, we found that the subregions that comprise the reflexive ventrolateral attention network dissociate both spatially and temporally as a function of the nature of the sensory information and current task demands. Moreover, we found that together with the magnitude of the early sensory gain, the spatiotemporal neural dynamics accounted for the high amount of the variance in the behavioral data. Collectively these data support the conclusion that the ventrolateral attention network is recruited flexibly to support complex behaviors.

An energy balance model for the Greenland ice sheet

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Wal, R.S.W. van de; Oerlemans, J.

1994-01-01

The sensitivity of the mass balance of the Greenland Ice Sheet is studied by means of an energy balance model. The model calculates the shortwave and longwave radiation and the turbulent fluxes on a grid with a grid point spacing of 20 km. Special attention is given to the parameterization of the

Does imminent threat capture and hold attention?

Science.gov (United States)

Koster, Ernst H W; Crombez, Geert; Van Damme, Stefaan; Verschuere, Bruno; De Houwer, Jan

2004-09-01

According to models of attention and emotion, threat captures and holds attention. In behavioral tasks, robust evidence has been found for attentional holding but not for attentional capture by threat. An important explanation for the absence of attentional capture effects is that the visual stimuli used posed no genuine threat. The present study investigated whether visual cues that signal an aversive white noise can elicit attentional capture and holding effects. Cues presented in an attentional task were simultaneously provided with a threat value through an aversive conditioning procedure. Response latencies showed that threatening cues captured and held attention. These results support recent views on attention to threat, proposing that imminent threat captures attention in everyone. (c) 2004 APA, all rights reserved

Attention to Attention

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Tække, Jesper; Paulsen, Michael Eric

In these years digital media and wireless networks are introduced in upper secondary schools in Denmark. This implies new “attentional objects” like updates on Facebook or tweets on Twitter within instant reach of the pupils and teachers. Also it implies new kinds of attention (awareness) like when...... pupils try to listen to the teacher and simultaneously participate in online games. To this new social setting the teachers has reacted with either prohibition or unconcern. What has not been realised is that the introduction of new media profoundly challenges the way attention hitherto has functioned...... as a psychic prerequisite for the social interaction between pupils and teachers. New kinds of “split attention” arise and new kinds of social mediation (regulation and “use”) of psychic attention become necessary if teaching in the new digital medium milieu shall be beneficial. In this paper we qualify...

An Effective Procedure for Training Early Special Education Teams to Implement a Model Program.

Science.gov (United States)

Rogers, Sally J.; And Others

1987-01-01

Training of early special education teams (serving 11 autistic and 10 developmentally-delayed children) to use the Playschool model resulted in: positive perception of the training's value; increases in knowledge about child development, infantile autism, and the model; increased use of Playschool techniques; and positive developmental changes in…

Specialization in the default mode: Task-induced brain deactivations dissociate between visual working memory and attention.

Science.gov (United States)

Mayer, Jutta S; Roebroeck, Alard; Maurer, Konrad; Linden, David E J

2010-01-01

The idea of an organized mode of brain function that is present as default state and suspended during goal-directed behaviors has recently gained much interest in the study of human brain function. The default mode hypothesis is based on the repeated observation that certain brain areas show task-induced deactivations across a wide range of cognitive tasks. In this event-related functional resonance imaging study we tested the default mode hypothesis by comparing common and selective patterns of BOLD deactivation in response to the demands on visual attention and working memory (WM) that were independently modulated within one task. The results revealed task-induced deactivations within regions of the default mode network (DMN) with a segregation of areas that were additively deactivated by an increase in the demands on both attention and WM, and areas that were selectively deactivated by either high attentional demand or WM load. Attention-selective deactivations appeared in the left ventrolateral and medial prefrontal cortex and the left lateral temporal cortex. Conversely, WM-selective deactivations were found predominantly in the right hemisphere including the medial-parietal, the lateral temporo-parietal, and the medial prefrontal cortex. Moreover, during WM encoding deactivated regions showed task-specific functional connectivity. These findings demonstrate that task-induced deactivations within parts of the DMN depend on the specific characteristics of the attention and WM components of the task. The DMN can thus be subdivided into a set of brain regions that deactivate indiscriminately in response to cognitive demand ("the core DMN") and a part whose deactivation depends on the specific task. 2009 Wiley-Liss, Inc.

Attention, Joint Attention, and Social Cognition

OpenAIRE

Mundy, Peter; Newell, Lisa

2007-01-01

Before social cognition there is joint processing of information about the attention of self and others. This joint attention requires the integrated activation of a distributed cortical network involving the anterior and posterior attention systems. In infancy, practice with the integrated activation of this distributed attention network is a major contributor to the development of social cognition. Thus, the functional neuroanatomies of social cognition and the anterior–posterior attention ...

Eye-movement evidence of the time-course of attentional bias for threatening pictures in test-anxious students

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Dong, Y.; Beuckelaer, A. de; Yu, L.; Zhou, R

2017-01-01

Protocols for measuring attentional bias to threat in test-anxiety, a special form of trait-anxiety, are rarely found in the literature. In our eye-tracking study, we introduced a new protocol, and studied the time-course of attention to test-related pictures with varying threat levels in 22 high

Measuring Memory and Attention to Preview in Motion.

Science.gov (United States)

Jagacinski, Richard J; Hammond, Gordon M; Rizzi, Emanuele

2017-08-01

Objective Use perceptual-motor responses to perturbations to reveal the spatio-temporal detail of memory for the recent past and attention to preview when participants track a winding roadway. Background Memory of the recently passed roadway can be inferred from feedback control models of the participants' manual movement patterns. Similarly, attention to preview of the upcoming roadway can be inferred from feedforward control models of manual movement patterns. Method Perturbation techniques were used to measure these memory and attention functions. Results In a laboratory tracking task, the bandwidth of lateral roadway deviations was found to primarily influence memory for the past roadway rather than attention to preview. A secondary auditory/verbal/vocal memory task resulted in higher velocity error and acceleration error in the tracking task but did not affect attention to preview. Attention to preview was affected by the frequency pattern of sinusoidal perturbations of the roadway. Conclusion Perturbation techniques permit measurement of the spatio-temporal span of memory and attention to preview that affect tracking a winding roadway. They also provide new ways to explore goal-directed forgetting and spatially distributed attention in the context of movement. More generally, these techniques provide sensitive measures of individual differences in cognitive aspects of action. Application Models of driving behavior and assessment of driving skill may benefit from more detailed spatio-temporal measurement of attention to preview.

75 FR 47346 - Proposed Renewal Without Change; Comment Request; Anti-Money Laundering Programs; Special Due...

Science.gov (United States)

2010-08-05

...; Comment Request; Anti-Money Laundering Programs; Special Due Diligence Programs for Certain Foreign... reasonably designed to detect and report money laundering through correspondent accounts and private banking..., P.O. Box 39, Vienna, VA 22183, Attention: Comments on Anti-Money Laundering Program and Special Due...

Special set linear algebra and special set fuzzy linear algebra

OpenAIRE

Kandasamy, W. B. Vasantha; Smarandache, Florentin; Ilanthenral, K.

2009-01-01

The authors in this book introduce the notion of special set linear algebra and special set fuzzy Linear algebra, which is an extension of the notion set linear algebra and set fuzzy linear algebra. These concepts are best suited in the application of multi expert models and cryptology. This book has five chapters. In chapter one the basic concepts about set linear algebra is given in order to make this book a self contained one. The notion of special set linear algebra and their fuzzy analog...

Attention Training in Autism as a Potential Approach to Improving Academic Performance: A School-Based Pilot Study

Science.gov (United States)

Spaniol, Mayra Muller; Shalev, Lilach; Kossyvaki, Lila; Mevorach, Carmel

2018-01-01

This study assessed the effectiveness of an attention intervention program (Computerized Progressive Attentional Training; CPAT) in improving academic performance of children with ASD. Fifteen 6-10 year olds with ASD attending a mainstream and a special school were assigned to an experimental (CPAT; n = 8) and active control (computer games; n =…

Forecasting with Dynamic Regression Models

CERN Document Server

Pankratz, Alan

2012-01-01

One of the most widely used tools in statistical forecasting, single equation regression models is examined here. A companion to the author's earlier work, Forecasting with Univariate Box-Jenkins Models: Concepts and Cases, the present text pulls together recent time series ideas and gives special attention to possible intertemporal patterns, distributed lag responses of output to input series and the auto correlation patterns of regression disturbance. It also includes six case studies.

Investigating the Experiences of Special School Visual Arts Teachers

African Journals Online (AJOL)

the practical learning problems their students experience, the teachers maintained that studying ... 2009, the Hong Kong Education Bureau adopted a new ... arts is one of the elective subjects available to special ... methodology, since it is attentive to how things reveal .... educational backgrounds and their teaching careers.

Attentional ability among survivors of leukaemia.

Science.gov (United States)

Rodgers, J; Horrocks, J; Britton, P G; Kernahan, J

1999-04-01

Attentional ability in 19 survivors of acute lymphoblastic leukaemia and 19 sibling controls was assessed using a neuropsychological model of attention. Analysis revealed that children who had received treatment for leukaemia exhibited significantly poorer performance on measures of the "focus encode" and "focus execute" elements of attention and on measures of the ability to respond to external cues and feedback. No significant differences in performance were found for measures of sustained attention and the ability to shift attention. These results indicate that children who have received treatment for leukaemia may experience highly specific attentional deficits that could have an impact on academic performance, particularly mathematical and reading skills. It is suggested that this underlying attentional deficit might be the source of the neuropsychological sequelae associated with the disease. Future attempts at remediation should incorporate activities specifically designed to ameliorate focusing difficulties.

SPECIAL EDUCATION AND REHABILITATION AS AN ELEMENTAR BIOETHICS

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Kiril TEMKOV

2004-12-01

Full Text Available This study explains the appearance of a new ethical branch and practice called Bioethics, which task is life defense and development of human appearances and functions. In compliance with Bioethics, the concept of Special needs Education and Rehabilitation as a science and activity is investigated.Special needs Education and Rehabilitation is considered as a top of contemporary human ethics. The paper exposes the basic meanings professional ethics in Special Education and Rehabilitation. Many new phenomena determine the essence of the contemporary world. The most significant among them are the development of ethical awareness about doing people good and paying attention to all aspects of life in the world. The social sensitivity for young and weak people has developed. The philanthropic spirit for necessary charity among people has appeared. Especially significant appearances of this kind are the development of special education and rehabilitation as a special science and practice to help people with developmental disabilities and the occurrence of ecology as a specific awareness about protection of life natural conditions. These special moral knowledge and activities are fundamental elements for the new type of philosophy of living called “bioethics”.

Recent theoretical, neural, and clinical advances in sustained attention research

Science.gov (United States)

Fortenbaugh, Francesca C.; DeGutis, Joseph; Esterman, Michael

2017-01-01

Models of attention often distinguish between attention subtypes, with classic models separating orienting, switching, and sustaining functions. Compared to other forms of attention, the neurophysiological basis of sustaining attention has received far less attention yet it is known that momentary failures of sustained attention can have far ranging negative impacts in healthy individuals and lasting sustained attention deficits are pervasive in clinical populations. In recent years, however, there has been increased interest in characterizing moment-to-moment fluctuations in sustained attention in addition to the overall vigilance decrement and understanding how these neurocognitive systems change over the lifespan and across various clinical populations. The use of novel neuroimaging paradigms and statistical approaches has allowed for better characterization of the neural networks supporting sustained attention, and highlighted dynamic interactions within and across multiple distributed networks that predict behavioral performance. These advances have also provided potential biomarkers to identify individuals with sustained attention deficits. These findings have led to new theoretical models of why sustaining focused attention is a challenge for individuals and form the basis for the next generation of sustained attention research, which seeks to accurately diagnose and develop theoretically-driven treatments for sustained attention deficits that affect a variety of clinical populations. PMID:28260249

Macro-economic environmental models

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Wier, M.

1993-01-01

In the present report, an introduction to macro-economic environmental models is given. The role of the models as a tool for policy analysis is discussed. Future applications, as well as the limitations given by the data, are brought into focus. The economic-ecological system is described. A set of guidelines for implementation of the system in a traditional economic macro-model is proposed. The characteristics of empirical national and international environmental macro-economic models so far are highlighted. Special attention is paid to main economic causalities and their consequences for the environmental policy recommendations sat by the models. (au) (41 refs.)

An attention-based effective neural model for drug-drug interactions extraction.

Science.gov (United States)

Zheng, Wei; Lin, Hongfei; Luo, Ling; Zhao, Zhehuan; Li, Zhengguang; Zhang, Yijia; Yang, Zhihao; Wang, Jian

2017-10-10

Drug-drug interactions (DDIs) often bring unexpected side effects. The clinical recognition of DDIs is a crucial issue for both patient safety and healthcare cost control. However, although text-mining-based systems explore various methods to classify DDIs, the classification performance with regard to DDIs in long and complex sentences is still unsatisfactory. In this study, we propose an effective model that classifies DDIs from the literature by combining an attention mechanism and a recurrent neural network with long short-term memory (LSTM) units. In our approach, first, a candidate-drug-oriented input attention acting on word-embedding vectors automatically learns which words are more influential for a given drug pair. Next, the inputs merging the position- and POS-embedding vectors are passed to a bidirectional LSTM layer whose outputs at the last time step represent the high-level semantic information of the whole sentence. Finally, a softmax layer performs DDI classification. Experimental results from the DDIExtraction 2013 corpus show that our system performs the best with respect to detection and classification (84.0% and 77.3%, respectively) compared with other state-of-the-art methods. In particular, for the Medline-2013 dataset with long and complex sentences, our F-score far exceeds those of top-ranking systems by 12.6%. Our approach effectively improves the performance of DDI classification tasks. Experimental analysis demonstrates that our model performs better with respect to recognizing not only close-range but also long-range patterns among words, especially for long, complex and compound sentences.

Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder and Scholastic Achievement: A Model of Mediation via Academic Enablers

Science.gov (United States)

Volpe, Robert J.; DuPaul, George J.; DiPerna, James C.; Jitendra, Asha K.; Lutz, J. Gary; Tresco, Katy; Junod, Rosemary Vile

2006-01-01

The current study examined the influence of symptoms of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) on student academic achievement in reading and in mathematics in a sample of 146 first- through fourth-grade students, 103 of which were identified as having ADHD and academic problems in reading and/or math. A theoretical model was examined…

Neurocognitive mechanisms of gaze-expression interactions in face processing and social attention.

Science.gov (United States)

Graham, Reiko; Labar, Kevin S

2012-04-01

The face conveys a rich source of non-verbal information used during social communication. While research has revealed how specific facial channels such as emotional expression are processed, little is known about the prioritization and integration of multiple cues in the face during dyadic exchanges. Classic models of face perception have emphasized the segregation of dynamic vs. static facial features along independent information processing pathways. Here we review recent behavioral and neuroscientific evidence suggesting that within the dynamic stream, concurrent changes in eye gaze and emotional expression can yield early independent effects on face judgments and covert shifts of visuospatial attention. These effects are partially segregated within initial visual afferent processing volleys, but are subsequently integrated in limbic regions such as the amygdala or via reentrant visual processing volleys. This spatiotemporal pattern may help to resolve otherwise perplexing discrepancies across behavioral studies of emotional influences on gaze-directed attentional cueing. Theoretical explanations of gaze-expression interactions are discussed, with special consideration of speed-of-processing (discriminability) and contextual (ambiguity) accounts. Future research in this area promises to reveal the mental chronometry of face processing and interpersonal attention, with implications for understanding how social referencing develops in infancy and is impaired in autism and other disorders of social cognition. Copyright © 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Auditory-Cortex Short-Term Plasticity Induced by Selective Attention

Science.gov (United States)

Jääskeläinen, Iiro P.; Ahveninen, Jyrki

2014-01-01

The ability to concentrate on relevant sounds in the acoustic environment is crucial for everyday function and communication. Converging lines of evidence suggests that transient functional changes in auditory-cortex neurons, “short-term plasticity”, might explain this fundamental function. Under conditions of strongly focused attention, enhanced processing of attended sounds can take place at very early latencies (~50 ms from sound onset) in primary auditory cortex and possibly even at earlier latencies in subcortical structures. More robust selective-attention short-term plasticity is manifested as modulation of responses peaking at ~100 ms from sound onset in functionally specialized nonprimary auditory-cortical areas by way of stimulus-specific reshaping of neuronal receptive fields that supports filtering of selectively attended sound features from task-irrelevant ones. Such effects have been shown to take effect in ~seconds following shifting of attentional focus. There are findings suggesting that the reshaping of neuronal receptive fields is even stronger at longer auditory-cortex response latencies (~300 ms from sound onset). These longer-latency short-term plasticity effects seem to build up more gradually, within tens of seconds after shifting the focus of attention. Importantly, some of the auditory-cortical short-term plasticity effects observed during selective attention predict enhancements in behaviorally measured sound discrimination performance. PMID:24551458

Infant visual attention and object recognition.

Science.gov (United States)

Reynolds, Greg D

2015-05-15

This paper explores the role visual attention plays in the recognition of objects in infancy. Research and theory on the development of infant attention and recognition memory are reviewed in three major sections. The first section reviews some of the major findings and theory emerging from a rich tradition of behavioral research utilizing preferential looking tasks to examine visual attention and recognition memory in infancy. The second section examines research utilizing neural measures of attention and object recognition in infancy as well as research on brain-behavior relations in the early development of attention and recognition memory. The third section addresses potential areas of the brain involved in infant object recognition and visual attention. An integrated synthesis of some of the existing models of the development of visual attention is presented which may account for the observed changes in behavioral and neural measures of visual attention and object recognition that occur across infancy. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Structured Attentions for Visual Question Answering

OpenAIRE

Zhu, Chen; Zhao, Yanpeng; Huang, Shuaiyi; Tu, Kewei; Ma, Yi

2017-01-01

Visual attention, which assigns weights to image regions according to their relevance to a question, is considered as an indispensable part by most Visual Question Answering models. Although the questions may involve complex relations among multiple regions, few attention models can effectively encode such cross-region relations. In this paper, we demonstrate the importance of encoding such relations by showing the limited effective receptive field of ResNet on two datasets, and propose to mo...

Introduction: Special issue on advances in topobathymetric mapping, models, and applications

Science.gov (United States)

Gesch, Dean B.; Brock, John C.; Parrish, Christopher E.; Rogers, Jeffrey N.; Wright, C. Wayne

2016-01-01

Detailed knowledge of near-shore topography and bathymetry is required for many geospatial data applications in the coastal environment. New data sources and processing methods are facilitating development of seamless, regional-scale topobathymetric digital elevation models. These elevation models integrate disparate multi-sensor, multi-temporal topographic and bathymetric datasets to provide a coherent base layer for coastal science applications such as wetlands mapping and monitoring, sea-level rise assessment, benthic habitat mapping, erosion monitoring, and storm impact assessment. The focus of this special issue is on recent advances in the source data, data processing and integration methods, and applications of topobathymetric datasets.

Simultaneous attentional guidance by working-memory and selection history reveals two distinct sources of attention.

Science.gov (United States)

Schwark, Jeremy D; Dolgov, Igor; Sandry, Joshua; Volkman, C Brooks

2013-10-01

Recent theories of attention have proposed that selection history is a separate, dissociable source of information that influences attention. The current study sought to investigate the simultaneous involvement of selection history and working-memory on attention during visual search. Experiments 1 and 2 used target feature probability to manipulate selection history and found significant effects of both working-memory and selection history, although working-memory dominated selection history when they cued different locations. Experiment 3 eliminated the contribution of voluntary refreshing of working-memory and replicated the main effects, although selection history became dominant. Using the same methodology, but with reduced probability cue validity, both effects were present in Experiment 4 and did not significantly differ in their contribution to attention. Effects of selection history and working-memory never interacted. These results suggest that selection history and working-memory are separate influences on attention and have little impact on each other. Theoretical implications for models of attention are discussed. © 2013.

Numerical modeling of spray combustion in DI diesel engine using partially stirred reactor (PaSR) model

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Khaleghi, H.; Hosseini, S.M.

2003-01-01

In recent years special attention has been paid to the topic of diesel engine combustion. Various combustion models are used in CFD codes. In this paper Partially Stirred Reactor (PaSR) model, one of the newest turbulent combustion models, is introduced. This model has been employed in conjunction with the non-iterative PISO algorithm to calculate spray combustion in an axi-symmetric, direct injection diesel engine. Qualitative consideration of the results shows very good agreement with physical expectations and other numerical and experimental results. (author)

Occupational Stress, Negative Affectivity and Physical Health in Special and General Education Teachers in Greece

Science.gov (United States)

Lazuras, Lambros

2006-01-01

Teacher stress has attracted considerable attention, yet few studies have focused on special education teachers. This article, by Lambros Lazuras of the South-East European Research Centre (SEERC) in Thessaloniki, reports research designed to explore differences in the stress levels of general and special educators in Greece and provides…

Understanding Game-Based Learning Cultures: Introduction to Special Issue

Science.gov (United States)

Engerman, Jason A.; Carr-Chellman, Alison

2017-01-01

This special issue expands our understanding of teaching and learning through video game play, with specific attention to culture. The issue gives insight into the ways educators, researchers, and developers should be discussing and designing for impactful learner-centered game-based learning experiences. The issue features forward-thinking…

Recent theoretical, neural, and clinical advances in sustained attention research.

Science.gov (United States)

Fortenbaugh, Francesca C; DeGutis, Joseph; Esterman, Michael

2017-05-01

Models of attention often distinguish among attention subtypes, with classic models separating orienting, switching, and sustaining functions. Compared with other forms of attention, the neurophysiological basis of sustaining attention has received far less notice, yet it is known that momentary failures of sustained attention can have far-ranging negative effects in healthy individuals, and lasting sustained attention deficits are pervasive in clinical populations. In recent years, however, there has been increased interest in characterizing moment-to-moment fluctuations in sustained attention, in addition to the overall vigilance decrement, and understanding how these neurocognitive systems change over the life span and across various clinical populations. The use of novel neuroimaging paradigms and statistical approaches has allowed for better characterization of the neural networks supporting sustained attention and has highlighted dynamic interactions within and across multiple distributed networks that predict behavioral performance. These advances have also provided potential biomarkers to identify individuals with sustained attention deficits. These findings have led to new theoretical models explaining why sustaining focused attention is a challenge for individuals and form the basis for the next generation of sustained attention research, which seeks to accurately diagnose and develop theoretically driven treatments for sustained attention deficits that affect a variety of clinical populations. © 2017 New York Academy of Sciences.

A Bayesian additive model for understanding public transport usage in special events.

Science.gov (United States)

Rodrigues, Filipe; Borysov, Stanislav; Ribeiro, Bernardete; Pereira, Francisco

2016-12-02

Public special events, like sports games, concerts and festivals are well known to create disruptions in transportation systems, often catching the operators by surprise. Although these are usually planned well in advance, their impact is difficult to predict, even when organisers and transportation operators coordinate. The problem highly increases when several events happen concurrently. To solve these problems, costly processes, heavily reliant on manual search and personal experience, are usual practice in large cities like Singapore, London or Tokyo. This paper presents a Bayesian additive model with Gaussian process components that combines smart card records from public transport with context information about events that is continuously mined from the Web. We develop an efficient approximate inference algorithm using expectation propagation, which allows us to predict the total number of public transportation trips to the special event areas, thereby contributing to a more adaptive transportation system. Furthermore, for multiple concurrent event scenarios, the proposed algorithm is able to disaggregate gross trip counts into their most likely components related to specific events and routine behavior. Using real data from Singapore, we show that the presented model outperforms the best baseline model by up to 26% in R2 and also has explanatory power for its individual components.

Attention enhances multi-voxel representation of novel objects in frontal, parietal and visual cortices.

Science.gov (United States)

Woolgar, Alexandra; Williams, Mark A; Rich, Anina N

2015-04-01

Selective attention is fundamental for human activity, but the details of its neural implementation remain elusive. One influential theory, the adaptive coding hypothesis (Duncan, 2001, An adaptive coding model of neural function in prefrontal cortex, Nature Reviews Neuroscience 2:820-829), proposes that single neurons in certain frontal and parietal regions dynamically adjust their responses to selectively encode relevant information. This selective representation may in turn support selective processing in more specialized brain regions such as the visual cortices. Here, we use multi-voxel decoding of functional magnetic resonance images to demonstrate selective representation of attended--and not distractor--objects in frontal, parietal, and visual cortices. In addition, we highlight a critical role for task demands in determining which brain regions exhibit selective coding. Strikingly, representation of attended objects in frontoparietal cortex was highest under conditions of high perceptual demand, when stimuli were hard to perceive and coding in early visual cortex was weak. Coding in early visual cortex varied as a function of attention and perceptual demand, while coding in higher visual areas was sensitive to the allocation of attention but robust to changes in perceptual difficulty. Consistent with high-profile reports, peripherally presented objects could also be decoded from activity at the occipital pole, a region which corresponds to the fovea. Our results emphasize the flexibility of frontoparietal and visual systems. They support the hypothesis that attention enhances the multi-voxel representation of information in the brain, and suggest that the engagement of this attentional mechanism depends critically on current task demands. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

A Bayesian Additive Model for Understanding Public Transport Usage in Special Events

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Rodrigues, Filipe; Borysov, Stanislav S.; Ribeiro, Bernardete

2017-01-01

Public special events, like sports games, concerts and festivals are well known to create disruptions in transportation systems, often catching the operators by surprise. Although these are usually planned well in advance, their impact is difficult to predict, even when organisers...... additive model with Gaussian process components that combines smart card records from public transport with context information about events that is continuously mined from the Web. We develop an efficient approximate inference algorithm using expectation propagation, which allows us to predict the total...... number of public transportation trips to the special event areas, thereby contributing to a more adaptive transportation system. Furthermore, for multiple concurrent event scenarios, the proposed algorithm is able to disaggregate gross trip counts into their most likely components related to specific...

Spatial attention in written word perception.

Science.gov (United States)

Montani, Veronica; Facoetti, Andrea; Zorzi, Marco

2014-01-01

The role of attention in visual word recognition and reading aloud is a long debated issue. Studies of both developmental and acquired reading disorders provide growing evidence that spatial attention is critically involved in word reading, in particular for the phonological decoding of unfamiliar letter strings. However, studies on healthy participants have produced contrasting results. The aim of this study was to investigate how the allocation of spatial attention may influence the perception of letter strings in skilled readers. High frequency words (HFWs), low frequency words and pseudowords were briefly and parafoveally presented either in the left or the right visual field. Attentional allocation was modulated by the presentation of a spatial cue before the target string. Accuracy in reporting the target string was modulated by the spatial cue but this effect varied with the type of string. For unfamiliar strings, processing was facilitated when attention was focused on the string location and hindered when it was diverted from the target. This finding is consistent the assumptions of the CDP+ model of reading aloud, as well as with familiarity sensitivity models that argue for a flexible use of attention according with the specific requirements of the string. Moreover, we found that processing of HFWs was facilitated by an extra-large focus of attention. The latter result is consistent with the hypothesis that a broad distribution of attention is the default mode during reading of familiar words because it might optimally engage the broad receptive fields of the highest detectors in the hierarchical system for visual word recognition.

Spatial attention in written word perception

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Veronica eMontani

2014-02-01

Full Text Available The role of attention in visual word recognition and reading aloud is a long debated issue. Studies of both developmental and acquired reading disorders provide growing evidence that spatial attention is critically involved in word reading, in particular for the phonological decoding of unfamiliar letter strings. However, studies on healthy participants have produced contrasting results. The aim of this study was to investigate how the allocation of spatial attention may influence the perception of letter strings in skilled readers. High frequency words, low frequency words and pseudowords were briefly and parafoveally presented either in the left or the right visual field. Attentional allocation was modulated by the presentation of a spatial cue before the target string. Accuracy in reporting the target string was modulated by the spatial cue but this effect varied with the type of string. For unfamiliar strings, processing was facilitated when attention was focused on the string location and hindered when it was diverted from the target. This finding is consistent the assumptions of the CDP+ model of reading aloud, as well as with familiarity sensitivity models that argue for a flexible use of attention according with the specific requirements of the string. Moreover, we found that processing of high-frequency words was facilitated by an extra-large focus of attention. The latter result is consistent with the hypothesis that a broad distribution of attention is the default mode during reading of familiar words because it might optimally engage the broad receptive fields of the highest detectors in the hierarchical system for visual word recognition.

A play and joint attention intervention for teachers of young children with autism: a randomized controlled pilot study.

Science.gov (United States)

Wong, Connie S

2013-05-01

The aim of this study was to pilot test a classroom-based intervention focused on facilitating play and joint attention for young children with autism in self-contained special education classrooms. Thirty-three children with autism between the ages of 3 and 6 years participated in the study with their classroom teachers (n = 14). The 14 preschool special education teachers were randomly assigned to one of three groups: (1) symbolic play then joint attention intervention, (2) joint attention then symbolic intervention, and (3) wait-list control period then further randomized to either group 1 or group 2. In the intervention, teachers participated in eight weekly individualized 1-h sessions with a researcher that emphasized embedding strategies targeting symbolic play and joint attention into their everyday classroom routines and activities. The main child outcome variables of interest were collected through direct classroom observations. Findings indicate that teachers can implement an intervention to significantly improve joint engagement of young children with autism in their classrooms. Furthermore, multilevel analyses showed significant increases in joint attention and symbolic play skills. Thus, these pilot data emphasize the need for further research and implementation of classroom-based interventions targeting play and joint attention skills for young children with autism.

Environmental correlates to behavioral health outcomes in Alzheimer's special care units.

Science.gov (United States)

Zeisel, John; Silverstein, Nina M; Hyde, Joan; Levkoff, Sue; Lawton, M Powell; Holmes, William

2003-10-01

We systematically measured the associations between environmental design features of nursing home special care units and the incidence of aggression, agitation, social withdrawal, depression, and psychotic problems among persons living there who have Alzheimer's disease or a related disorder. We developed and tested a model of critical health-related environmental design features in settings for people with Alzheimer's disease. We used hierarchical linear modeling statistical techniques to assess associations between seven environmental design features and behavioral health measures for 427 residents in 15 special care units. Behavioral health measures included the Cohen-Mansfield physical agitation, verbal agitation, and aggressive behavior scales, the Multidimensional Observation Scale for Elderly Subjects depression and social withdrawal scales, and BEHAVE-AD (psychotic symptom list) misidentification and paranoid delusions scales. Statistical controls were included for the influence of, among others, cognitive status, need for assistance with activities of daily living, prescription drug use, amount of Alzheimer's staff training, and staff-to-resident ratio. Although hierarchical linear modeling minimizes the risk of Type II-false positive-error, this exploratory study also pays special attention to avoiding Type I error-the failure to recognize possible relationships between behavioral health characteristics and independent variables. We found associations between each behavioral health measure and particular environmental design features, as well as between behavioral health measures and both resident and nonenvironmental facility variables. This research demonstrates the potential that environment has for contributing to the improvement of Alzheimer's symptoms. A balanced combination of pharmacologic, behavioral, and environmental approaches is likely to be most effective in improving the health, behavior, and quality of life of people with Alzheimer

Cingulate, Frontal and Parietal Cortical Dysfunction in Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder

Science.gov (United States)

Bush, George

2011-01-01

Functional and structural neuroimaging have identified abnormalities of the brain that are likely to contribute to the neuropathophysiology of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). In particular, hypofunction of the brain regions comprising the cingulo-frontal-parietal (CFP) cognitive-attention network have been consistently observed across studies. These are major components of neural systems that are relevant to ADHD, including cognitive/attention networks, motor systems and reward/feedback-based processing systems. Moreover, these areas interact with other brain circuits that have been implicated in ADHD, such as the “default mode” resting state network. ADHD imaging data related to CFP network dysfunction will be selectively highlighted here to help facilitate its integration with the other information presented in this special issue. Together, these reviews will help shed light on the neurobiology of ADHD. PMID:21489409

Model wells for nuclear well logging

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Tittle, C.W.

1989-01-01

Considerations needed in the design and construction of model wells for nuclear log calibration are covered, with special attention to neutron porosity logging and total γ-ray logging. Pulsed neutron decay-time and spectral γ-ray logging are discussed briefly. The American Petroleum Institute calibration facility for nuclear logs is a good starting point for similar or expanded facilities. A few of its shortcomings are mentioned; they are minor. The problem of fluid saturation is emphasized. Attention is given to models made of consolidated rock and those containing unconsolidated material such as Ottawa sand. Needed precautions are listed. A similarity method is presented for estimating the porosity index of formations that are not fully saturated. (author)

Attentional capture and engagement during the attentional blink: A "camera" metaphor of attention.

Science.gov (United States)

Zivony, Alon; Lamy, Dominique

2016-11-01

Identification of a target is impaired when it follows a previous target within 500 ms, suggesting that our attentional system suffers from severe temporal limitations. Although control-disruption theories posit that such impairment, known as the attentional blink (AB), reflects a difficulty in matching incoming information with the current attentional set, disrupted-engagement theories propose that it reflects a delay in later processes leading to transient enhancement of potential targets. Here, we used a variant of the contingent-capture rapid serial visual presentation (RSVP) paradigm (Folk, Ester, & Troemel, 2009) to adjudicate these competing accounts. Our results show that a salient distractor that shares the target color captures attention to the same extent whether it appears within or outside the blink, thereby invalidating the notion that control over the attentional set is compromised during the blink. In addition, our results show that during the blink, not the attention-capturing object itself but the item immediately following it, is selected, indicating that the AB manifests as a delay between attentional capture and attentional engagement. We therefore conclude that attentional capture and attentional engagement can be dissociated as separate stages of attentional selection. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved).

Pharmacological interventions to modulate attentional bias in addiction

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Luijten, M.; Field, M.; Franken, I.H.A.

2014-01-01

Attentional bias in substance-dependent patients is the tendency to automatically direct attention to substance-related cues in the environment. Preclinical models suggest that attentional bias emerges as a consequence of dopaminergic activity evoked by substance-related cues. The aim of the current

Special energies and special frequencies

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Endrullis, M.; Englisch, H.

1987-01-01

''Special frequencies'' have been asserted to be zeros of the density of frequencies corresponding to a random chain of coupled oscillators. Our investigation includes both this model and the random one-dimensional Schroedinger operator describing an alloy or its discrete analogue. Using the phase method we exactly determine a bilateral Lifsic asymptotic of the integrated density of states k(E) at special energies G s , which is not only of the classical type exp(-c/vertical strokeE-E s vertical stroke 1/2 ) but also exp(-c'/vertical strokeE-E s vertical stroke) is a typical behaviour. In addition, other asymptotics occur, e.g. vertical strokeE-E c vertical stroke c '', which show that k(E) need not be C ∞ . (orig.)

Dynamic Modeling of ThermoFluid Systems

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Jensen, Jakob Munch

2003-01-01

The objective of the present study has been to developed dynamic models for two-phase flow in pipes (evaporation and condensation). Special attention has been given to modeling evaporators for refrigeration plant particular dry-expansion evaporators. Models of different complexity have been...... formulated. The different models deviate with respect to the detail¿s included and calculation time in connection with simulation. The models have been implemented in a new library named ThermoTwoPhase to the programming language Modelica. A test rig has been built with an evaporator instrumented in a way...

The Effect of Job Demand-Control-Social Support Model on Nurses' Job Satisfaction in Specialized Teaching Hospitals, Ethiopia

OpenAIRE

Negussie, Nebiat; Kaur, Geetinder

2016-01-01

Background The job demand-control-social support model has been widely studied in western countries but has not been theoretically addressed on health workers of sub-Saharan African countries. Therefore, this study investigates the relationship between Job Demand-Control-Support Model and job satisfaction in specialized teaching hospitals in Ethiopia. Method A cross-sectional survey was conducted from September 2014 to May 2015 in three public specialized teaching hospitals in Ethiopia. Among...

Attention.

Science.gov (United States)

Callahan, Patrick M; Terry, Alvin V

2015-01-01

The ability to focus one's attention on important environmental stimuli while ignoring irrelevant stimuli is fundamental to human cognition and intellectual function. Attention is inextricably linked to perception, learning and memory, and executive function; however, it is often impaired in a variety of neuropsychiatric disorders, including Alzheimer's disease, schizophrenia, depression, and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Accordingly, attention is considered as an important therapeutic target in these disorders. The purpose of this chapter is to provide an overview of the most common behavioral paradigms of attention that have been used in animals (particularly rodents) and to review the literature where these tasks have been employed to elucidate neurobiological substrates of attention as well as to evaluate novel pharmacological agents for their potential as treatments for disorders of attention. These paradigms include two tasks of sustained attention that were developed as rodent analogues of the human Continuous Performance Task (CPT), the Five-Choice Serial Reaction Time Task (5-CSRTT) and the more recently introduced Five-Choice Continuous Performance Task (5C-CPT), and the Signal Detection Task (SDT) which was designed to emphasize temporal components of attention.

Competing Risks Copula Models for Unemployment Duration

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Lo, Simon M. S.; Stephan, Gesine; Wilke, Ralf

2017-01-01

The copula graphic estimator (CGE) for competing risks models has received little attention in empirical research, despite having been developed into a comprehensive research method. In this paper, we bridge the gap between theoretical developments and applied research by considering a general...... class of competing risks copula models, which nests popular models such as the Cox proportional hazards model, the semiparametric multivariate mixed proportional hazards model (MMPHM), and the CGE as special cases. Analyzing the effects of a German Hartz reform on unemployment duration, we illustrate...

On some recent developments in microscopic nuclear models

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Piepenbring, R.

1987-01-01

An overview of the status of development of some microscopic nuclear models is presented. A special attention is paid to the recent calculations starting from the effective nucleon-nucleon force, to the angular momentum projection method before variation, to the multiphonon method and to the selfconsistent coordinate method. The success and the limitations of the three last mentioned models are illustrated in the example of 168 Er

Merging Regular and Special Education Teacher Preparation Programs: The Integrated Special Education-English Project (ISEP).

Science.gov (United States)

Miller, Darcy E.

1991-01-01

Describes the Integrated Special Education-English Project (ISEP) which facilitated the gradual integration of special education and English teacher preparation programs. A description of the ISEP model and a case study are included. The case study indicated student teachers who participated in the ISEP improved special education and English…

Frontal and parietal cortical interactions with distributed visual representations during selective attention and action selection.

Science.gov (United States)

Nelissen, Natalie; Stokes, Mark; Nobre, Anna C; Rushworth, Matthew F S

2013-10-16

Using multivoxel pattern analysis (MVPA), we studied how distributed visual representations in human occipitotemporal cortex are modulated by attention and link their modulation to concurrent activity in frontal and parietal cortex. We detected similar occipitotemporal patterns during a simple visuoperceptual task and an attention-to-working-memory task in which one or two stimuli were cued before being presented among other pictures. Pattern strength varied from highest to lowest when the stimulus was the exclusive focus of attention, a conjoint focus, and when it was potentially distracting. Although qualitatively similar effects were seen inside regions relatively specialized for the stimulus category and outside, the former were quantitatively stronger. By regressing occipitotemporal pattern strength against activity elsewhere in the brain, we identified frontal and parietal areas exerting top-down control over, or reading information out from, distributed patterns in occipitotemporal cortex. Their interactions with patterns inside regions relatively specialized for that stimulus category were higher than those with patterns outside those regions and varied in strength as a function of the attentional condition. One area, the frontal operculum, was distinguished by selectively interacting with occipitotemporal patterns only when they were the focus of attention. There was no evidence that any frontal or parietal area actively inhibited occipitotemporal representations even when they should be ignored and were suppressed. Using MVPA to decode information within these frontal and parietal areas showed that they contained information about attentional context and/or readout information from occipitotemporal cortex to guide behavior but that frontal regions lacked information about category identity.

Frontal and Parietal Cortical Interactions with Distributed Visual Representations during Selective Attention and Action Selection

Science.gov (United States)

Stokes, Mark; Nobre, Anna C.; Rushworth, Matthew F. S.

2013-01-01

Using multivoxel pattern analysis (MVPA), we studied how distributed visual representations in human occipitotemporal cortex are modulated by attention and link their modulation to concurrent activity in frontal and parietal cortex. We detected similar occipitotemporal patterns during a simple visuoperceptual task and an attention-to-working-memory task in which one or two stimuli were cued before being presented among other pictures. Pattern strength varied from highest to lowest when the stimulus was the exclusive focus of attention, a conjoint focus, and when it was potentially distracting. Although qualitatively similar effects were seen inside regions relatively specialized for the stimulus category and outside, the former were quantitatively stronger. By regressing occipitotemporal pattern strength against activity elsewhere in the brain, we identified frontal and parietal areas exerting top-down control over, or reading information out from, distributed patterns in occipitotemporal cortex. Their interactions with patterns inside regions relatively specialized for that stimulus category were higher than those with patterns outside those regions and varied in strength as a function of the attentional condition. One area, the frontal operculum, was distinguished by selectively interacting with occipitotemporal patterns only when they were the focus of attention. There was no evidence that any frontal or parietal area actively inhibited occipitotemporal representations even when they should be ignored and were suppressed. Using MVPA to decode information within these frontal and parietal areas showed that they contained information about attentional context and/or readout information from occipitotemporal cortex to guide behavior but that frontal regions lacked information about category identity. PMID:24133250

Dynamical phase transitions in spin models and automata

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Derrida, B.

1989-01-01

Some of the models and methods developed in the study of the dynamics of spin models and automata are described. Special attention is given to the distance method which consists of comparing the time evolution of two configurations. The method is used to obtain the phase boundary between a frozen and a chaotic phase in the case of deterministic models. For stochastic systems the method is used to obtain dynamical phase transitions

Face processing is gated by visual spatial attention

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Roy E Crist

2008-03-01

Full Text Available Human perception of faces is widely believed to rely on automatic processing by a domain-specifi c, modular component of the visual system. Scalp-recorded event-related potential (ERP recordings indicate that faces receive special stimulus processing at around 170 ms poststimulus onset, in that faces evoke an enhanced occipital negative wave, known as the N170, relative to the activity elicited by other visual objects. As predicted by modular accounts of face processing, this early face-specifi c N170 enhancement has been reported to be largely immune to the infl uence of endogenous processes such as task strategy or attention. However, most studies examining the infl uence of attention on face processing have focused on non-spatial attention, such as object-based attention, which tend to have longer-latency effects. In contrast, numerous studies have demonstrated that visual spatial attention can modulate the processing of visual stimuli as early as 80 ms poststimulus – substantially earlier than the N170. These temporal characteristics raise the question of whether this initial face-specifi c processing is immune to the infl uence of spatial attention. This question was addressed in a dual-visualstream ERP study in which the infl uence of spatial attention on the face-specifi c N170 could be directly examined. As expected, early visual sensory responses to all stimuli presented in an attended location were larger than responses evoked by those same stimuli when presented in an unattended location. More importantly, a signifi cant face-specifi c N170 effect was elicited by faces that appeared in an attended location, but not in an unattended one. In summary, early face-specifi c processing is not automatic, but rather, like other objects, strongly depends on endogenous factors such as the allocation of spatial attention. Moreover, these fi ndings underscore the extensive infl uence that top-down attention exercises over the processing of

The Emotional Gatekeeper: A Computational Model of Attentional Selection and Suppression through the Pathway from the Amygdala to the Inhibitory Thalamic Reticular Nucleus.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Yohan J John

2016-02-01

Full Text Available In a complex environment that contains both opportunities and threats, it is important for an organism to flexibly direct attention based on current events and prior plans. The amygdala, the hub of the brain's emotional system, is involved in forming and signaling affective associations between stimuli and their consequences. The inhibitory thalamic reticular nucleus (TRN is a hub of the attentional system that gates thalamo-cortical signaling. In the primate brain, a recently discovered pathway from the amygdala sends robust projections to TRN. Here we used computational modeling to demonstrate how the amygdala-TRN pathway, embedded in a wider neural circuit, can mediate selective attention guided by emotions. Our Emotional Gatekeeper model demonstrates how this circuit enables focused top-down, and flexible bottom-up, allocation of attention. The model suggests that the amygdala-TRN projection can serve as a unique mechanism for emotion-guided selection of signals sent to cortex for further processing. This inhibitory selection mechanism can mediate a powerful affective 'framing' effect that may lead to biased decision-making in highly charged emotional situations. The model also supports the idea that the amygdala can serve as a relevance detection system. Further, the model demonstrates how abnormal top-down drive and dysregulated local inhibition in the amygdala and in the cortex can contribute to the attentional symptoms that accompany several neuropsychiatric disorders.

The Emotional Gatekeeper: A Computational Model of Attentional Selection and Suppression through the Pathway from the Amygdala to the Inhibitory Thalamic Reticular Nucleus

Science.gov (United States)

Bullock, Daniel; Barbas, Helen

2016-01-01

In a complex environment that contains both opportunities and threats, it is important for an organism to flexibly direct attention based on current events and prior plans. The amygdala, the hub of the brain's emotional system, is involved in forming and signaling affective associations between stimuli and their consequences. The inhibitory thalamic reticular nucleus (TRN) is a hub of the attentional system that gates thalamo-cortical signaling. In the primate brain, a recently discovered pathway from the amygdala sends robust projections to TRN. Here we used computational modeling to demonstrate how the amygdala-TRN pathway, embedded in a wider neural circuit, can mediate selective attention guided by emotions. Our Emotional Gatekeeper model demonstrates how this circuit enables focused top-down, and flexible bottom-up, allocation of attention. The model suggests that the amygdala-TRN projection can serve as a unique mechanism for emotion-guided selection of signals sent to cortex for further processing. This inhibitory selection mechanism can mediate a powerful affective ‘framing’ effect that may lead to biased decision-making in highly charged emotional situations. The model also supports the idea that the amygdala can serve as a relevance detection system. Further, the model demonstrates how abnormal top-down drive and dysregulated local inhibition in the amygdala and in the cortex can contribute to the attentional symptoms that accompany several neuropsychiatric disorders. PMID:26828203

Deconstructing Interocular Suppression: Attention and Divisive Normalization.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Hsin-Hung Li

2015-10-01

Full Text Available In interocular suppression, a suprathreshold monocular target can be rendered invisible by a salient competitor stimulus presented in the other eye. Despite decades of research on interocular suppression and related phenomena (e.g., binocular rivalry, flash suppression, continuous flash suppression, the neural processing underlying interocular suppression is still unknown. We developed and tested a computational model of interocular suppression. The model included two processes that contributed to the strength of interocular suppression: divisive normalization and attentional modulation. According to the model, the salient competitor induced a stimulus-driven attentional modulation selective for the location and orientation of the competitor, thereby increasing the gain of neural responses to the competitor and reducing the gain of neural responses to the target. Additional suppression was induced by divisive normalization in the model, similar to other forms of visual masking. To test the model, we conducted psychophysics experiments in which both the size and the eye-of-origin of the competitor were manipulated. For small and medium competitors, behavioral performance was consonant with a change in the response gain of neurons that responded to the target. But large competitors induced a contrast-gain change, even when the competitor was split between the two eyes. The model correctly predicted these results and outperformed an alternative model in which the attentional modulation was eye specific. We conclude that both stimulus-driven attention (selective for location and feature and divisive normalization contribute to interocular suppression.

Deconstructing Interocular Suppression: Attention and Divisive Normalization.

Science.gov (United States)

Li, Hsin-Hung; Carrasco, Marisa; Heeger, David J

2015-10-01

In interocular suppression, a suprathreshold monocular target can be rendered invisible by a salient competitor stimulus presented in the other eye. Despite decades of research on interocular suppression and related phenomena (e.g., binocular rivalry, flash suppression, continuous flash suppression), the neural processing underlying interocular suppression is still unknown. We developed and tested a computational model of interocular suppression. The model included two processes that contributed to the strength of interocular suppression: divisive normalization and attentional modulation. According to the model, the salient competitor induced a stimulus-driven attentional modulation selective for the location and orientation of the competitor, thereby increasing the gain of neural responses to the competitor and reducing the gain of neural responses to the target. Additional suppression was induced by divisive normalization in the model, similar to other forms of visual masking. To test the model, we conducted psychophysics experiments in which both the size and the eye-of-origin of the competitor were manipulated. For small and medium competitors, behavioral performance was consonant with a change in the response gain of neurons that responded to the target. But large competitors induced a contrast-gain change, even when the competitor was split between the two eyes. The model correctly predicted these results and outperformed an alternative model in which the attentional modulation was eye specific. We conclude that both stimulus-driven attention (selective for location and feature) and divisive normalization contribute to interocular suppression.

Integrative Modeling of Electrical Properties of Pacemaker Cardiac Cells

Science.gov (United States)

Grigoriev, M.; Babich, L.

2016-06-01

This work represents modeling of electrical properties of pacemaker (sinus) cardiac cells. Special attention is paid to electrical potential arising from transmembrane current of Na+, K+ and Ca2+ ions. This potential is calculated using the NaCaX model. In this respect, molar concentration of ions in the intercellular space which is calculated on the basis of the GENTEX model is essential. Combined use of two different models allows referring this approach to integrative modeling.

Extremely Selective Attention: Eye-Tracking Studies of the Dynamic Allocation of Attention to Stimulus Features in Categorization

Science.gov (United States)

Blair, Mark R.; Watson, Marcus R.; Walshe, R. Calen; Maj, Fillip

2009-01-01

Humans have an extremely flexible ability to categorize regularities in their environment, in part because of attentional systems that allow them to focus on important perceptual information. In formal theories of categorization, attention is typically modeled with weights that selectively bias the processing of stimulus features. These theories…

A few of my favorite things: circumscribed interests in autism are not accompanied by increased attentional salience on a personalized selective attention task.

Science.gov (United States)

Parsons, Owen E; Bayliss, Andrew P; Remington, Anna

2017-01-01

Autistic individuals commonly show circumscribed or "special" interests: areas of obsessive interest in a specific category. The present study investigated what impact these interests have on attention, an aspect of autistic cognition often reported as altered. In neurotypical individuals, interest and expertise have been shown to result in an automatic attentional priority for related items. Here, we examine whether this change in salience is also seen in autism. Adolescents and young adults with and without autism performed a personalized selective attention task assessing the level of attentional priority afforded to images related to the participant's specific interests. In addition, participants performed a similar task with generic images in order to isolate any effects of interest and expertise. Crucially, all autistic and non-autistic individuals recruited for this study held a strong passion or interest. As such, any differences in attention could not be solely attributed to differing prevalence of interests in the two groups. In both tasks, participants were asked to perform a central target-detection task while ignoring irrelevant distractors (related or unrelated to their interests). The level of distractor interference under various task conditions was taken as an indication of attentional priority. Neurotypical individuals showed the predicted attentional priority for the circumscribed interest images but not generic items, reflecting the impact of their interest and expertise. Contrary to predictions, autistic individuals did not show this priority: processing the interest-related stimuli only when task demands were low. Attention to images unrelated to circumscribed interests was equivalent in the two groups. These results suggest that despite autistic individuals holding an intense interest in a particular class of stimuli, there may be a reduced impact of this prior experience and expertise on attentional processing. The implications of this

Volunteer motivation in special events for people with disabilities ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

There has been little research attention in the South African context on volunteer motivation for special events for people with disabilities. This study explored the key factors that motivated volunteers to volunteer their services at three major sport events for people with disabilities in South Africa. A 28-item questionnaire was ...

Does Distraction Reduce the Alcohol-Aggression Relation? A Cognitive and Behavioral Test of the Attention-Allocation Model

Science.gov (United States)

Gallagher, Kathryn E.; Parrott, Dominic J.

2011-01-01

Objective: This study provided the first direct test of the cognitive underpinnings of the attention-allocation model and attempted to replicate and extend past behavioral findings for this model as an explanation for alcohol-related aggression. Method: A diverse community sample (55% African American) of men (N = 159) between 21 and 35 years of…

Methylphenidate Modulates Functional Network Connectivity to Enhance Attention

Science.gov (United States)

Zhang, Sheng; Hsu, Wei-Ting; Scheinost, Dustin; Finn, Emily S.; Shen, Xilin; Constable, R. Todd; Li, Chiang-Shan R.; Chun, Marvin M.

2016-01-01

Recent work has demonstrated that human whole-brain functional connectivity patterns measured with fMRI contain information about cognitive abilities, including sustained attention. To derive behavioral predictions from connectivity patterns, our group developed a connectome-based predictive modeling (CPM) approach (Finn et al., 2015; Rosenberg et al., 2016). Previously using CPM, we defined a high-attention network, comprising connections positively correlated with performance on a sustained attention task, and a low-attention network, comprising connections negatively correlated with performance. Validating the networks as generalizable biomarkers of attention, models based on network strength at rest predicted attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) symptoms in an independent group of individuals (Rosenberg et al., 2016). To investigate whether these networks play a causal role in attention, here we examined their strength in healthy adults given methylphenidate (Ritalin), a common ADHD treatment, compared with unmedicated controls. As predicted, individuals given methylphenidate showed patterns of connectivity associated with better sustained attention: higher high-attention and lower low-attention network strength than controls. There was significant overlap between the high-attention network and a network with greater strength in the methylphenidate group, and between the low-attention network and a network with greater strength in the control group. Network strength also predicted behavior on a stop-signal task, such that participants with higher go response rates showed higher high-attention and lower low-attention network strength. These results suggest that methylphenidate acts by modulating functional brain networks related to sustained attention, and that changing whole-brain connectivity patterns may help improve attention. SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT Recent work identified a promising neuromarker of sustained attention based on whole

Guest Editorial: Business Models/Projects – Design, Venture, Manage and Evaluate

OpenAIRE

Rao, Narendar V.; Reddy, K.S.; Arrawatia, Rakesh

2017-01-01

A number of literature reviews on business models and innovation have suggested that business models are mainly rooted in resource-based view (RBV) and transaction cost economics (TCE) theories. Since business models is a burgeoning research field in strategic management, scholars have paid a great attention toward conceptualizing what business models are, how business models are evolved, and what theories explain business models. The special issue welcomed scholars to submit their academic r...

76 FR 36864 - Special Conditions: Gulfstream Model GVI Airplane; Operation Without Normal Electric Power

Science.gov (United States)

2011-06-23

... Normal Electric Power AGENCY: Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), DOT. ACTION: Final special... Interface Branch, ANM-111, Transport Standards Staff, Transport Airplane Directorate, Aircraft Certification... Model GVI airplane will be an all-new, two- engine jet transport airplane. The maximum takeoff weight...

Modeling Dynamic Perceptual Attention in Complex Virtual Environments

National Research Council Canada - National Science Library

Kim, Youngjun; van Velsen, Martin; Hill, Jr, Randall W

2005-01-01

An important characteristic of a virtual human is the ability to direct its perceptual attention to entities and areas in a virtual environment in a manner that appears believable and serves a functional purpose...

75 FR 35 - Special Conditions: Airbus Model A318-112 Airplane (S/N 3886); Certification of a Cooktop

Science.gov (United States)

2010-01-04

... Recommended Practice 85, Rev. E, article titled, ``Air Conditioning Systems for Subsonic Airplanes,'' August 1...; Special Conditions No. 25-398-SC] Special Conditions: Airbus Model A318-112 Airplane (S/N 3886... airplane, as modified by Bizjet, a Lufthansa Technik Company, will have a novel or unusual design feature...

Technical and tactical action modeling of highly trained athletes specializing in breaststroke swimming at various length distances

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Olga Pilipko

2017-08-01

Full Text Available Purpose: definition of model parameters of technical and tactical actions of highly trained athletes specializing in breaststroke swimming at various length distances. Material & Methods: analysis of literary sources, video shooting, timing, methods of mathematical data processing. The contingent of the surveyed was made up of athletes who specialized in distances of 50, 100 and 200 meters in breaststroke swimming and had the level of sports qualification of master of sports of Ukraine, Master of Sports of International grade. Result: authors found that the technical and tactical actions of highly trained athletes during the swim of distances of 50, 100 and 200 meters by the breaststroke have their own characteristics; degree of influence of speed, pace and "step" of the strokes cycle on the result of swim distances of 50, 100 and 200 meters is determined; developed their model characteristics. Conclusion: the definition of distance specialization in breaststroke swimming should be carried out taking into account the compliance of individual indicators of technical and tactical actions of athletes to model parameters.

Waste management - sewage - special wastes

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

1987-01-01

The 27 papers represent a cross-section of the subject waste management. Particular attention is paid to the following themes: waste avoidance, waste product utilization, household wastes, dumping technology, sewage sludge treatments, special wastes, seepage from hazardous waste dumps, radioactive wastes, hospital wastes, purification of flue gas from waste combustion plants, flue gas purification and heavy metals, as well as combined sewage sludge and waste product utilization. The examples given relate to plants in Germany and other European countries. 12 papers have been separately recorded in the data base. (DG) [de

Special class of nonlinear damping models in flexible space structures

Science.gov (United States)

Hu, Anren; Singh, Ramendra P.; Taylor, Lawrence W.

1991-01-01

A special class of nonlinear damping models is investigated in which the damping force is proportional to the product of positive integer or the fractional power of the absolute values of displacement and velocity. For a one-degree-of-freedom system, the classical Krylov-Bogoliubov 'averaging' method is used, whereas for a distributed system, both an ad hoc perturbation technique and the finite difference method are employed to study the effects of nonlinear damping. The results are compared with linear viscous damping models. The amplitude decrement of free vibration for a single mode system with nonlinear models depends not only on the damping ratio but also on the initial amplitude, the time to measure the response, the frequency of the system, and the powers of displacement and velocity. For the distributed system, the action of nonlinear damping is found to reduce the energy of the system and to pass energy to lower modes.

Analysis of Interaction and Attention Processes in a Child with Congenital Deafblindness

Science.gov (United States)

Villas Boas, Denise Cintra; Ferreira, Léslie Piccolotto; de Moura, Maria Cecília; Maia, Shirley Rodrigues; Amaral, Isabel

2016-01-01

Children with deafblindness need support to be able to understand the world and to have access to information. The authors analyzed a dyad consisting of a child with congenital deafblindness and a specialized teacher. The study included participant observations and audiovisual recordings. It was found that the child showed attention to the teacher…

Killing vectors in empty space algebraically special metrics. II

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Held, A.

1976-01-01

Empty space algebraically special metrics possessing an expanding degenerate principal null vector and Killing vectors are investigated. Attention is centered on that class of Killing vector (called nonpreferred) which is necessarily spacelike in the asymptotic region. A detailed analysis of the relationship between the Petrov--Penrose classification and these Killing vectors is carried out

Shifting attention from objective risk factors to patients' self-assessed health resources: a clinical model for general practice.

Science.gov (United States)

Hollnagel, H; Malterud, K

1995-12-01

The study was designed to present and apply theoretical and empirical knowledge for the construction of a clinical model intended to shift the attention of the general practitioner from objective risk factors to self-assessed health resources in male and female patients. Review, discussion and analysis of selected theoretical models about personal health resources involving assessing existing theories according to their emphasis concerning self-assessed vs. doctor-assessed health resources, specific health resources vs. life and coping in general, abstract vs. clinically applicable theory, gender perspective explicitly included or not. Relevant theoretical models on health and coping (salutogenesis, coping and social support, control/demand, locus of control, health belief model, quality of life), and the perspective of the underprivileged Other (critical theory, feminist standpoint theory, the patient-centred clinical method) were presented and assessed. Components from Antonovsky's salutogenetic perspective and McWhinney's patient-centred clinical method, supported by gender perspectives, were integrated to a clinical model which is presented. General practitioners are recommended to shift their attention from objective risk factors to self-assessed health resources by means of the clinical model. The relevance and feasibility of the model should be explored in empirical research.

Subtle alterations in memory systems and normal visual attention in the GAERS model of absence epilepsy.

Science.gov (United States)

Marques-Carneiro, J E; Faure, J-B; Barbelivien, A; Nehlig, A; Cassel, J-C

2016-03-01

Even if considered benign, absence epilepsy may alter memory and attention, sometimes subtly. Very little is known on behavior and cognitive functions in the Genetic Absence Epilepsy Rats from Strasbourg (GAERS) model of absence epilepsy. We focused on different memory systems and sustained visual attention, using Non Epileptic Controls (NECs) and Wistars as controls. A battery of cognitive/behavioral tests was used. The functionality of reference, working, and procedural memory was assessed in the Morris water maze (MWM), 8-arm radial maze, T-maze and/or double-H maze. Sustained visual attention was evaluated in the 5-choice serial reaction time task. In the MWM, GAERS showed delayed learning and less efficient working memory. In the 8-arm radial maze and T-maze tests, working memory performance was normal in GAERS, although most GAERS preferred an egocentric strategy (based on proprioceptive/kinesthetic information) to solve the task, but could efficiently shift to an allocentric strategy (based on spatial cues) after protocol alteration. Procedural memory and visual attention were mostly unimpaired. Absence epilepsy has been associated with some learning problems in children. In GAERS, the differences in water maze performance (slower learning of the reference memory task and weak impairment of working memory) and in radial arm maze strategies suggest that cognitive alterations may be subtle, task-specific, and that normal performance can be a matter of strategy adaptation. Altogether, these results strengthen the "face validity" of the GAERS model: in humans with absence epilepsy, cognitive alterations are not easily detectable, which is compatible with subtle deficits. Copyright © 2016 IBRO. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Boundary correlators in supergroup WZNW models

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Creutzig, T.; Schomerus, V.

2008-04-15

We investigate correlation functions for maximally symmetric boundary conditions in the WZNW model on GL(11). Special attention is payed to volume filling branes. Generalizing earlier ideas for the bulk sector, we set up a Kac-Wakimotolike formalism for the boundary model. This first order formalism is then used to calculate bulk-boundary 2-point functions and the boundary 3-point functions of the model. The note ends with a few comments on correlation functions of atypical fields, point-like branes and generalizations to other supergroups. (orig.)

To be selected or not to be selected : a modeling and behavioral study of the mechanisms underlying stimulus-driven and top-down visual attention

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Voort van der Kleij, van der Gwendid T.

2007-01-01

This thesis investigates the mechanisms of stimulus-driven visual attention (global saliency), the mechanisms of top-down visual attention, and the interaction between these mechanisms, in visual search. Following the outline of an existing model of top-down visual attention, namely the Closed-Loop

Contrasting two models of academic self-efficacy--domain-specific versus cross-domain--in children receiving and not receiving special instruction in mathematics.

Science.gov (United States)

Jungert, Tomas; Hesser, Hugo; Träff, Ulf

2014-10-01

In social cognitive theory, self-efficacy is domain-specific. An alternative model, the cross-domain influence model, would predict that self-efficacy beliefs in one domain might influence performance in other domains. Research has also found that children who receive special instruction are not good at estimating their performance. The aim was to test two models of how self-efficacy beliefs influence achievement, and to contrast children receiving special instruction in mathematics with normally-achieving children. The participants were 73 fifth-grade children who receive special instruction and 70 children who do not receive any special instruction. In year four and five, the children's skills in mathematics and reading were assessed by national curriculum tests, and in their fifth year, self-efficacy in mathematics and reading were measured. Structural equation modeling showed that in domains where children do not receive special instruction in mathematics, self-efficacy is a mediating variable between earlier and later achievement in the same domain. Achievement in mathematics was not mediated by self-efficacy in mathematics for children who receive special instruction. For normal achieving children, earlier achievement in the language domain had an influence on later self-efficacy in the mathematics domain, and self-efficacy beliefs in different domains were correlated. Self-efficacy is mostly domain specific, but may play a different role in academic performance depending on whether children receive special instruction. The results of the present study provided some support of the Cross-Domain Influence Model for normal achieving children. © 2014 Scandinavian Psychological Associations and John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Guest Editorial Special Section on Systems of Power Converters: Design, Modeling, Control, and Implementation

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Liu, Wenxin; Guerrero, Josep M.; Kim, Jang Mok

2017-01-01

In this Special Section on Systems of Power Converters: Design, Modeling, Control, and Implementation, we have 11 high-quality papers approved for publication that cover the following three topics. 1) Converter Design and Operation. 2) Subsystem-Level Applications. 3) System-Level Applications...

Modelling of pollution dispersion in atmosphere

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Borysiewicz, M.; Stankiewicz, R.

1994-01-01

The paper contains the review of the mathematical foundation of atmospheric dispersion models. The atmospheric phenomena relevant to atmospheric dispersion model are discussed. In particular the parametrization of processes with time and space scales smaller than numerical grid size, limited by available computer power, is presented. The special attention was devoted to similarity theory and parametrization of boundary layer. The numerical methods are analysed and the drawbacks of the method are presented. (author). 99 refs, 15 figs, 3 tabs

Hierarchical nonlinear dynamics of human attention.

Science.gov (United States)

Rabinovich, Mikhail I; Tristan, Irma; Varona, Pablo

2015-08-01

Attention is the process of focusing mental resources on a specific cognitive/behavioral task. Such brain dynamics involves different partially overlapping brain functional networks whose interconnections change in time according to the performance stage, and can be stimulus-driven or induced by an intrinsically generated goal. The corresponding activity can be described by different families of spatiotemporal discrete patterns or sequential dynamic modes. Since mental resources are finite, attention modalities compete with each other at all levels of the hierarchy, from perception to decision making and behavior. Cognitive activity is a dynamical process and attention possesses some universal dynamical characteristics. Thus, it is time to apply nonlinear dynamical theory for the description and prediction of hierarchical attentional tasks. Such theory has to include the analyses of attentional control stability, the time cost of attention switching, the finite capacity of informational resources in the brain, and the normal and pathological bifurcations of attention sequential dynamics. In this paper we have integrated today's knowledge, models and results in these directions. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Modelling Inclusive Special Needs Education: Insights from Dutch Secondary Schools

Science.gov (United States)

Van der Bij, T.; Geijsel, F. P.; Garst, G. J. A.; Ten Dam, G. T. M.

2016-01-01

Inclusive special needs education is prominent on the international education agenda. Research on the characteristics of inclusive education for students with special needs and schools providing this is scarce, however. Our aim in the present study was therefore to further theory-building with regard to inclusive special needs education. On the…

Cognitive model of the power unit operator activity

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Chachko, S.A.

1992-01-01

Basic notions making it possible to study and simulate the peculiarities of man-operator activity, in particular his way of thiking, are considered. Special attention is paid to cognitive models based on concept of decisive role of knowledge (its acquisition, storage and application) in the man mental processes and activity. The models are based on three basic notions, which are the professional world image, activity strategy and spontaneous decisions

Recurrent competition explains temporal effects of attention in MSTd

Science.gov (United States)

Layton, Oliver W.; Browning, N. Andrew

2012-01-01

Navigation in a static environment along straight paths without eye movements produces radial optic flow fields. A singularity called the focus of expansion (FoE) specifies the direction of travel (heading) of the observer. Cells in primate dorsal medial superior temporal area (MSTd) respond to radial fields and are therefore thought to be heading-sensitive. Humans frequently shift their focus of attention while navigating, for example, depending on the favorable or threatening context of approaching independently moving objects. Recent neurophysiological studies show that the spatial tuning curves of primate MSTd neurons change based on the difference in visual angle between an attentional prime and the FoE. Moreover, the peak mean population activity in MSTd retreats linearly in time as the distance between the attentional prime and FoE increases. We present a dynamical neural circuit model that demonstrates the same linear temporal peak shift observed electrophysiologically. The model qualitatively matches the neuron tuning curves and population activation profiles. After model MT dynamically pools short-range motion, model MSTd incorporates recurrent competition between units tuned to different radial optic flow templates, and integrates attentional signals from model area frontal eye fields (FEF). In the model, population activity peaks occur when the recurrent competition is most active and uncertainty is greatest about the relative position of the FoE. The nature of attention, multiplicative or non-multiplicative, is largely irrelevant, so long as attention has a Gaussian-like profile. Using an appropriately tuned sigmoidal signal function to modulate recurrent feedback affords qualitative fits of deflections in the population activity that otherwise appear to be low-frequency noise. We predict that these deflections mark changes in the balance of attention between the priming and FoE locations. PMID:23060788

Initiating Events Modeling for On-Line Risk Monitoring Application

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Simic, Z.; Mikulicic, V.

1998-01-01

In order to make on-line risk monitoring application of Probabilistic Risk Assessment more complete and realistic, a special attention need to be dedicated to initiating events modeling. Two different issues are of special importance: one is how to model initiating events frequency according to current plant configuration (equipment alignment and out of service status) and operating condition (weather and various activities), and the second is how to preserve dependencies between initiating events model and rest of PRA model. First, the paper will discuss how initiating events can be treated in on-line risk monitoring application. Second, practical example of initiating events modeling in EPRI's Equipment Out of Service on-line monitoring tool will be presented. Gains from application and possible improvements will be discussed in conclusion. (author)

Modelling issues on climate change policies. A discussion of the GTAP-E model

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Kremers, H.; Nijkamp, P.; Wang, Shunli [Department of Spatial Economics, Free University, Amsterdam (Netherlands)

2000-11-01

Ater the Kyoto agreements the need has arisen to trace the implications of various international environmental strategies. In this paper, we discuss relevant modelling issues of incorporating important environmental policy measures in one of the popular applied general equilibrium models for international trade, the so-called GTAP model. Special attention is paid to an extended version, the GTAP-E (Global Trade Analysis Project - Energy) by addressing the question how to include the widely discussed instruments of International Emission Trading, Joint Implementation, and Clean Development Mechanisms. The paper will be concluded with some policy issues. 10 refs.

Modelling issues on climate change policies. A discussion of the GTAP-E model

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Kremers, H.; Nijkamp, P.; Wang, Shunli

2000-01-01

Ater the Kyoto agreements the need has arisen to trace the implications of various international environmental strategies. In this paper, we discuss relevant modelling issues of incorporating important environmental policy measures in one of the popular applied general equilibrium models for international trade, the so-called GTAP model. Special attention is paid to an extended version, the GTAP-E (Global Trade Analysis Project - Energy) by addressing the question how to include the widely discussed instruments of International Emission Trading, Joint Implementation, and Clean Development Mechanisms. The paper will be concluded with some policy issues. 10 refs

Modeling Multioperator Multi-UAV Operator Attention Allocation Problem Based on Maximizing the Global Reward

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Yuhang Wu

2016-01-01

Full Text Available This paper focuses on the attention allocation problem (AAP in modeling multioperator multi-UAV (MOMU, with the operator model and task properties taken into consideration. The model of MOMU operator AAP based on maximizing the global reward is established and used to allocate tasks to all operators as well as set work time and rest time to each task simultaneously for operators. The proposed model is validated in Matlab simulation environment, using the immune algorithm and dynamic programming algorithm to evaluate the performance of the model in terms of the reward value with regard to the work time, rest time, and task allocation. The result shows that the total reward of the proposed model is larger than the one obtained from previously published methods using local maximization and the total reward of our method has an exponent-like relation with the task arrival rate. The proposed model can improve the operators’ task processing efficiency in the MOMU command and control scenarios.

Advances in Games Technology: Software, Models, and Intelligence

Science.gov (United States)

Prakash, Edmond; Brindle, Geoff; Jones, Kevin; Zhou, Suiping; Chaudhari, Narendra S.; Wong, Kok-Wai

2009-01-01

Games technology has undergone tremendous development. In this article, the authors report the rapid advancement that has been observed in the way games software is being developed, as well as in the development of games content using game engines. One area that has gained special attention is modeling the game environment such as terrain and…

Collection-Level Surveys for Special Collections: Coalescing Descriptors across Standards

Science.gov (United States)

Ascher, James P.; Ferris, Anna M.

2012-01-01

Developing collection-level surveys to expose hidden collections in special collections and archives departments within ARL libraries has received a great deal of scholarly attention in the recent years. Numerous standards have been explored, and each has its strengths and weaknesses. This paper summarizes some of the major initiatives in…

Attention to memory: orienting attention to sound object representations.

Science.gov (United States)

Backer, Kristina C; Alain, Claude

2014-01-01

Despite a growing acceptance that attention and memory interact, and that attention can be focused on an active internal mental representation (i.e., reflective attention), there has been a paucity of work focusing on reflective attention to 'sound objects' (i.e., mental representations of actual sound sources in the environment). Further research on the dynamic interactions between auditory attention and memory, as well as its degree of neuroplasticity, is important for understanding how sound objects are represented, maintained, and accessed in the brain. This knowledge can then guide the development of training programs to help individuals with attention and memory problems. This review article focuses on attention to memory with an emphasis on behavioral and neuroimaging studies that have begun to explore the mechanisms that mediate reflective attentional orienting in vision and more recently, in audition. Reflective attention refers to situations in which attention is oriented toward internal representations rather than focused on external stimuli. We propose four general principles underlying attention to short-term memory. Furthermore, we suggest that mechanisms involved in orienting attention to visual object representations may also apply for orienting attention to sound object representations.

Modeling the Effects of Attentional Cueing on Meditators

NARCIS (Netherlands)

van Vugt, Marieke K.; van den Hurk, Paul M.

2016-01-01

Training in meditation has been shown to affect functioning of several attentional subsystems, most prominently conflict monitoring, and to some extent orienting. These previous findings described the effects of cueing and manipulating stimulus congruency on response times and accuracies. However,

Characterization of Models for Time-Dependent Behavior of Soils

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Liingaard, Morten; Augustesen, Anders; Lade, Poul V.

2004-01-01

  Different classes of constitutive models have been developed to capture the time-dependent viscous phenomena ~ creep, stress relaxation, and rate effects ! observed in soils. Models based on empirical, rheological, and general stress-strain-time concepts have been studied. The first part....... Special attention is paid to elastoviscoplastic models that combine inviscid elastic and time-dependent plastic behavior. Various general elastoviscoplastic models can roughly be divided into two categories: Models based on the concept of overstress and models based on nonstationary flow surface theory...

Attention and apparent motion.

Science.gov (United States)

Horowitz, T; Treisman, A

1994-01-01

Two dissociations between short- and long-range motion in visual search are reported. Previous research has shown parallel processing for short-range motion and apparently serial processing for long-range motion. This finding has been replicated and it has also been found that search for short-range targets can be impaired both by using bicontrast stimuli, and by prior adaptation to the target direction of motion. Neither factor impaired search in long-range motion displays. Adaptation actually facilitated search with long-range displays, which is attributed to response-level effects. A feature-integration account of apparent motion is proposed. In this theory, short-range motion depends on specialized motion feature detectors operating in parallel across the display, but subject to selective adaptation, whereas attention is needed to link successive elements when they appear at greater separations, or across opposite contrasts.

76 FR 66660 - Special Conditions: Gulfstream Aerospace LP (GALP) Model G280 Airplane, Operation Without Normal...

Science.gov (United States)

2011-10-27

... DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION Federal Aviation Administration 14 CFR Part 25 [Docket No. FAA-2011-1172: Notice No. 25-11-17-SC] Special Conditions: Gulfstream Aerospace LP (GALP) Model G280 Airplane... Aerospace LP (GALP) Model G280 airplane. This airplane will have a novel or unusual design feature...

Healing the incest wound: a treatment update with attention to recovered-memory issues.

Science.gov (United States)

Courtois, C A

1997-01-01

This article provides an updated treatment model for adults who report having experienced incestuous abuse in childhood. It integrates psychodynamic, traumatic stress, developmental and feminist formulations, accords greater emphasis to object relations and self-psychology perspectives, includes more attention to dissociative reactions, and utilizes more cognitive-behavioral interventions. It is also responsive to issues raised in the recovered/false memory controversy. This holistic model is sequenced, paced, and titrated according to the patient's characterological structure, ego strength, and needs as well as the range and severity of presenting problems and life difficulties. Special consideration is given to issues pertaining to memory and the maintenance of a neutral stance by the therapist, especially in the case of recovered rather than continuous memories and/or suspicions rather than actual knowledge of abuse. Contemporary perspectives regarding some of the unique transference, countertransference, and vicarious traumatization issues with this population and their potential impact on treatment are also discussed.

Why people see things that are not there: a novel Perception and Attention Deficit model for recurrent complex visual hallucinations.

Science.gov (United States)

Collerton, Daniel; Perry, Elaine; McKeith, Ian

2005-12-01

As many as two million people in the United Kingdom repeatedly see people, animals, and objects that have no objective reality. Hallucinations on the border of sleep, dementing illnesses, delirium, eye disease, and schizophrenia account for 90% of these. The remainder have rarer disorders. We review existing models of recurrent complex visual hallucinations (RCVH) in the awake person, including cortical irritation, cortical hyperexcitability and cortical release, top-down activation, misperception, dream intrusion, and interactive models. We provide evidence that these can neither fully account for the phenomenology of RCVH, nor for variations in the frequency of RCVH in different disorders. We propose a novel Perception and Attention Deficit (PAD) model for RCVH. A combination of impaired attentional binding and poor sensory activation of a correct proto-object, in conjunction with a relatively intact scene representation, bias perception to allow the intrusion of a hallucinatory proto-object into a scene perception. Incorporation of this image into a context-specific hallucinatory scene representation accounts for repetitive hallucinations. We suggest that these impairments are underpinned by disturbances in a lateral frontal cortex-ventral visual stream system. We show how the frequency of RCVH in different diseases is related to the coexistence of attentional and visual perceptual impairments; how attentional and perceptual processes can account for their phenomenology; and that diseases and other states with high rates of RCVH have cholinergic dysfunction in both frontal cortex and the ventral visual stream. Several tests of the model are indicated, together with a number of treatment options that it generates.

Measuring the amplification of attention.

Science.gov (United States)

Blaser, E; Sperling, G; Lu, Z L

1999-09-28

An ambiguous motion paradigm, in which the direction of apparent motion is determined by salience (i.e., the extent to which an area is perceived as figure versus ground), is used to assay the amplification of color by attention to color. In the red-green colored gratings used in these experiments, without attention instructions, salience depends on the chromaticity difference between colored stripes embedded in the motion sequence and the yellow background. Selective attention to red (or to green) alters the perceived direction of motion and is found to be equivalent to increasing the physical redness (or greenness) by 25-117%, depending on the observer and color. Whereas attention to a color drastically alters the salience of that color, it leaves color appearance unchanged. A computational model, which embodies separate, parallel pathways for object perception and for salience, accounts for 99% of the variance of the experimental data.

Challenge and Error: Critical Events and Attention-Related Errors

Science.gov (United States)

Cheyne, James Allan; Carriere, Jonathan S. A.; Solman, Grayden J. F.; Smilek, Daniel

2011-01-01

Attention lapses resulting from reactivity to task challenges and their consequences constitute a pervasive factor affecting everyday performance errors and accidents. A bidirectional model of attention lapses (error [image omitted] attention-lapse: Cheyne, Solman, Carriere, & Smilek, 2009) argues that errors beget errors by generating attention…

Selective attentional enhancement and inhibition of fronto-posterior connectivity by the basal ganglia during attention switching.

Science.gov (United States)

van Schouwenburg, Martine R; den Ouden, Hanneke E M; Cools, Roshan

2015-06-01

The prefrontal cortex and the basal ganglia interact to selectively gate a desired action. Recent studies have shown that this selective gating mechanism of the basal ganglia extends to the domain of attention. Here, we investigate the nature of this action-like gating mechanism for attention using a spatial attention-switching paradigm in combination with functional neuroimaging and dynamic causal modeling. We show that the basal ganglia guide attention by focally releasing inhibition of task-relevant representations, while simultaneously inhibiting task-irrelevant representations by selectively modulating prefrontal top-down connections. These results strengthen and specify the role of the basal ganglia in attention. Moreover, our findings have implications for psychological theorizing by suggesting that inhibition of unattended sensory regions is not only a consequence of mutual suppression, but is an active process, subserved by the basal ganglia. © The Author 2013. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com.

A Review of Research on Universal Design Educational Models

Science.gov (United States)

Rao, Kavita; Ok, Min Wook; Bryant, Brian R.

2014-01-01

Universal design for learning (UDL) has gained considerable attention in the field of special education, acclaimed for its promise to promote inclusion by supporting access to the general curriculum. In addition to UDL, there are two other universal design (UD) educational models referenced in the literature, universal design of instruction (UDI)…

Mental Attention in Gifted and Nongifted Children

Science.gov (United States)

Navarro, Jose I.; Ramiro, Pedro; Lopez, Jose M.; Aguilar, Manuel; Acosta, Manuel; Montero, Juan

2006-01-01

The relationship between the construct of mental attention and "giftedness" is not well established. Gifted individuals could make effective use of their executive functions and this could be related to their mental attentional capacity. The dialectic constructivist model developed by Pascual-Leone introduced the concept of mental…

Attention Discrimination: Theory and Field Experiments with Monitoring Information Acquisition

OpenAIRE

Bartoš, Vojtěch; Bauer, Michal; Chytilová, Julie; Matějka, Filip

2014-01-01

We link two important ideas: attention is scarce and lack of information about an individual drives discrimination in selection decisions. Our model of allocation of costly attention implies that applicants from negatively stereotyped groups face "attention discrimination": less attention in highly selective cherry-picking markets, where more attention helps applicants, and more attention in lemon-dropping markets, where it harms them. To test the prediction, we integrate tools to monitor inf...

Special effects used in creating 3D animated scenes-part 1

Science.gov (United States)

Avramescu, A. M.

2015-11-01

In present, with the help of computer, we can create special effects that look so real that we almost don't perceive them as being different. These special effects are somehow hard to differentiate from the real elements like those on the screen. With the increasingly accesible 3D field that has more and more areas of application, the 3D technology goes easily from architecture to product designing. Real like 3D animations are used as means of learning, for multimedia presentations of big global corporations, for special effects and even for virtual actors in movies. Technology, as part of the movie art, is considered a prerequisite but the cinematography is the first art that had to wait for the correct intersection of technological development, innovation and human vision in order to attain full achievement. Increasingly more often, the majority of industries is using 3D sequences (three dimensional). 3D represented graphics, commercials and special effects from movies are all designed in 3D. The key for attaining real visual effects is to successfully combine various distinct elements: characters, objects, images and video scenes; like all these elements represent a whole that works in perfect harmony. This article aims to exhibit a game design from these days. Considering the advanced technology and futuristic vision of designers, nowadays we have different and multifarious game models. Special effects are decisively contributing in the creation of a realistic three-dimensional scene. These effects are essential for transmitting the emotional state of the scene. Creating the special effects is a work of finesse in order to achieve high quality scenes. Special effects can be used to get the attention of the onlooker on an object from a scene. Out of the conducted study, the best-selling game of the year 2010 was Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. This way, the article aims for the presented scene to be similar with many locations from this type of games, more

Four dimensional sigma model coupled to the metric tensor field

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Ghika, G.; Visinescu, M.

1980-02-01

We discuss the four dimensional nonlinear sigma model with an internal O(n) invariance coupled to the metric tensor field satisfying Einstein equations. We derive a bound on the coupling constant between the sigma field and the metric tensor using the theory of harmonic maps. A special attention is paid to Einstein spaces and some new explicit solutions of the model are constructed. (author)

Role of Speaker Cues in Attention Inference

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Jin Joo Lee

2017-10-01

Full Text Available Current state-of-the-art approaches to emotion recognition primarily focus on modeling the nonverbal expressions of the sole individual without reference to contextual elements such as the co-presence of the partner. In this paper, we demonstrate that the accurate inference of listeners’ social-emotional state of attention depends on accounting for the nonverbal behaviors of their storytelling partner, namely their speaker cues. To gain a deeper understanding of the role of speaker cues in attention inference, we conduct investigations into real-world interactions of children (5–6 years old storytelling with their peers. Through in-depth analysis of human–human interaction data, we first identify nonverbal speaker cues (i.e., backchannel-inviting cues and listener responses (i.e., backchannel feedback. We then demonstrate how speaker cues can modify the interpretation of attention-related backchannels as well as serve as a means to regulate the responsiveness of listeners. We discuss the design implications of our findings toward our primary goal of developing attention recognition models for storytelling robots, and we argue that social robots can proactively use speaker cues to form more accurate inferences about the attentive state of their human partners.

Two systems drive attention to rewards

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Christopher K Kovach

2014-02-01

Full Text Available How options are framed can dramatically influence choice preference. While salience of information plays a central role in this effect, precisely how it is mediated by attentional processes remains unknown. Current models assume a simple relationship between attention and choice, according to which attention should uniformly bias preference towards the attended item over the whole time-course of a decision between similarly valued items. To test this prediction we considered how framing alters attention during a simple choice between two options, using eye movements as a sensitive online measure of attention. In one condition participants selected the less preferred item to discard and in the other, the more preferred item to keep. We replicated the well-known observation that gaze gravitates towards the item ultimately selected, but did not observe the effect to be uniform over time. Instead, we found evidence for distinct early and late processes that guide attention according to preference in the first case and task demands in the second. We conclude that multiple time-dependent processes govern attention during choice, and that these may contribute to framing effects in different ways.

Can Attention be Divided Between Perceptual Groups?

Science.gov (United States)

McCann, Robert S.; Foyle, David C.; Johnston, James C.; Hart, Sandra G. (Technical Monitor)

1994-01-01

Previous work using Head-Up Displays (HUDs) suggests that the visual system parses the HUD and the outside world into distinct perceptual groups, with attention deployed sequentially to first one group and then the other. New experiments show that both groups can be processed in parallel in a divided attention search task, even though subjects have just processed a stimulus in one perceptual group or the other. Implications for models of visual attention will be discussed.

Attentional Lapses of Adults with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder in Tasks of Sustained Attention.

Science.gov (United States)

Gmehlin, Dennis; Fuermaier, Anselm B M; Walther, Stephan; Tucha, Lara; Koerts, Janneke; Lange, Klaus W; Tucha, Oliver; Weisbrod, Matthias; Aschenbrenner, Steffen

2016-06-01

Adults with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) show attentional dysfunction such as distractibility and mind-wandering, especially in lengthy tasks. However, fundamentals of dysfunction are ambiguous and relationships of neuropsychological test parameters with self-report measures of ADHD symptoms are marginal. We hypothesize that basic deficits in sustaining attention explain more complex attentional dysfunction in persons with ADHD and relate to ADHD symptoms. Attentional function was analyzed by computing ex-Gaussian parameters for 3 time Blocks in a 20 min test of sustained alertness. Changes in performance across these blocks were analyzed by comparing adult persons with ADHD (n = 24) with healthy matched controls (n = 24) and correlated with neuropsychological measures of selective and divided attention as well as self-report measures of ADHD symptoms. We found a significantly steeper increase in the number of slow responses (ex-Gaussian parameter τ) in persons with ADHD with time on task in basic sustained alertness. They also performed significantly worse in tasks of sustained selective and divided attention. However, after controlling for an increase in τ during the alertness task, significant differences between groups disappeared for divided and partly selective attention. Increases in τ in the sustained alertness task correlated significantly with self-report measures of ADHD symptoms. Our results provide evidence that very basic deficits in sustaining attention in adults with ADHD are related to infrequent slow responses (=attentional lapses), with changes over time being relevant for more complex attentional function and experienced ADHD symptoms in everyday life. © The Author 2016. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com.

Impaired sustained attention and altered reactivity to errors in an animal model of prenatal cocaine exposure.

Science.gov (United States)

Gendle, Mathew H; Strawderman, Myla S; Mactutus, Charles F; Booze, Rosemarie M; Levitsky, David A; Strupp, Barbara J

2003-12-30

Although correlations have been reported between maternal cocaine use and impaired attention in exposed children, interpretation of these findings is complicated by the many risk factors that differentiate cocaine-exposed children from SES-matched controls. For this reason, the present dose-response study (0, 0.5, 1.0, or 3.0 mg/kg cocaine HCl) was designed to explore the effect of prenatal cocaine exposure on visual attention in a rodent model, using an intravenous injection protocol that closely mimics the pharmacokinetic profile and physiological effects of human recreational cocaine use. In adulthood, animals were tested on an attention task in which the duration, location, and onset time of a brief visual cue varied randomly between trials. The 3.0 mg/kg exposed males committed significantly more omission errors than control males during the final 1/3 of each testing session, specifically on trials that followed an error, which implicates impaired sustained attention and increased reactivity to committing an error. During the final 1/3 of each testing session, the 0.5 and 1.0 mg/kg exposed females took longer to enter the testing alcove at trial onset, and failed to enter the alcove more frequently than control females. Because these effects were not seen in other tasks of similar duration and reinforcement density, these findings suggest an impairment of sustained attention. This inference is supported by the finding that the increase in omission errors in the final block of trials in each daily session (relative to earlier in the session) was significantly greater for the 1.0 mg/kg females than for controls, a trend also seen for the 0.5 mg/kg group. Unlike the cocaine-exposed males, who remain engaged in the task when attention is waning, the cocaine-exposed females appear to opt for another strategy; namely, refusing to participate when their ability to sustain attention is surpassed.

The impact of new translation technologies on specialized texts

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Matthieu LeBlanc

2016-03-01

Full Text Available The introduction of translation technologies, especially translation memory software, has had a significant impact on both the translator’s professional practice and the target text itself. Apart from the fact that he or she must translate in a non-linear fashion due to the design of translation memory systems, the translator is now called upon to increase output and, in many cases, recycle what has already been translated by others. As a result, the translator, used to having full control over his or her text, is in some regards losing control over the translation process, which brings him or her to reflect on the quality of the final product and, in turn, on the transformations the field of specialized translation is undergoing. In this paper, I will present the results of an important ethnographic study conducted in three Canadian translation environments. I will focus mostly on the effects translation technologies and newly implemented practices have had on the quality of specialized texts destined for the Canadian market, where most of the specialized texts produced in French are in fact translations. Special attention will be given to the comments made by specialized translators during semi-directed interviews.

Gamma aminobutyric acid transporter subtype 1 gene knockout mice: a new model for attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder

Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)

Ping Yang; Guoqiang Cai; Youqing Cai; Jian Fei; Guoxiang Liu

2013-01-01

Attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is characterized by hyperactivity,impaired sustained attention,impulsivity,and is usually accompanied by varying degrees of learning difficulties and lack of motor coordination.However,the pathophysiology and etiology of ADHD remain inconclusive so far.Our previous studies have demonstrated that the gamma aminobutyric acid transporter subtype 1 (GAT1) gene knockout (ko) mouse (gat1-/-)is hyperactive and exhibited impaired memory performance in the Morris water maze.In the current study,we found that the gat1-/-mice showed low levels of attentional focusing and increased impulsivity.In addition,the gat1-/-mice displayed ataxia characterized by defects in motor coordination and balance skills.The hyperactivity in the ko mice was reduced by both methylphenidate and amphetamine.Collectively,these results suggest that GAT1 ko mouse is a new animal model for ADHD studying and GAT1 may be a new target to treat ADHD.

Single-Trial Inference on Visual Attention

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Dyrholm, Mads; Kyllingsbæk, Søren; Vangkilde, Signe Allerup

2011-01-01

In this paper we take a step towards single-trial behavioral modeling within a Theory of Visual Attention (TVA). In selective attention tasks, such as the Partial Report paradigm, the subject is asked to ignore distractors and only report stimuli that belong to the target class. Nothing about...... Report trial. This result retrodicts a latent attentional state of the subject using the observed response from that particular trial and thus differs from other predictions made with TVA which are based on expected values of observed variables. We show an example of the result in single-trial analysis...

78 FR 41684 - Special Conditions: Embraer S.A. Model EMB-550 Airplanes, Sudden Engine Stoppage

Science.gov (United States)

2013-07-11

...-tail empennage. The primary structure is metal with composite empennage and control surfaces. The Model..., Transport Airplane Directorate, Aircraft Certification Service, 1601 Lind Avenue SW., Renton, Washington... more-critical airframe supporting structure. Applicability As discussed above, these special conditions...

Some foundational problems in the special theory of relativity

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Jammer, M.

1979-01-01

Attention is drawn to some of the issues of the foundations of special relativity with the aim of contributing possibly to their clarification. Roemer's determination of the velocity of light is reviewed and important issues on the historical development of the theory outlined. The group-theoretical and light-geometrical approaches are discussed and the nature of length contraction considered. (Auth./C.F.)

Models of knowledge management in Russian institutions: social and psychological analysis

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Nestik Timofei Aleksandrovich

2014-12-01

Full Text Available The paper presents socio-psychological analysis of five knowledge management models used in Russian institutions: knowledge management in projects, virtual expert groups, competence centers, knowledge management via organization development and open innovations. Special attention is given to the consequences of transition to network-based knowledge management.

Developmental stress elicits preference for methamphetamine in the spontaneously hypertensive rat model of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder.

Science.gov (United States)

Womersley, Jacqueline S; Mpeta, Bafokeng; Dimatelis, Jacqueline J; Kellaway, Lauriston A; Stein, Dan J; Russell, Vivienne A

2016-06-17

Developmental stress has been hypothesised to interact with genetic predisposition to increase the risk of developing substance use disorders. Here we have investigated the effects of maternal separation-induced developmental stress using a behavioural proxy of methamphetamine preference in an animal model of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, the spontaneously hypertensive rat, versus Wistar Kyoto and Sprague-Dawley comparator strains. Analysis of results obtained using a conditioned place preference paradigm revealed a significant strain × stress interaction with maternal separation inducing preference for the methamphetamine-associated compartment in spontaneously hypertensive rats. Maternal separation increased behavioural sensitization to the locomotor-stimulatory effects of methamphetamine in both spontaneously hypertensive and Sprague-Dawley strains but not in Wistar Kyoto rats. Our findings indicate that developmental stress in a genetic rat model of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder may foster a vulnerability to the development of substance use disorders.

Fragments of reminiscences and exactly solvable nonrelativistic quantum models

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Zakhariev, B.N.

1994-01-01

Some exactly solvable nonrelativistic quantum models are discussed. Special attention is paid to the quantum inverse problem. It is pointed out that by analyzing the inverse problem pictures one can get a deeper insight into the laws of the microworld and acquire the ability to make the qualitative predictions without computers and formulae. 5 refs

The Roles of Decision Makers in Special Operations

Science.gov (United States)

2016-12-01

Forces’ role in solving complex problems. Government leadership is eager to use Special Operations Forces (SOF) to respond to these complex problems...international community and the Israeli authorities as well. The PFLP leadership , in particular, favored hijacking as a terrorist action.12 Other...people’s problems. The members of the Democratic Revolutionary Front of the Liberation of Arabistan thought that calling the rest of the world’s attention

Receipt of preventive dental care among special-needs children enrolled in Medicaid: a crisis in need of attention.

Science.gov (United States)

Mitchell, Jean M; Gaskin, Darrell J

2008-10-01

Although not widely recognized, tooth decay is the most common childhood chronic disease among children ages five to seventeen. Despite higher rates of dental caries and greater needs, low-income minority children enrolled in Medicaid are more likely to go untreated relative to their higher income counterparts. No research has examined this issue for children with special needs. We analyzed Medicaid enrollment and claims data for special-needs children enrolled in the District of Columbia Medicaid program to evaluate receipt of recommended preventive dental care. Use of preventive dental care is abysmally low and has declined over time. Enrollment in managed care rather than fee for service improves the likelihood that special-needs children receive recommended preventive dental services, whereas residing farther from the Metro is an impediment to receipt of dental care.

Impulsiveness, overactivity, and poorer sustained attention improve by chronic treatment with low doses of l-amphetamine in an animal model of Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD).

Science.gov (United States)

Sagvolden, Terje

2011-03-30

ADHD is currently defined as a cognitive/behavioral developmental disorder where all clinical criteria are behavioral. Overactivity, impulsiveness, and inattentiveness are presently regarded as the main clinical symptoms. There is no biological marker, but there is considerable evidence to suggest that ADHD behavior is associated with poor dopaminergic and noradrenergic modulation of neuronal circuits that involve the frontal lobes. The best validated animal model of ADHD, the Spontaneously Hypertensive Rat (SHR), shows pronounced overactivity, impulsiveness, and deficient sustained attention. The primary objective of the present research was to investigate behavioral effects of a range of doses of chronic l-amphetamine on ADHD-like symptoms in the SHR. The present study tested the behavioral effects of 0.75 and 2.2 mg l-amphetamine base/kg i.p. in male SHRs and their controls, the Wistar Kyoto rat (WKY). ADHD-like behavior was tested with a visual discrimination task measuring overactivity, impulsiveness and inattentiveness. The striking impulsiveness, overactivity, and poorer sustained attention seen during baseline conditions in the SHR were improved by chronic treatment with l-amphetamine. The dose-response curves were, however, different for the different behaviors. Most significantly, the 0.75 mg/kg dose of l-amphetamine improved sustained attention without reducing overactivity and impulsiveness. The 2.2 mg/kg dose improved sustained attention as well as reduced SHR overactivity and impulsiveness. The effects of l-amphetamine to reduce the behavioral symptoms of ADHD in the SHR were maintained over the 14 days of daily dosing with no evidence of tolerance developing.

Examining the Relative Contribution of Memory Updating, Attention Focus Switching, and Sustained Attention to Children’s Verbal Working Memory Span

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Beula M. Magimairaj

2013-01-01

Full Text Available Whereas considerable developmental memory research has examined the contributions of short-term memory, processing efficiency, retention duration, and scope of attention to complex memory span, little is known about the influence of controlled attention. The present study investigated the relative influence of three understudied attention mechanisms on the verbal working memory span of school-age children: memory updating; attention focus switching; and sustained attention. Results of general linear modeling revealed that, after controlling for age, only updating accuracy emerged as a significant predictor of verbal working memory span. Memory updating speed (that subsumed attention focus switching speed also contributed but was mediated by age. The results extend the developmental memory literature by implicating the mechanism of memory updating and developmental improvement in speed of attention focus switching and updating as critical contributors to children’s verbal working memory. Theoretically, the results provide substantively new information about the role of domain-general executive attention in children’s verbal working memory.

Science and technology of rubber reclamation with special attention to NR based waste latex products

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Rajan, V.V.; Dierkes, Wilma K.; Joseph, R.; Noordermeer, Jacobus W.M.

2006-01-01

A comprehensive overview of reclamation of cured rubber with special emphasis on latex reclamation is depicted in this paper. The latex industry has expanded over the years to meet the world demands for gloves, condoms, latex thread, etc. Due to the strict specifications for the products and the

Chewing and Attention: A Positive Effect on Sustained Attention

Science.gov (United States)

Onozuka, Minoru

2015-01-01

Chewing is crushing food not only to aid swallowing and digestion, but also to help stress relief and regulate cognitive function, especially in attention. It is well known that chewing gum is used for sleepiness prevention during work, learning, and driving, suggesting a link between chewing and sustained attention. We hypothesized that chewing elevates attention and/or alertness, leading to improvements in cognitive performance. We carried out a systematic review of the PubMed database. We inspected the attributes of effects on attention in studies investigating the effects of chewing on attention or alertness conducted with pre-post design in healthy subjects, except elderly. We identified 151 references, 22 of which were included: 14 (64%) showed positive attributes of effects on attention, 1 (5%) showed negative attributes of effects on attention, 5 (23%) showed both positive and negative attributes of effects on attention, and 2 (9%) showed no significant attributes of effects on attention. Thus, positive attributes of effects of chewing on attention, especially on sustained attention, were shown in over half of the reports. These effects also appeared with improvement in mood and stress relief and were influenced by time-on-task effect. Further studies are needed, but chewing could be useful for modifying cognitive function. PMID:26075234

Chewing and Attention: A Positive Effect on Sustained Attention

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Yoshiyuki Hirano

2015-01-01

Full Text Available Chewing is crushing food not only to aid swallowing and digestion, but also to help stress relief and regulate cognitive function, especially in attention. It is well known that chewing gum is used for sleepiness prevention during work, learning, and driving, suggesting a link between chewing and sustained attention. We hypothesized that chewing elevates attention and/or alertness, leading to improvements in cognitive performance. We carried out a systematic review of the PubMed database. We inspected the attributes of effects on attention in studies investigating the effects of chewing on attention or alertness conducted with pre-post design in healthy subjects, except elderly. We identified 151 references, 22 of which were included: 14 (64% showed positive attributes of effects on attention, 1 (5% showed negative attributes of effects on attention, 5 (23% showed both positive and negative attributes of effects on attention, and 2 (9% showed no significant attributes of effects on attention. Thus, positive attributes of effects of chewing on attention, especially on sustained attention, were shown in over half of the reports. These effects also appeared with improvement in mood and stress relief and were influenced by time-on-task effect. Further studies are needed, but chewing could be useful for modifying cognitive function.

Chewing and attention: a positive effect on sustained attention.

Science.gov (United States)

Hirano, Yoshiyuki; Onozuka, Minoru

2015-01-01

Chewing is crushing food not only to aid swallowing and digestion, but also to help stress relief and regulate cognitive function, especially in attention. It is well known that chewing gum is used for sleepiness prevention during work, learning, and driving, suggesting a link between chewing and sustained attention. We hypothesized that chewing elevates attention and/or alertness, leading to improvements in cognitive performance. We carried out a systematic review of the PubMed database. We inspected the attributes of effects on attention in studies investigating the effects of chewing on attention or alertness conducted with pre-post design in healthy subjects, except elderly. We identified 151 references, 22 of which were included: 14 (64%) showed positive attributes of effects on attention, 1 (5%) showed negative attributes of effects on attention, 5 (23%) showed both positive and negative attributes of effects on attention, and 2 (9%) showed no significant attributes of effects on attention. Thus, positive attributes of effects of chewing on attention, especially on sustained attention, were shown in over half of the reports. These effects also appeared with improvement in mood and stress relief and were influenced by time-on-task effect. Further studies are needed, but chewing could be useful for modifying cognitive function.

“What’s So Special about Special Collections?” Or, Assessing the Value Special Collections Bring to Academic Libraries

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Elizabeth Yakel

2013-06-01

Full Text Available Objective – The objective of this study was to examine and call attention to the current deficiency in standardized performance measures and usage metrics suited to assessing the value and impact of special collections and archives and their contributions to the mission of academic research libraries and to suggest possible approaches to overcoming the deficiency.Methods – The authors reviewed attempts over the past dozen years by the Association of Research Libraries (ARL and the Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL to highlight the unique types of value that special collections and archival resources contribute to academic research libraries. They also examined the results of a large survey of special collections and archives conducted by OCLC Research in 2010. In addition, they investigated efforts by the Society of American Archivists (SAA dating back to the 1940s to define standardized metrics for gathering and comparing data about archival operations. Finding that the library and archival communities have thus far failed to develop and adopt common metrics and methods for gathering data about the activities of special collections and archives, the authors explored the potential benefits of borrowing concepts for developing user-centered value propositions and metrics from the business community.Results – This study found that there has been a lack of consensus and precision concerning the definition of “special collections” and the value propositions they offer, and that most attempts have been limited in their usefulness because they were collections-centric. The study likewise reaffirmed a lack of consensus regarding how to define and measure basic operations performed by special collections and archives, such as circulating materials to users in supervised reading rooms. The review of concepts and metrics for assessing value in the business community, however, suggested new approaches to defining metrics that

External noise distinguishes attention mechanisms.

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Lu, Z L; Dosher, B A

1998-05-01

We developed and tested a powerful method for identifying and characterizing the effect of attention on performance in visual tasks as due to signal enhancement, distractor exclusion, or internal noise suppression. Based on a noisy Perceptual Template Model (PTM) of a human observer, the method adds increasing amounts of external noise (white gaussian random noise) to the visual stimulus and observes the effect on performance of a perceptual task for attended and unattended stimuli. The three mechanisms of attention yield three "signature" patterns of performance. The general framework for characterizing the mechanisms of attention is used here to investigate the attentional mechanisms in a concurrent location-cued orientation discrimination task. Test stimuli--Gabor patches tilted slightly to the right or left--always appeared on both the left and the right of fixation, and varied independently. Observers were cued on each trial to attend to the left, the right, or evenly to both stimuli, and decide the direction of tilt of both test stimuli. For eight levels of added external noise and three attention conditions (attended, unattended, and equal), subjects' contrast threshold levels were determined. At low levels of external noise, attention affected threshold contrast: threshold contrasts for non-attended stimuli were systematically higher than for equal attention stimuli, which were, in turn, higher than for attended stimuli. Specifically, when the rms contrast of the external noise is below 10%, there is a consistent 17% elevation of contrast threshold from attended to unattended condition across all three subjects. For higher levels of external noise, attention conditions did not affect threshold contrast values at all. These strong results are characteristic of a signal enhancement, or equivalently, an internal additive noise reduction mechanism of attention.

MODELLING OF THE RISK FACTORS AND CHRONIC DISEASESTHAT INFLUENCE THE DEVELOPMENT OF SERIOUS HEALTHCOMPLICATIONS

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Maja Atanasijević-Kunc

2008-08-01

For a quantitative evaluation of the mentioned patient groups, the age distribution andan estimation of the treatment expenses a dynamic mathematical model was developed,where special attention was devoted to its structure, as it should enable the sequentialconstruction and representation of different forms of data information. The model wasrealized in the Matlab program package with the Simulink Toolbox.

Reducing attentional capture of emotion by broadening attention: increased global attention reduces early electrophysiological responses to negative stimuli.

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Gable, Philip A; Harmon-Jones, Eddie

2012-05-01

Decades of research has shown the influence of emotion on attentional capture, and more recently, the influence of emotion on neurophysiological processes related to attentional capture. The current research tested whether some of the earliest neurophysiological underpinnings of emotive attentional processes can be influenced by attentional manipulations of broadening versus narrowing. Previous research has shown that negative affects high in motivational intensity (e.g., disgust, fear) cause a relative narrowing of attentional scope (Gable and Harmon-Jones, 2010a; Easterbrook, 1959). Because of the strong link between motivation and attention, attentional scope should also influence the attentional capture of negative stimuli. The current study manipulated a local attentional scope or global attentional scope, then measured attentional capture towards disgust and neutral pictures using the N1 event-related potential component. Results revealed that a manipulated global attentional scope reduced N1 amplitude towards disgust pictures compared to a manipulated local attentional scope. Copyright © 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Neurophysiological correlates of attention behavior in early infancy: Implications for emotion regulation during early childhood

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Perry, Nicole B.; Swingler, Margaret M.; Calkins, Susan D.; Bell, Martha Ann

2015-01-01

Current theoretical conceptualizations of regulatory development suggest that attention processes and emotion regulation processes share common neurophysiological underpinnings and behavioral antecedents such that emotion regulation abilities may build upon early attentional skills. To further elucidate this proposed relationship, we tested whether early neurophysiological processes measured during an attention task in infancy predicted in-task attention behavior, and whether infant's attention behavior was subsequently associated with their ability to regulate emotion in early childhood (N=388). Results indicated that, greater EEG power change (from baseline to task) at medial frontal locations (F3 and F4) during an attention task at 10 months were associated with concurrent observed behavioral attention. Specifically, greater change in EEG power at the right frontal location (F4) was associated with more attention, and greater EEG power at the left frontal location (F3) was associated with less attention, indicating a potential right hemisphere specialization for attention processes already present in the first year of life. In addition, after controlling for 5-month attention behavior, increased behavioral attention at 10-months was negatively associated with children's observed frustration to emotional challenge at age 3. Finally, the indirect effects from 10-month EEG power change at F3 and F4 to 3-year emotion regulation via infants' 10-month behavioral attention were significant, suggesting that infant's attention behavior is one mechanism through which early neurophysiological activity is related to emotion regulation abilities in childhood. PMID:26381926

77 FR 77178 - 2013 Special 301 Review: Identification of Countries Under Section 182 of the Trade Act of 1974...

Science.gov (United States)

2012-12-31

... special attention. Section 182 contains a special rule regarding actions of Canada affecting U.S. cultural... that affects cultural industries, is adopted or expanded after December 17, 1992, and is actionable... practices. Any comments that include quantitative loss claims should be accompanied by the methodology used...

The interplay of attention and consciousness in visual search, attentional blink and working memory consolidation.

Science.gov (United States)

Raffone, Antonino; Srinivasan, Narayanan; van Leeuwen, Cees

2014-05-05

Despite the acknowledged relationship between consciousness and attention, theories of the two have mostly been developed separately. Moreover, these theories have independently attempted to explain phenomena in which both are likely to interact, such as the attentional blink (AB) and working memory (WM) consolidation. Here, we make an effort to bridge the gap between, on the one hand, a theory of consciousness based on the notion of global workspace (GW) and, on the other, a synthesis of theories of visual attention. We offer a theory of attention and consciousness (TAC) that provides a unified neurocognitive account of several phenomena associated with visual search, AB and WM consolidation. TAC assumes multiple processing stages between early visual representation and conscious access, and extends the dynamics of the global neuronal workspace model to a visual attentional workspace (VAW). The VAW is controlled by executive routers, higher-order representations of executive operations in the GW, without the need for explicit saliency or priority maps. TAC leads to newly proposed mechanisms for illusory conjunctions, AB, inattentional blindness and WM capacity, and suggests neural correlates of phenomenal consciousness. Finally, the theory reconciles the all-or-none and graded perspectives on conscious representation.

The interplay of attention and consciousness in visual search, attentional blink and working memory consolidation

Science.gov (United States)

Raffone, Antonino; Srinivasan, Narayanan; van Leeuwen, Cees

2014-01-01

Despite the acknowledged relationship between consciousness and attention, theories of the two have mostly been developed separately. Moreover, these theories have independently attempted to explain phenomena in which both are likely to interact, such as the attentional blink (AB) and working memory (WM) consolidation. Here, we make an effort to bridge the gap between, on the one hand, a theory of consciousness based on the notion of global workspace (GW) and, on the other, a synthesis of theories of visual attention. We offer a theory of attention and consciousness (TAC) that provides a unified neurocognitive account of several phenomena associated with visual search, AB and WM consolidation. TAC assumes multiple processing stages between early visual representation and conscious access, and extends the dynamics of the global neuronal workspace model to a visual attentional workspace (VAW). The VAW is controlled by executive routers, higher-order representations of executive operations in the GW, without the need for explicit saliency or priority maps. TAC leads to newly proposed mechanisms for illusory conjunctions, AB, inattentional blindness and WM capacity, and suggests neural correlates of phenomenal consciousness. Finally, the theory reconciles the all-or-none and graded perspectives on conscious representation. PMID:24639586

A hierarchical causal modeling for large industrial plants supervision

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Dziopa, P.; Leyval, L.

1994-01-01

A supervision system has to analyse the process current state and the way it will evolve after a modification of the inputs or disturbance. It is proposed to base this analysis on a hierarchy of models, witch differ by the number of involved variables and the abstraction level used to describe their temporal evolution. In a first step, special attention is paid to causal models building, from the most abstract one. Once the hierarchy of models has been build, the most detailed model parameters are estimated. Several models of different abstraction levels can be used for on line prediction. These methods have been applied to a nuclear reprocessing plant. The abstraction level could be chosen on line by the operator. Moreover when an abnormal process behaviour is detected a more detailed model is automatically triggered in order to focus the operator attention on the suspected subsystem. (authors). 11 refs., 11 figs

Capturing Attention When Attention "Blinks"

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Wee, Serena; Chua, Fook K.

2004-01-01

Four experiments addressed the question of whether attention may be captured when the visual system is in the midst of an attentional blink (AB). Participants identified 2 target letters embedded among distractor letters in a rapid serial visual presentation sequence. In some trials, a square frame was inserted between the targets; as the only…

A model of freezing foods with liquid nitrogen using special functions

Science.gov (United States)

Rodríguez Vega, Martín.

2014-05-01

A food freezing model is analyzed analytically. The model is based on the heat diffusion equation in the case of cylindrical shaped food frozen by liquid nitrogen; and assuming that the thermal conductivity of the cylindrical food is radially modulated. The model is solved using the Laplace transform method, the Bromwich theorem, and the residue theorem. The temperature profile in the cylindrical food is presented as an infinite series of special functions. All the required computations are performed with computer algebra software, specifically Maple. Using the numeric values of the thermal and geometric parameters for the cylindrical food, as well as the thermal parameters of the liquid nitrogen freezing system, the temporal evolution of the temperature in different regions in the interior of the cylindrical food is presented both analytically and graphically. The duration of the liquid nitrogen freezing process to achieve the specified effect on the cylindrical food is computed. The analytical results are expected to be of importance in food engineering and cooking engineering. As a future research line, the formulation and solution of freezing models with thermal memory is proposed.

Attraction of position preference by spatial attention throughout human visual cortex.

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Klein, Barrie P; Harvey, Ben M; Dumoulin, Serge O

2014-10-01

Voluntary spatial attention concentrates neural resources at the attended location. Here, we examined the effects of spatial attention on spatial position selectivity in humans. We measured population receptive fields (pRFs) using high-field functional MRI (fMRI) (7T) while subjects performed an attention-demanding task at different locations. We show that spatial attention attracts pRF preferred positions across the entire visual field, not just at the attended location. This global change in pRF preferred positions systematically increases up the visual hierarchy. We model these pRF preferred position changes as an interaction between two components: an attention field and a pRF without the influence of attention. This computational model suggests that increasing effects of attention up the hierarchy result primarily from differences in pRF size and that the attention field is similar across the visual hierarchy. A similar attention field suggests that spatial attention transforms different neural response selectivities throughout the visual hierarchy in a similar manner. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Attention deficit and attention training in early twentieth-century Japan.

Science.gov (United States)

Takeda, Toshinobu; Ando, Mizuho; Kumagai, Keiko

2015-06-01

Yuzero Motora (1856-1912), regarded as the first professional Japanese psychologist, tried to address students' attention difficulties through attention training methods of his own design. His reports contain the first description of ADHD-like symptoms in the history of Japan. Motora viewed "distractibility" as the irregular transition of attention. Students with low scores and attention difficulties who participated in Motora's exercises showed improvement in arithmetic, psychological testing, and certain aspects of daily life. This article describes Motora's theoretical conception of attention and attention training methodology, the history of attention deficit and attention training, and the significance of Motora's experiments.

Attentional function and basal forebrain cholinergic neuron morphology during aging in the Ts65Dn mouse model of Down syndrome.

Science.gov (United States)

Powers, Brian E; Velazquez, Ramon; Kelley, Christy M; Ash, Jessica A; Strawderman, Myla S; Alldred, Melissa J; Ginsberg, Stephen D; Mufson, Elliott J; Strupp, Barbara J

2016-12-01

Individuals with Down syndrome (DS) exhibit intellectual disability and develop Alzheimer's disease-like neuropathology during the third decade of life. The Ts65Dn mouse model of DS exhibits key features of both disorders, including impairments in learning, attention and memory, as well as atrophy of basal forebrain cholinergic neurons (BFCNs). The present study evaluated attentional function in relation to BFCN morphology in young (3 months) and middle-aged (12 months) Ts65Dn mice and disomic (2N) controls. Ts65Dn mice exhibited attentional dysfunction at both ages, with greater impairment in older trisomics. Density of BFCNs was significantly lower for Ts65Dn mice independent of age, which may contribute to attentional dysfunction since BFCN density was positively associated with performance on an attention task. BFCN volume decreased with age in 2N but not Ts65Dn mice. Paradoxically, BFCN volume was greater in older trisomic mice, suggestive of a compensatory response. In sum, attentional dysfunction occurred in both young and middle-aged Ts65Dn mice, which may in part reflect reduced density and/or phenotypic alterations in BFCNs.

Measuring Auditory Selective Attention using Frequency Tagging

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Hari M Bharadwaj

2014-02-01

Full Text Available Frequency tagging of sensory inputs (presenting stimuli that fluctuate periodically at rates to which the cortex can phase lock has been used to study attentional modulation of neural responses to inputs in different sensory modalities. For visual inputs, the visual steady-state response (VSSR at the frequency modulating an attended object is enhanced, while the VSSR to a distracting object is suppressed. In contrast, the effect of attention on the auditory steady-state response (ASSR is inconsistent across studies. However, most auditory studies analyzed results at the sensor level or used only a small number of equivalent current dipoles to fit cortical responses. In addition, most studies of auditory spatial attention used dichotic stimuli (independent signals at the ears rather than more natural, binaural stimuli. Here, we asked whether these methodological choices help explain discrepant results. Listeners attended to one of two competing speech streams, one simulated from the left and one from the right, that were modulated at different frequencies. Using distributed source modeling of magnetoencephalography results, we estimate how spatially directed attention modulates the ASSR in neural regions across the whole brain. Attention enhances the ASSR power at the frequency of the attended stream in the contralateral auditory cortex. The attended-stream modulation frequency also drives phase-locked responses in the left (but not right precentral sulcus (lPCS, a region implicated in control of eye gaze and visual spatial attention. Importantly, this region shows no phase locking to the distracting stream suggesting that the lPCS in engaged in an attention-specific manner. Modeling results that take account of the geometry and phases of the cortical sources phase locked to the two streams (including hemispheric asymmetry of lPCS activity help partly explain why past ASSR studies of auditory spatial attention yield seemingly contradictory

Heavy hadron spectroscopy: A quark model perspective

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Vijande, J.; Valcarce, A.; Caramés, T.F.; Garcilazo, H.

2013-01-01

We present recent results of hadron spectroscopy and hadron–hadron interaction from the perspective of constituent quark models. We pay special attention to the role played by higher order Fock space components in the hadron spectra and the connection of this extension with the hadron–hadron interaction. The main goal of our description is to obtain a coherent understanding of the low-energy hadron phenomenology without enforcing any particular model, to constrain its characteristics and learn about low-energy realization of the theory

Analysis of behavioral and EEG correlatives of attention in the dynamics of recovery of consciousness following severe brain injury

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

E. V. Sharova

2016-01-01

Full Text Available Objective: to determine the behavioral manifestations and electroencephalographic correlates of modality-nonspecific attention using a clinical model of severe brain injury (SBI.Patients and methods. 35 patients with SBI in the dynamics of post-coma recovery of mental activity (a study group and 23 healthy subjects (a control group were examined. The behavioral manifestations of NSA from coma to clear consciousness were analyzed in the patients. Changes in the pattern of EEG and in the indices of its coherence in the presence and activation of different forms of attention (an orienting response to the sound and eye opening; involuntary and voluntary visual forms, by applying specially developed computerized techniques, were investigated. The features of associated with attention changes in interhemispheric EEG coherence (IHC with the data of 3T diffusion tensor tractography of the corpus callosum (CC were compared.Results. Attention disorders were shown to be essential and an «axial disorder» in patients with SBI. There were statistically confirmed qualitative and quantitative differences attention-associated changes in the EEG pattern and IHC in reversible and chronic unconsciousness. The important favorable prognostic sign proved to be reactive changes in interhemispheric EEG relations, including frontal ones characterized by the absence of clear external manifestations of consciousness in the very earliest stages. There was a significant correlation between the preservation of CC tracts (primarily, the rostrum, anterior portion, and splenium and attention-related reactivity of IHC, which reflects the specific, though nonrigid, structural determinacy of the latter.

Loop Corrections to Standard Model fields in inflation

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Chen, Xingang [Institute for Theory and Computation, Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics,60 Garden Street, Cambridge, MA 02138 (United States); Department of Physics, The University of Texas at Dallas,800 W Campbell Rd, Richardson, TX 75080 (United States); Wang, Yi [Department of Physics, The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology,Clear Water Bay, Kowloon, Hong Kong (China); Xianyu, Zhong-Zhi [Center of Mathematical Sciences and Applications, Harvard University,20 Garden Street, Cambridge, MA 02138 (United States)

2016-08-08

We calculate 1-loop corrections to the Schwinger-Keldysh propagators of Standard-Model-like fields of spin-0, 1/2, and 1, with all renormalizable interactions during inflation. We pay special attention to the late-time divergences of loop corrections, and show that the divergences can be resummed into finite results in the late-time limit using dynamical renormalization group method. This is our first step toward studying both the Standard Model and new physics in the primordial universe.

Looking around houses: attention to a model when drawing complex shapes in Williams syndrome and typical development.

Science.gov (United States)

Hudson, Kerry D; Farran, Emily K

2013-09-01

Drawings by individuals with Williams syndrome (WS) typically lack cohesion. The popular hypothesis is that this is a result of excessive focus on local-level detail at the expense of global configuration. In this study, we explored a novel hypothesis that inadequate attention might underpin drawing in WS. WS and typically developing (TD) non-verbal ability matched groups copied and traced a house figure comprised of geometric shapes. The house was presented on a computer screen for 5-s periods and participants pressed a key to re-view the model. Frequency of key-presses indexed the looks to the model. The order that elements were replicated was recorded to assess hierarchisation of elements. If a lack of attention to the model explained poor drawing performance, we expected participants with WS to look less frequently to the model than TD children when copying. If a local-processing preference underpins drawing in WS, more local than global elements would be produced. Results supported the first, but not second hypothesis. The WS group looked to the model infrequently, but global, not local, parts were drawn first, scaffolding local-level details. Both groups adopted a similar order of drawing and tracing of parts, suggesting typical, although delayed strategy-use in the WS group. Additionally both groups drew larger elements of the model before smaller elements, suggested a size-bias when drawing. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Multisensory attention training for treatment of tinnitus.

Science.gov (United States)

Spiegel, D P; Linford, T; Thompson, B; Petoe, M A; Kobayashi, K; Stinear, C M; Searchfield, G D

2015-05-28

Tinnitus is the conscious perception of sound with no physical sound source. Some models of tinnitus pathophysiology suggest that networks associated with attention, memory, distress and multisensory experience are involved in tinnitus perception. The aim of this study was to evaluate whether a multisensory attention training paradigm which used audio, visual, and somatosensory stimulation would reduce tinnitus. Eighteen participants with predominantly unilateral chronic tinnitus were randomized between two groups receiving 20 daily sessions of either integration (attempting to reduce salience to tinnitus by binding with multisensory stimuli) or attention diversion (multisensory stimuli opposite side to tinnitus) training. The training resulted in small but statistically significant reductions in Tinnitus Functional Index and Tinnitus Severity Numeric Scale scores and improved attentional abilities. No statistically significant improvements in tinnitus were found between the training groups. This study demonstrated that a short period of multisensory attention training reduced unilateral tinnitus, but directing attention toward or away from the tinnitus side did not differentiate this effect.

Behavioral and genetic evidence for a novel animal model of Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder Predominantly Inattentive Subtype

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Zhang-James Y

2008-12-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background According to DSM-IV there are three subtypes of Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder, namely: ADHD predominantly inattentive type (ADHD-PI, ADHD predominantly Hyperactive-Impulsive Type (ADHD-HI, and ADHD combined type (ADHD-C. These subtypes may represent distinct neurobehavioral disorders of childhood onset with separate etiologies. The diagnosis of ADHD is behaviorally based; therefore, investigations into its possible etiologies should be based in behavior. Animal models of ADHD demonstrate construct validity when they accurately reproduce elements of the etiology, biochemistry, symptoms, and treatment of the disorder. Spontaneously hypertensive rats (SHR fulfill many of the validation criteria and compare well with clinical cases of ADHD-C. The present study describes a novel rat model of the predominantly inattentive subtype (ADHD-PI. Methods ADHD-like behavior was tested with a visual discrimination task measuring overactivity, impulsiveness and inattentiveness. Several strains with varied genetic background were needed to determine what constitutes a normal comparison. Five groups of rats were used: SHR/NCrl spontaneously hypertensive and WKY/NCrl Wistar/Kyoto rats from Charles River; SD/NTac Sprague Dawley and WH/HanTac Wistar rats from Taconic Europe; and WKY/NHsd Wistar/Kyoto rats from Harlan. DNA was analyzed to determine background differences in the strains by PCR genotyping of eight highly polymorphic microsatellite markers and 2625 single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs. Results Compared to appropriate comparison strains (WKY/NHsd and SD/NTac rats, SHR/NCrl showed ADHD-C-like behavior: striking overactivity and poor sustained attention. Compared to WKY/NHsd rats, WKY/NCrl rats showed inattention, but no overactivity or impulsiveness. WH/HanTac rats deviated significantly from the other control groups by being more active and less attentive than the WKY/NHsd and SD/NTac rats. We also found substantial

Attention modulates visual size adaptation.

Science.gov (United States)

Kreutzer, Sylvia; Fink, Gereon R; Weidner, Ralph

2015-01-01

The current study determined in healthy subjects (n = 16) whether size adaptation occurs at early, i.e., preattentive, levels of processing or whether higher cognitive processes such as attention can modulate the illusion. To investigate this issue, bottom-up stimulation was kept constant across conditions by using a single adaptation display containing both small and large adapter stimuli. Subjects' attention was directed to either the large or small adapter stimulus by means of a luminance detection task. When attention was directed toward the small as compared to the large adapter, the perceived size of the subsequent target was significantly increased. Data suggest that different size adaptation effects can be induced by one and the same stimulus depending on the current allocation of attention. This indicates that size adaptation is subject to attentional modulation. These findings are in line with previous research showing that transient as well as sustained attention modulates visual features, such as contrast sensitivity and spatial frequency, and influences adaptation in other contexts, such as motion adaptation (Alais & Blake, 1999; Lankheet & Verstraten, 1995). Based on a recently suggested model (Pooresmaeili, Arrighi, Biagi, & Morrone, 2013), according to which perceptual adaptation is based on local excitation and inhibition in V1, we conclude that guiding attention can boost these local processes in one or the other direction by increasing the weight of the attended adapter. In sum, perceptual adaptation, although reflected in changes of neural activity at early levels (as shown in the aforementioned study), is nevertheless subject to higher-order modulation.

A Developmental Neuroscience Perspective on Affect-Biased Attention

Science.gov (United States)

Morales, Santiago; Fu, Xiaoxue; Pérez-Edgar, Koraly E.

2016-01-01

There is growing interest regarding the impact of affect-biased attention on psychopathology. However, most of the research to date lacks a developmental approach. In the present review, we examine the role affect-biased attention plays in shaping socioemotional trajectories within a developmental neuroscience framework. We propose that affect-biased attention, particularly if stable and entrenched, acts as a developmental tether that helps sustain early socioemotional and behavioral profiles over time, placing some individuals on maladaptive developmental trajectories. Although most of the evidence is found in the anxiety literature, we suggest that these relations may operate across multiple domains of interest, including positive affect, externalizing behaviors, drug use, and eating behaviors. We also review the general mechanisms and neural correlates of affect-biased attention, as well as the current evidence for the co-development of attention and affect. Based on the reviewed literature, we propose a model that may help us better understand the nuances of affect-biased attention across development. The model may serve as a strong foundation for ongoing attempts to identify neurocognitive mechanisms and intervene with individuals at risk. Finally, we discuss open issues for future research that may help bridge existing gaps in the literature. PMID:27606972

Evaluation of a neurodevelopmental model of schizophrenia--early postnatal PCP treatment in attentional set-shifting

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Broberg, Brian Villumsen; Dias, Rebecca; Glenthøj, Birte Yding

2008-01-01

Phencyclidine (PCP) was administered to male and female Lister hooded rats on postnatal days (PND) 7, 9 and 11. All PCP animals tested in adulthood (PND 53-93) showed deficits in cognitive flexibility, specifically in their ability to shift attentional set, compared to controls. This novel finding...... is reminiscent of the impairment observed in schizophrenia patients, and supports the validity of the early postnatal PCP regimen as a disease-like model....

Generating a taxonomy of spatially cued attention for visual discrimination: Effects of judgment precision and set size on attention

Science.gov (United States)

Hetley, Richard; Dosher, Barbara Anne; Lu, Zhong-Lin

2014-01-01

Attention precues improve the performance of perceptual tasks in many but not all circumstances. These spatial attention effects may depend upon display set size or workload, and have been variously attributed to external noise filtering, stimulus enhancement, contrast gain, or response gain, or to uncertainty or other decision effects. In this study, we document systematically different effects of spatial attention in low- and high-precision judgments, with and without external noise, and in different set sizes in order to contribute to the development of a taxonomy of spatial attention. An elaborated perceptual template model (ePTM) provides an integrated account of a complex set of effects of spatial attention with just two attention factors: a set-size dependent exclusion or filtering of external noise and a narrowing of the perceptual template to focus on the signal stimulus. These results are related to the previous literature by classifying the judgment precision and presence of external noise masks in those experiments, suggesting a taxonomy of spatially cued attention in discrimination accuracy. PMID:24939234

Generating a taxonomy of spatially cued attention for visual discrimination: effects of judgment precision and set size on attention.

Science.gov (United States)

Hetley, Richard; Dosher, Barbara Anne; Lu, Zhong-Lin

2014-11-01

Attention precues improve the performance of perceptual tasks in many but not all circumstances. These spatial attention effects may depend upon display set size or workload, and have been variously attributed to external noise filtering, stimulus enhancement, contrast gain, or response gain, or to uncertainty or other decision effects. In this study, we document systematically different effects of spatial attention in low- and high-precision judgments, with and without external noise, and in different set sizes in order to contribute to the development of a taxonomy of spatial attention. An elaborated perceptual template model (ePTM) provides an integrated account of a complex set of effects of spatial attention with just two attention factors: a set-size dependent exclusion or filtering of external noise and a narrowing of the perceptual template to focus on the signal stimulus. These results are related to the previous literature by classifying the judgment precision and presence of external noise masks in those experiments, suggesting a taxonomy of spatially cued attention in discrimination accuracy.

Special Issue on Using Econometrics for Assessing Economic Models

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Juselius, Katarina

2009-01-01

Two methodological approaches to empirical economics which are labelled ‘theory first' versus ‘reality first' are introduced building the background for the discussion of the individual contributions to this special issue.......Two methodological approaches to empirical economics which are labelled ‘theory first' versus ‘reality first' are introduced building the background for the discussion of the individual contributions to this special issue....

Realized GARCH: A Complete Model of Returns and Realized Measures of Volatility

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Hansen, Peter Reinhard; Huang, Zhuo (Albert); Shek, Howard Howan

GARCH models have been successful in modeling financial returns. Still, much is to be gained by incorporating a realized measure of volatility in these models. In this paper we introduce a new framework for the joint modeling of returns and realized measures of volatility. The Realized GARCH...... framework nests most GARCH models as special cases and is, in many ways, a natural extension of standard GARCH models. We pay special attention to linear and log-linear Realized GARCH specifications. This class of models has several attractive features. It retains the simplicity and tractability...... to latent volatility. This equation facilitates a simple modeling of the dependence between returns and future volatility that is commonly referred to as the leverage effect. An empirical application with DJIA stocks and an exchange traded index fund shows that a simple Realized GARCH structure leads...

Dissociable attentional and affective circuits in medication-naïve children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder.

Science.gov (United States)

Posner, Jonathan; Rauh, Virginia; Gruber, Allison; Gat, Inbal; Wang, Zhishun; Peterson, Bradley S

2013-07-30

Current neurocognitive models of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) suggest that neural circuits involving both attentional and affective processing make independent contributions to the phenomenology of the disorder. However, a clear dissociation of attentional and affective circuits and their behavioral correlates has yet to be shown in medication-naïve children with ADHD. Using resting-state functional connectivity MRI (rs-fcMRI) in a cohort of medication naïve children with (N=22) and without (N=20) ADHD, we demonstrate that children with ADHD have reduced connectivity in two neural circuits: one underlying executive attention (EA) and the other emotional regulation (ER). We also demonstrate a double dissociation between these two neural circuits and their behavioral correlates such that reduced connectivity in the EA circuit correlates with executive attention deficits but not with emotional lability, while on the other hand, reduced connectivity in the ER circuit correlates with emotional lability but not with executive attention deficits. These findings suggest potential avenues for future research such as examining treatment effects on these two neural circuits as well as the potential prognostic and developmental significance of disturbances in one circuit vs the other. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

A cognitive-perceptual model of symptom perception in males and females: the roles of negative affect, selective attention, health anxiety and psychological job demands.

Science.gov (United States)

Goodwin, Laura; Fairclough, Stephen H; Poole, Helen M

2013-06-01

Kolk et al.'s model of symptom perception underlines the effects of trait negative affect, selective attention and external stressors. The current study tested this model in 263 males and 498 females from an occupational sample. Trait negative affect was associated with symptom reporting in females only, and selective attention and psychological job demands were associated with symptom reporting in both genders. Health anxiety was associated with symptom reporting in males only. Future studies might consider the inclusion of selective attention, which was more strongly associated with symptom reporting than negative affect. Psychological job demands appear to influence symptom reporting in both males and females.

Bayesian accounts of covert selective attention: A tutorial review.

Science.gov (United States)

Vincent, Benjamin T

2015-05-01

Decision making and optimal observer models offer an important theoretical approach to the study of covert selective attention. While their probabilistic formulation allows quantitative comparison to human performance, the models can be complex and their insights are not always immediately apparent. Part 1 establishes the theoretical appeal of the Bayesian approach, and introduces the way in which probabilistic approaches can be applied to covert search paradigms. Part 2 presents novel formulations of Bayesian models of 4 important covert attention paradigms, illustrating optimal observer predictions over a range of experimental manipulations. Graphical model notation is used to present models in an accessible way and Supplementary Code is provided to help bridge the gap between model theory and practical implementation. Part 3 reviews a large body of empirical and modelling evidence showing that many experimental phenomena in the domain of covert selective attention are a set of by-products. These effects emerge as the result of observers conducting Bayesian inference with noisy sensory observations, prior expectations, and knowledge of the generative structure of the stimulus environment.

Visual attention spreads broadly but selects information locally.

Science.gov (United States)

Shioiri, Satoshi; Honjyo, Hajime; Kashiwase, Yoshiyuki; Matsumiya, Kazumichi; Kuriki, Ichiro

2016-10-19

Visual attention spreads over a range around the focus as the spotlight metaphor describes. Spatial spread of attentional enhancement and local selection/inhibition are crucial factors determining the profile of the spatial attention. Enhancement and ignorance/suppression are opposite effects of attention, and appeared to be mutually exclusive. Yet, no unified view of the factors has been provided despite their necessity for understanding the functions of spatial attention. This report provides electroencephalographic and behavioral evidence for the attentional spread at an early stage and selection/inhibition at a later stage of visual processing. Steady state visual evoked potential showed broad spatial tuning whereas the P3 component of the event related potential showed local selection or inhibition of the adjacent areas. Based on these results, we propose a two-stage model of spatial attention with broad spread at an early stage and local selection at a later stage.

Initial and final estimates of the Bilinear seasonal time series model ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

In getting the estimates of the parameters of this model special attention was paid to the problem of having good initial estimates as it is proposed that with good initial values of the parameters the estimates obtaining by the Newton-Raphson iterative technique usually not only converge but also are good estimates.

Selective Attention and Attention Switching: Towards a Unified Developmental Approach

Science.gov (United States)

Hanania, Rima; Smith, Linda B.

2010-01-01

We review and relate two literatures on the development of attention in children: one concerning flexible attention switching and the other concerning selective attention. The first is a growing literature on preschool children's performances in an attention-switching task indicating that children become more flexible in their attentional control…

A human visual model-based approach of the visual attention and performance evaluation

Science.gov (United States)

Le Meur, Olivier; Barba, Dominique; Le Callet, Patrick; Thoreau, Dominique

2005-03-01

In this paper, a coherent computational model of visual selective attention for color pictures is described and its performances are precisely evaluated. The model based on some important behaviours of the human visual system is composed of four parts: visibility, perception, perceptual grouping and saliency map construction. This paper focuses mainly on its performances assessment by achieving extended subjective and objective comparisons with real fixation points captured by an eye-tracking system used by the observers in a task-free viewing mode. From the knowledge of the ground truth, qualitatively and quantitatively comparisons have been made in terms of the measurement of the linear correlation coefficient (CC) and of the Kulback Liebler divergence (KL). On a set of 10 natural color images, the results show that the linear correlation coefficient and the Kullback Leibler divergence are of about 0.71 and 0.46, respectively. CC and Kl measures with this model are respectively improved by about 4% and 7% compared to the best model proposed by L.Itti. Moreover, by comparing the ability of our model to predict eye movements produced by an average observer, we can conclude that our model succeeds quite well in predicting the spatial locations of the most important areas of the image content.

Quantum Hall conductivity in a Landau type model with a realistic geometry

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Chandelier, F.; Georgelin, Y.; Masson, T.; Wallet, J.-C.

2003-01-01

In this paper, we revisit some quantum mechanical aspects related to the quantum Hall effect. We consider a Landau type model, paying a special attention to the experimental and geometrical features of quantum Hall experiments. The resulting formalism is then used to compute explicitly the Hall conductivity from a Kubo formula

Beacon satellite studies and modelling of total electron contents of the ionosphere

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Tyagi, T.R.

1990-01-01

An attempt is made to highlight some of the beacon satellite studies, particularly those relating to total electron content (TEC) and scintillations, with special attention to Indian subcontinent observations. The modelling of TEC is described. The scope of new experiments for specific problem is indicated. (author). 78 refs., 12 figs

Cognitive programs: Software for attention's executive

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

John K Tsotsos

2014-11-01

Full Text Available What are the computational tasks that an executive controller for visual attention must solve? This question is posed in the context of the Selective Tuning model of attention. The range of required computations go beyond top-down bias signals or region-of-interest determinations, and must deal with overt and covert fixations, process timing and synchronization, information routing, memory, matching control to task, spatial localization, priming, and coordination of bottom-up with top-down information. During task execution, results must be monitored to ensure the expected results. This description includes the kinds of elements that are common in the control of any kind of complex machine or system. We seek a mechanistic integration of the above, in other words, algorithms that accomplish control. Such algorithms operate on representations, transforming a representation of one kind into another, which then forms the input to yet another algorithm. Cognitive Programs (CPs are hypothesized to capture exactly such representational transformations via stepwise sequences of operations. CPs, an updated and modernized offspring of Ullman's Visual Routines, impose an algorithmic structure to the set of attentional functions and play a role in the overall shaping of attentional modulation of the visual system so that it provides its best performance. This requires that we consider the visual system as a dynamic, yet general-purpose processor tuned to the task and input of the moment. This differs dramatically from the almost universal cognitive and computational views, which regard vision as a passively observing module to which simple questions about percepts can be posed, regardless of task. Differing from Visual Routines, CPs explicitly involve the critical elements of Visual Task Executive, Visual Attention Executive, and Visual Working Memory. Cognitive Programs provide the software that directs the actions of the Selective Tuning model of visual

Attentional bias modification encourages healthy eating.

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Kakoschke, Naomi; Kemps, Eva; Tiggemann, Marika

2014-01-01

The continual exposure to unhealthy food cues in the environment encourages poor dietary habits, in particular consuming too much fat and sugar, and not enough fruit and vegetables. According to Berridge's (2009) model of food reward, unhealthy eating is a behavioural response to biased attentional processing. The present study used an established attentional bias modification paradigm to discourage the consumption of unhealthy food and instead promote healthy eating. Participants were 146 undergraduate women who were randomly assigned to two groups: one was trained to direct their attention toward pictures of healthy food ('attend healthy' group) and the other toward unhealthy food ('attend unhealthy' group). It was found that participants trained to attend to healthy food cues demonstrated an increased attentional bias for such cues and ate relatively more of the healthy than unhealthy snacks compared to the 'attend unhealthy' group. Theoretically, the results support the postulated link between biased attentional processing and consumption (Berridge, 2009). At a practical level, they offer potential scope for interventions that focus on eating well. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Spatially tuned normalization explains attention modulation variance within neurons.

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Ni, Amy M; Maunsell, John H R

2017-09-01

Spatial attention improves perception of attended parts of a scene, a behavioral enhancement accompanied by modulations of neuronal firing rates. These modulations vary in size across neurons in the same brain area. Models of normalization explain much of this variance in attention modulation with differences in tuned normalization across neurons (Lee J, Maunsell JHR. PLoS One 4: e4651, 2009; Ni AM, Ray S, Maunsell JHR. Neuron 73: 803-813, 2012). However, recent studies suggest that normalization tuning varies with spatial location both across and within neurons (Ruff DA, Alberts JJ, Cohen MR. J Neurophysiol 116: 1375-1386, 2016; Verhoef BE, Maunsell JHR. eLife 5: e17256, 2016). Here we show directly that attention modulation and normalization tuning do in fact covary within individual neurons, in addition to across neurons as previously demonstrated. We recorded the activity of isolated neurons in the middle temporal area of two rhesus monkeys as they performed a change-detection task that controlled the focus of spatial attention. Using the same two drifting Gabor stimuli and the same two receptive field locations for each neuron, we found that switching which stimulus was presented at which location affected both attention modulation and normalization in a correlated way within neurons. We present an equal-maximum-suppression spatially tuned normalization model that explains this covariance both across and within neurons: each stimulus generates equally strong suppression of its own excitatory drive, but its suppression of distant stimuli is typically less. This new model specifies how the tuned normalization associated with each stimulus location varies across space both within and across neurons, changing our understanding of the normalization mechanism and how attention modulations depend on this mechanism. NEW & NOTEWORTHY Tuned normalization studies have demonstrated that the variance in attention modulation size seen across neurons from the same cortical

Attentional control of associative learning--a possible role of the central cholinergic system.

Science.gov (United States)

Pauli, Wolfgang M; O'Reilly, Randall C

2008-04-02

How does attention interact with learning? Kruschke [Kruschke, J.K. (2001). Toward a unified Model of Attention in Associative Learning. J. Math. Psychol. 45, 812-863.] proposed a model (EXIT) that captures Mackintosh's [Mackintosh, N.J. (1975). A theory of attention: Variations in the associability of stimuli with reinforcement. Psychological Review, 82(4), 276-298.] framework for attentional modulation of associative learning. We developed a computational model that showed analogous interactions between selective attention and associative learning, but is significantly simplified and, in contrast to EXIT, is motivated by neurophysiological findings. Competition among input representations in the internal representation layer, which increases the contrast between stimuli, is critical for simulating these interactions in human behavior. Furthermore, this competition is modulated in a way that might be consistent with the phasic activation of the central cholinergic system, which modulates activity in sensory cortices. Specifically, phasic increases in acetylcholine can cause increased excitability of both pyramidal excitatory neurons in cortical layers II/III and cortical GABAergic inhibitory interneurons targeting the same pyramidal neurons. These effects result in increased attentional contrast in our model. This model thus represents an initial attempt to link human attentional learning data with underlying neural substrates.

Exogenous (automatic) attention to emotional stimuli: a review.

Science.gov (United States)

Carretié, Luis

2014-12-01

Current knowledge on the architecture of exogenous attention (also called automatic, bottom-up, or stimulus-driven attention, among other terms) has been mainly obtained from studies employing neutral, anodyne stimuli. Since, from an evolutionary perspective, exogenous attention can be understood as an adaptive tool for rapidly detecting salient events, reorienting processing resources to them, and enhancing processing mechanisms, emotional events (which are, by definition, salient for the individual) would seem crucial to a comprehensive understanding of this process. This review, focusing on the visual modality, describes 55 experiments in which both emotional and neutral irrelevant distractors are presented at the same time as ongoing task targets. Qualitative and, when possible, meta-analytic descriptions of results are provided. The most conspicuous result is that, as confirmed by behavioral and/or neural indices, emotional distractors capture exogenous attention to a significantly greater extent than do neutral distractors. The modulatory effects of the nature of distractors capturing attention, of the ongoing task characteristics, and of individual differences, previously proposed as mediating factors, are also described. Additionally, studies reviewed here provide temporal and spatial information-partially absent in traditional cognitive models-on the neural basis of preattention/evaluation, reorienting, and sensory amplification, the main subprocesses involved in exogenous attention. A model integrating these different levels of information is proposed. The present review, which reveals that there are several key issues for which experimental data are surprisingly scarce, confirms the relevance of including emotional distractors in studies on exogenous attention.

Divisive normalization and neuronal oscillations in a single hierarchical framework of selective visual attention.

Science.gov (United States)

Montijn, Jorrit Steven; Klink, P Christaan; van Wezel, Richard J A

2012-01-01

Divisive normalization models of covert attention commonly use spike rate modulations as indicators of the effect of top-down attention. In addition, an increasing number of studies have shown that top-down attention increases the synchronization of neuronal oscillations as well, particularly in gamma-band frequencies (25-100 Hz). Although modulations of spike rate and synchronous oscillations are not mutually exclusive as mechanisms of attention, there has thus far been little effort to integrate these concepts into a single framework of attention. Here, we aim to provide such a unified framework by expanding the normalization model of attention with a multi-level hierarchical structure and a time dimension; allowing the simulation of a recently reported backward progression of attentional effects along the visual cortical hierarchy. A simple cascade of normalization models simulating different cortical areas is shown to cause signal degradation and a loss of stimulus discriminability over time. To negate this degradation and ensure stable neuronal stimulus representations, we incorporate a kind of oscillatory phase entrainment into our model that has previously been proposed as the "communication-through-coherence" (CTC) hypothesis. Our analysis shows that divisive normalization and oscillation models can complement each other in a unified account of the neural mechanisms of selective visual attention. The resulting hierarchical normalization and oscillation (HNO) model reproduces several additional spatial and temporal aspects of attentional modulation and predicts a latency effect on neuronal responses as a result of cued attention.

Comparative Outcomes of Two Instructional Models for Students with Learning Disabilities: Inclusion with Co-Teaching and Solo-Taught Special Education

Science.gov (United States)

Tremblay, Philippe

2013-01-01

We compared two instructional models (co-teaching inclusion and solo-taught special education) for students with learning disabilities (LD) with regard to their effect on academic achievement and class attendance. Twelve inclusive classes (experimental group) and 13 special education classes (control group) participated in the study. In grade 1,…

Integrating the context-appropriate balanced attention model and reinforcement sensitivity theory: Towards a domain-general personality process model.

Science.gov (United States)

Collins, Michael D; Jackson, Chris J; Walker, Benjamin R; O'Connor, Peter J; Gardiner, Elliroma

2017-01-01

Over the last 40 years or more the personality literature has been dominated by trait models based on the Big Five (B5). Trait-based models describe personality at the between-person level but cannot explain the within-person mental mechanisms responsible for personality. Nor can they adequately account for variations in emotion and behavior experienced by individuals across different situations and over time. An alternative, yet understated, approach to personality architecture can be found in neurobiological theories of personality, most notably reinforcement sensitivity theory (RST). In contrast to static trait-based personality models like the B5, RST provides a more plausible basis for a personality process model, namely, one that explains how emotions and behavior arise from the dynamic interaction between contextual factors and within-person mental mechanisms. In this article, the authors review the evolution of a neurobiologically based personality process model based on RST, the response modulation model and the context-appropriate balanced attention model. They argue that by integrating this complex literature, and by incorporating evidence from personality neuroscience, one can meaningfully explain personality at both the within- and between-person levels. This approach achieves a domain-general architecture based on RST and self-regulation that can be used to align within-person mental mechanisms, neurobiological systems and between-person measurement models. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved).

Modelling inclusive special needs education : Insights from Dutch secondary schools

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Van der Bij, T.; Geijsel, F.P.; Garst, G.J.A.; Ten Dam, G.T.M.

2016-01-01

Inclusive special needs education is prominent on the international education agenda. Research on the characteristics of inclusive education for students with special needs and schools providing this is scarce, however. Our aim in the present study was therefore to further theory-building with

Reduced order methods for modeling and computational reduction

CERN Document Server

Rozza, Gianluigi

2014-01-01

This monograph addresses the state of the art of reduced order methods for modeling and computational reduction of complex parametrized systems, governed by ordinary and/or partial differential equations, with a special emphasis on real time computing techniques and applications in computational mechanics, bioengineering and computer graphics.  Several topics are covered, including: design, optimization, and control theory in real-time with applications in engineering; data assimilation, geometry registration, and parameter estimation with special attention to real-time computing in biomedical engineering and computational physics; real-time visualization of physics-based simulations in computer science; the treatment of high-dimensional problems in state space, physical space, or parameter space; the interactions between different model reduction and dimensionality reduction approaches; the development of general error estimation frameworks which take into account both model and discretization effects. This...

Different Signal Enhancement Pathways of Attention and Consciousness Underlie Perception in Humans.

Science.gov (United States)

van Boxtel, Jeroen J A

2017-06-14

It is not yet known whether attention and consciousness operate through similar or largely different mechanisms. Visual processing mechanisms are routinely characterized by measuring contrast response functions (CRFs). In this report, behavioral CRFs were obtained in humans (both males and females) by measuring afterimage durations over the entire range of inducer stimulus contrasts to reveal visual mechanisms behind attention and consciousness. Deviations relative to the standard CRF, i.e., gain functions, describe the strength of signal enhancement, which were assessed for both changes due to attentional task and conscious perception. It was found that attention displayed a response-gain function, whereas consciousness displayed a contrast-gain function. Through model comparisons, which only included contrast-gain modulations, both contrast-gain and response-gain effects can be explained with a two-level normalization model, in which consciousness affects only the first level and attention affects only the second level. These results demonstrate that attention and consciousness can effectively show different gain functions because they operate through different signal enhancement mechanisms. SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT The relationship between attention and consciousness is still debated. Mapping contrast response functions (CRFs) has allowed (neuro)scientists to gain important insights into the mechanistic underpinnings of visual processing. Here, the influence of both attention and consciousness on these functions were measured and they displayed a strong dissociation. First, attention lowered CRFs, whereas consciousness raised them. Second, attention manifests itself as a response-gain function, whereas consciousness manifests itself as a contrast-gain function. Extensive model comparisons show that these results are best explained in a two-level normalization model in which consciousness affects only the first level, whereas attention affects only the second level

Divisive normalization and neuronal oscillations in a single hierarchical framework of selective visual attention

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Jorrit Steven Montijn

2012-05-01

Full Text Available In divisive normalization models of covert attention, spike rate modulations are commonly used as indicators of the effect of top-down attention. In addition, an increasing number of studies have shown that top-down attention increases the synchronization of neuronal oscillations as well, particularly those in gamma-band frequencies (25 to 100 Hz. Although modulations of spike rate and synchronous oscillations are not mutually exclusive as mechanisms of attention, there has thus far been little effort to integrate these concepts into a single framework of attention. Here, we aim to provide such a unified framework by expanding the normalization model of attention with a time dimension; allowing the simulation of a recently reported backward progression of attentional effects along the visual cortical hierarchy. A simple hierarchical cascade of normalization models simulating different cortical areas however leads to signal degradation and a loss of discriminability over time. To negate this degradation and ensure stable neuronal stimulus representations, we incorporate oscillatory phase entrainment into our model, a mechanism previously proposed as the communication-through-coherence (CTC hypothesis. Our analysis shows that divisive normalization and oscillation models can complement each other in a unified account of the neural mechanisms of selective visual attention. The resulting hierarchical normalization and oscillation (HNO model reproduces several additional spatial and temporal aspects of attentional modulation.