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Kaliuzhna M, Stein T, Sterzer P, Seymour KJ. Examining motion speed processing in schizophrenia using the flash lag illusion. Schizophr Res Cogn 2019; 19:100165. [PMID: 31832345 PMCID: PMC6890935 DOI: 10.1016/j.scog.2019.100165] [Citation(s) in RCA: 7] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.4] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/26/2019] [Revised: 09/23/2019] [Accepted: 09/26/2019] [Indexed: 01/29/2023]
Abstract
Research on visual perception in schizophrenia suggests a deficit in motion processing. Specifically, difficulties with discriminating motion speed are commonly reported. However, speed discrimination tasks typically require participants to make judgments about the difference between two stimuli in a two-interval forced choice (2IFC) task. Such tasks not only tap into speed processing mechanisms, but also rely on higher executive functioning including working memory and attention which has been shown to be compromised in schizophrenia. We used the Flash Lag illusion to examine speed processing in patients with schizophrenia. Based on previous research showing a strong dependence between motion speed and the illusion magnitude, we expected a deficit in speed processing to alter this relationship. A motion processing deficit in patients would also predict overall reductions in perceived lag. We found the magnitude and speed dependence of the Flash Lag illusion to be similar in patients and controls. Together, the findings suggest no general abnormality in motion speed processing in schizophrenia.
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Affiliation(s)
- Mariia Kaliuzhna
- Clinical and Experimental Psychopathology Group, Department of Psychiatry, University of Geneva, Switzerland
| | - Timo Stein
- Department of Psychology, University of Amsterdam, Netherlands
| | - Philipp Sterzer
- Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, Campus Charité Mitte, Charité Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Germany.,Berlin School of Mind and Brain, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Germany
| | - Kiley J Seymour
- School of Psychology, The MARCS Institute for Brain, Behaviour and Development, Translational Health Research Institute, Western Sydney University, New South Wales, Australia
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Abstract
Several studies have investigated perceptual processes in patients with schizophrenia. Research confirms that visual impairments are one of the most important features of schizophrenia. Many studies, using behavioral and psychological experiments, confirm that visual impairments can be used to determine illness severity, state, and best treatments. Herein, we review recent research pertaining to visual function in patients with schizophrenia and highlight the relationship between laboratory findings and subjective, real-life reports from patients themselves. The purpose of this review is to 1) describe visual impairments that manifest in patients with schizophrenia, 2) examine the relationship between visual dysfunction, assessed by laboratory tests, and the experiences of patients themselves, and 3) describe real-life experiences related to visual function in this population. In this review, the impairments of motion and color perception, perceptual organization, and scan paths are summarized, along with the relationship between laboratory findings and patients' real-world subjective experiences related to visual function.
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Affiliation(s)
- Tomohiro Kogata
- Department of Physical and Occupational Therapy, Nagoya University, Nagoya, Japan
| | - Tetsuya Iidaka
- Department of Physical and Occupational Therapy, Nagoya University, Nagoya, Japan.,Brain & Mind Research Center, Nagoya University, Nagoya, Japan
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Abstract
An experiment required younger and older adults to estimate coherent visual motion direction from multiple motion signals, where each motion signal was locally ambiguous with respect to the true direction of pattern motion. Thus, accurate performance required the successful integration of motion signals across space (i.e., accurate performance required solution of the aperture problem) . The observers viewed arrays of either 64 or 9 moving line segments; because these lines moved behind apertures, their individual local motions were ambiguous with respect to direction (i.e., were subject to the aperture problem). Following 2.4 seconds of pattern motion on each trial (true motion directions ranged over the entire range of 360° in the fronto-parallel plane), the observers estimated the coherent direction of motion. There was an effect of direction, such that cardinal directions of pattern motion were judged with less error than oblique directions. In addition, a large effect of aging occurred—The average absolute errors of the older observers were 46% and 30.4% higher in magnitude than those exhibited by the younger observers for the 64 and 9 aperture conditions, respectively. Finally, the observers’ precision markedly deteriorated as the number of apertures was reduced from 64 to 9.
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Affiliation(s)
- Lindsey M. Shain
- Department of Psychological Sciences, Ogden College of Science and Engineering, Western Kentucky University, Bowling Green, KY, USA
| | - J. Farley Norman
- Department of Psychological Sciences, Ogden College of Science and Engineering, Western Kentucky University, Bowling Green, KY, USA
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4
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Abstract
Perception operates on an immense amount of incoming information that greatly exceeds the brain's processing capacity. Because of this fundamental limitation, the ability to suppress irrelevant information is a key determinant of perceptual efficiency. Here, I will review a series of studies investigating suppressive mechanisms in visual motion processing, namely perceptual suppression of large, background-like motions. These spatial suppression mechanisms are adaptive, operating only when sensory inputs are sufficiently robust to guarantee visibility. Converging correlational and causal evidence links these behavioral results with inhibitory center-surround mechanisms, namely those in cortical area MT. Spatial suppression is abnormally weak in several special populations, including the elderly and individuals with schizophrenia-a deficit that is evidenced by better-than-normal direction discriminations of large moving stimuli. Theoretical work shows that this abnormal weakening of spatial suppression should result in motion segregation deficits, but direct behavioral support of this hypothesis is lacking. Finally, I will argue that the ability to suppress information is a fundamental neural process that applies not only to perception but also to cognition in general. Supporting this argument, I will discuss recent research that shows individual differences in spatial suppression of motion signals strongly predict individual variations in IQ scores.
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Affiliation(s)
- Duje Tadin
- Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, University of Rochester, Rochester, NY 14627, USA; Center for Visual Science, University of Rochester, Rochester, NY 14627, USA; Department of Ophthalmology, University of Rochester School of Medicine, Rochester, NY 14642, USA.
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5
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Abstract
BACKGROUND Schizophrenia has been characterized by an impaired attribution of intentions in social interactions. However, it remains unclear to what extent poor performance may be due to low-level processes or to later, higher-level stages or to what extent the deficit reflects an over- (hypermentalization) or underattribution of intentions (hypomentalization). METHODS We evaluated intentional motion perception using a chasing detection paradigm in individuals with schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder and in healthy controls while eye movements were recorded. Smooth pursuit was measured as a control task. Eye-tracking was used to dissociate ocular from cognitive stages of processing. RESULTS We included 27 patients with schizophrenia, 2 with schizoaffective disorder and 29 controls in our analysis. As a group, patients had lower sensitivity to the detection of chasing than controls, but showed no bias toward the chasing present response. Patients showed a slightly different visual exploration strategy, which affected their ocular sensitivity to chasing. They also showed a decreased cognitive sensitivity to chasing that was not explained by differences in smooth pursuit ability, in visual exploration strategy or in general cognitive abilities. LIMITATIONS It is not clear whether the deficit in intentional motion detection demonstrated in this study might be explained by a general deficit in motion perception in individuals with schizophrenia or whether it is specific to the social domain. CONCLUSION Participants with schizophrenia showed a hypomentalization deficit: they adopted suboptimal visual exploration strategies and had difficulties deciding whether a chase was present or not, even when their eye movement revealed that chasing information had been seen correctly.
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Affiliation(s)
- Paul Roux
- Correspondence to: P. Roux, Service Universitaire de Psychiatrie d’adultes, Centre Hospitalier de Versailles, 177 rue de Versailles, 78157 Le Chesnay, France;
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Tibber MS, Anderson EJ, Bobin T, Carlin P, Shergill SS, Dakin SC. Local and global limits on visual processing in schizophrenia. PLoS One 2015; 10:e0117951. [PMID: 25689281 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0117951] [Citation(s) in RCA: 23] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.6] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/20/2014] [Accepted: 01/05/2015] [Indexed: 11/30/2022] Open
Abstract
Schizophrenia has been linked to impaired performance on a range of visual processing tasks (e.g. detection of coherent motion and contour detection). It has been proposed that this is due to a general inability to integrate visual information at a global level. To test this theory, we assessed the performance of people with schizophrenia on a battery of tasks designed to probe voluntary averaging in different visual domains. Twenty-three outpatients with schizophrenia (mean age: 40±8 years; 3 female) and 20 age-matched control participants (mean age 39±9 years; 3 female) performed a motion coherence task and three equivalent noise (averaging) tasks, the latter allowing independent quantification of local and global limits on visual processing of motion, orientation and size. All performance measures were indistinguishable between the two groups (ps>0.05, one-way ANCOVAs), with one exception: participants with schizophrenia pooled fewer estimates of local orientation than controls when estimating average orientation (p = 0.01, one-way ANCOVA). These data do not support the notion of a generalised visual integration deficit in schizophrenia. Instead, they suggest that distinct visual dimensions are differentially affected in schizophrenia, with a specific impairment in the integration of visual orientation information.
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McCourt ME, Leone LM, Blakeslee B. Brightness induction and suprathreshold vision: effects of age and visual field. Vision Res 2014; 106:36-46. [PMID: 25462024 DOI: 10.1016/j.visres.2014.10.028] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/07/2014] [Revised: 10/05/2014] [Accepted: 10/30/2014] [Indexed: 10/24/2022]
Abstract
A variety of visual capacities show significant age-related alterations. We assessed suprathreshold contrast and brightness perception across the lifespan in a large sample of healthy participants (N=155; 142) ranging in age from 16 to 80 years. Experiment 1 used a quadrature-phase motion cancelation technique (Blakeslee & McCourt, 2008) to measure canceling contrast (in central vision) for induced gratings at two temporal frequencies (1 Hz and 4 Hz) at two test field heights (0.5° or 2°×38.7°; 0.052 c/d). There was a significant age-related reduction in canceling contrast at 4 Hz, but not at 1 Hz. We find no age-related change in induction magnitude in the 1 Hz condition. We interpret the age-related decline in grating induction magnitude at 4 Hz to reflect a diminished capacity for inhibitory processing at higher temporal frequencies. In Experiment 2 participants adjusted the contrast of a matching grating (0.5° or 2°×38.7°; 0.052 c/d) to equal that of both real (30% contrast, 0.052 c/d) and induced (McCourt, 1982) standard gratings (100% inducing grating contrast; 0.052 c/d). Matching gratings appeared in the upper visual field (UVF) and test gratings appeared in the lower visual field (LVF), and vice versa, at eccentricities of ±7.5°. Average induction magnitude was invariant with age for both test field heights. There was a significant age-related reduction in perceived contrast of stimuli in the LVF versus UVF for both real and induced gratings.
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Affiliation(s)
- Mark E McCourt
- Center for Visual and Cognitive Neuroscience, Department of Psychology, North Dakota State University, Fargo, ND 58108, USA.
| | - Lynnette M Leone
- Center for Visual and Cognitive Neuroscience, Department of Psychology, North Dakota State University, Fargo, ND 58108, USA
| | - Barbara Blakeslee
- Center for Visual and Cognitive Neuroscience, Department of Psychology, North Dakota State University, Fargo, ND 58108, USA
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Shivakumar V, Kalmady SV, Venkatasubramanian G, Ravi V, Gangadhar BN. Do schizophrenia patients age early? Asian J Psychiatr 2014; 10:3-9. [PMID: 25042944 DOI: 10.1016/j.ajp.2014.02.007] [Citation(s) in RCA: 20] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Submit a Manuscript] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/01/2013] [Revised: 02/17/2014] [Accepted: 02/22/2014] [Indexed: 11/20/2022]
Abstract
The etiopathogenesis of schizophrenia is poorly understood. Within the proposed "neurodegeneration paradigm", observations have been put forth for "accelerated aging" in this disorder. This proposition is largely based on the neuroscience research that demonstrates progressive changes in brain as well as other systemic abnormalities supportive of faster aging process in patients with this disorder. In this review, we have summarized the literature related to the concept of early aging in schizophrenia. These studies include P300 abnormalities & visual motion discrimination, neuroimaging findings, telomere dynamics as well as neuropathology of related brain regions. We also propose a role of vitamin D, neuroimmunological changes and elevated oxidative stress as well as mitochondrial dysfunction in addition to the above factors with 'vitamin-D deficiency' as the central paradox. Put together, the evidence supporting early aging in schizophrenia is compelling and this requires further systematic studies.
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Norman JF, Cheeseman JR, Pyles J, Baxter MW, Thomason KE, Calloway AB. The effect of age upon the perception of 3-D shape from motion. Vision Res 2013; 93:54-61. [DOI: 10.1016/j.visres.2013.10.012] [Citation(s) in RCA: 15] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.4] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/25/2013] [Revised: 10/01/2013] [Accepted: 10/04/2013] [Indexed: 11/17/2022]
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Mateus C, Lemos R, Silva MF, Reis A, Fonseca P, Oliveiros B, Castelo-Branco M. Aging of low and high level vision: from chromatic and achromatic contrast sensitivity to local and 3D object motion perception. PLoS One 2013; 8:e55348. [PMID: 23383163 PMCID: PMC3561289 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0055348] [Citation(s) in RCA: 19] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/09/2012] [Accepted: 12/30/2012] [Indexed: 11/19/2022] Open
Abstract
The influence of normal aging in early, intermediate and high-level visual processing is still poorly understood. We have addressed this important issue in a large cohort of 653 subjects divided into five distinct age groups, [20;30[, [30;40[, [40;50[, [50;60[and [60;[. We applied a broad range of psychophysical tests, testing distinct levels of the visual hierarchy, from local processing to global integration, using simple gratings (spatial contrast sensitivity -CS- using high temporal/low spatial frequency or intermediate spatial frequency static gratings), color CS using Landolt patches, moving dot stimuli (Local Speed Discrimination) and dot patterns defining 3D objects (3D Structure from Motion, 3D SFM). Aging data were fitted with linear or quadratic regression models, using the adjusted coefficient of determination (R2a) to quantify the effect of aging. A significant effect of age was found on all visual channels tested, except for the red-green chromatic channel. The high temporal low spatial frequency contrast sensitivity channel showed a mean sensitivity loss of 0.75 dB per decade (R2a = 0.17, p<0.001), while the lower intermediate spatial frequency channel showed a more pronounced decrease, around 2.35 dB (R2a = 0.55, p<0.001). Concerning low-level motion perception, speed discrimination decreased 2.71°/s (R2a = 0.18, p<0.001) and 3.15°/s (R2a = 0.13, p<0.001) only for short presentations for horizontal and oblique meridians, respectively. The 3D SFM task, requiring high-level integration across dorsal and ventral streams, showed the strongest (quadratic) decrease of motion coherence perception with age, especially when the task was temporally constrained (R2a = 0.54, p<0.001). These findings show that visual channels are influenced by aging into different extent, with time presenting a critical role, and high-level dorso-ventral dominance of deterioration, which accelerates with aging, in contrast to the other channels that show a linear pattern of deterioration.
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Affiliation(s)
- Catarina Mateus
- Visual Neuroscience Laboratory, IBILI, Faculty of Medicine, Coimbra, Portugal
| | - Raquel Lemos
- Visual Neuroscience Laboratory, IBILI, Faculty of Medicine, Coimbra, Portugal
| | - Maria Fátima Silva
- Visual Neuroscience Laboratory, IBILI, Faculty of Medicine, Coimbra, Portugal
| | - Aldina Reis
- Visual Neuroscience Laboratory, IBILI, Faculty of Medicine, Coimbra, Portugal
- Department of Ophthalmology, University Hospital of Coimbra, Coimbra, Portugal
| | - Pedro Fonseca
- Department of Ophthalmology, University Hospital of Coimbra, Coimbra, Portugal
| | - Bárbara Oliveiros
- Visual Neuroscience Laboratory, IBILI, Faculty of Medicine, Coimbra, Portugal
| | - Miguel Castelo-Branco
- Visual Neuroscience Laboratory, IBILI, Faculty of Medicine, Coimbra, Portugal
- * E-mail:
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12
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Landgraf S, Steingen J, Eppert Y, Niedermeyer U, van der Meer E, Krueger F. Temporal information processing in short- and long-term memory of patients with schizophrenia. PLoS One 2011; 6:e26140. [PMID: 22053182 PMCID: PMC3203868 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0026140] [Citation(s) in RCA: 14] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.1] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/02/2011] [Accepted: 09/20/2011] [Indexed: 11/19/2022] Open
Abstract
Cognitive deficits of patients with schizophrenia have been largely recognized as core symptoms of the disorder. One neglected factor that contributes to these deficits is the comprehension of time. In the present study, we assessed temporal information processing and manipulation from short- and long-term memory in 34 patients with chronic schizophrenia and 34 matched healthy controls. On the short-term memory temporal-order reconstruction task, an incidental or intentional learning strategy was deployed. Patients showed worse overall performance than healthy controls. The intentional learning strategy led to dissociable performance improvement in both groups. Whereas healthy controls improved on a performance measure (serial organization), patients improved on an error measure (inappropriate semantic clustering) when using the intentional instead of the incidental learning strategy. On the long-term memory script-generation task, routine and non-routine events of everyday activities (e.g., buying groceries) had to be generated in either chronological or inverted temporal order. Patients were slower than controls at generating events in the chronological routine condition only. They also committed more sequencing and boundary errors in the inverted conditions. The number of irrelevant events was higher in patients in the chronological, non-routine condition. These results suggest that patients with schizophrenia imprecisely access temporal information from short- and long-term memory. In short-term memory, processing of temporal information led to a reduction in errors rather than, as was the case in healthy controls, to an improvement in temporal-order recall. When accessing temporal information from long-term memory, patients were slower and committed more sequencing, boundary, and intrusion errors. Together, these results suggest that time information can be accessed and processed only imprecisely by patients who provide evidence for impaired time comprehension. This could contribute to symptomatic cognitive deficits and strategic inefficiency in schizophrenia.
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Affiliation(s)
- Steffen Landgraf
- Department of Psychology, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Berlin, Germany
- Inserm-Laboratory of Psychopathology and Mental Diseases, Center for Psychiatry and Neuroscience, U984, Sainte Anne Hospital, Service-Hospitalo Universitaire, Paris, France
| | - Joerg Steingen
- Department of Psychology, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Berlin, Germany
| | - Yvonne Eppert
- Department of Psychology, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Berlin, Germany
| | | | - Elke van der Meer
- Department of Psychology, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Berlin, Germany
| | - Frank Krueger
- Department of Molecular Neuroscience, Krasnow Institute for Advanced Study, George Mason University, Fairfax, Virginia, United States of America
- Department of Psychology, George Mason University, Fairfax, Virginia, United States of America
- * E-mail:
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Abstract
Two experiments evaluated the ability of older and younger adults to perceive the three-dimensional (3D) shape of object surfaces from active touch (haptics). The ages of the older adults ranged from 64 to 84 years, while those of the younger adults ranged from 18 to 27 years. In Experiment 1, the participants haptically judged the shape of large (20 cm diameter) surfaces with an entire hand. In contrast, in Experiment 2, the participants explored the shape of small (5 cm diameter) surfaces with a single finger. The haptic surfaces varied in shape index (Koenderink, Solid shape, 1990; Koenderink, Image and Vision Computing, 10, 557–564, 1992) from −1.0 to +1.0 in steps of 0.25. For both types of surfaces (large and small), the participants were able to judge surface shape reliably. The older participants’ judgments of surface shape were just as accurate and precise as those of the younger participants. The results of the current study demonstrate that while older adults do possess reductions in tactile sensitivity and acuity, they nevertheless can effectively perceive 3D surface shape from haptic exploration.
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Abstract
Motion processing represents a perceptual domain in which dynamic visual information is encoded to support the perception of movement. Research over the last decade has found a variety of abnormalities in the processing of motion information in schizophrenia. The abnormalities span from discrimination of basic motion features (such as speed) to integration of spatially distributed motion signals (such as coherent motion). Motion processing involves visual signals across space and time and thus presents a special opportunity to examine how spatial and temporal information is integrated in the visual system. This article surveys the behavioral and neuroimaging studies that probe into the spatial integration of motion information in schizophrenia. An emerging theme from these studies points to an imbalanced regulation of spatial interaction processes as a potential mechanism mediating different levels of abnormal motion processing in schizophrenia. The synthesis of these mechanism-driven studies suggests that further investigation of the neural basis and functional consequences of this abnormal motion processing are needed in order to render a basic biomarker for assessment and intervention of cognitive dysfunction in this mental disorder.
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Affiliation(s)
- Y. Chen
- To whom correspondence should be addressed. tel: 617-855-3615, fax: 617-855-3611, e-mail:
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15
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O'Connor E, Margrain TH, Freeman TCA. Age, eye movement and motion discrimination. Vision Res 2010; 50:2588-99. [PMID: 20732343 DOI: 10.1016/j.visres.2010.08.015] [Citation(s) in RCA: 8] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.6] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/09/2010] [Revised: 08/12/2010] [Accepted: 08/13/2010] [Indexed: 11/27/2022]
Abstract
Age is known to affect sensitivity to retinal motion. However, little is known about how age might affect sensitivity to motion during pursuit. We therefore investigated direction discrimination and speed discrimination when moving stimuli were either fixated or pursued. Our experiments showed: (1) age influences direction discrimination at slow speeds but has little affect on speed discrimination; (2) the faster eye movements made in the pursuit conditions produced poorer direction discrimination at slower speeds, and poorer speed discrimination at all speeds; (3) regardless of eye-movement condition, observers always combined retinal and extra-retinal motion signals to make their judgements. Our results support the idea that performance in these tasks is limited by the internal noise associated with retinal and extra-retinal motion signals, both of which feed into a stage responsible for estimating head-centred motion. Imprecise eye movement, or later noise introduced at the combination stage, could not explain the results.
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Affiliation(s)
- Emer O'Connor
- School of Psychology, Cardiff University, Tower Building, Park Place, Cardiff CF10 3YT, UK
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Lang B, Zhao L, Cai L, Mckie L, Forrester JV, Mccaig CD, Jackson IJ, Shen S. GABAergic amacrine cells and visual function are reduced in PAC1 transgenic mice. Neuropharmacology 2010; 58:215-25. [DOI: 10.1016/j.neuropharm.2009.07.003] [Citation(s) in RCA: 9] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.6] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/15/2009] [Revised: 06/25/2009] [Accepted: 07/02/2009] [Indexed: 01/22/2023]
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Jiang Y, Luo YJ, Parasuraman R. Neural correlates of age-related reduction in visual motion priming. Neuropsychol Dev Cogn B Aging Neuropsychol Cogn 2009; 16:164-82. [PMID: 18846438 DOI: 10.1080/13825580802348588] [Citation(s) in RCA: 8] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 10/21/2022]
Abstract
Previously we reported that priming of visual motion perception is reduced in older adults compared to younger adults (Jiang, Greenwood, & Parasuraman, 1999, Psychology and Aging, 14(4), 619; Jiang, Luo, & Parasuraman, 2002b, Neuropsychology, 16(2), 140). To examine the neural mechanisms underlying this age-related effect, event-related brain potentials (ERPs) were recorded during perceptual judgments of motion directions by younger and older adults in two experiments. When judging single-step motion, both younger and older adults evoked significantly larger ERP late positive component (LPC) responses to unambiguous motion compared to LPC responses elicited by ambiguous motion. In contrast, compared to the younger adults, the older adults evoked comparable but delayed ERP responses to single motion steps. In the second experiment the younger and older groups judged the directions of two successive motion-steps (either motion priming or motion reversals). Under short (200-400 ms) stimulus onset asynchrony (SOA), the difference between the ERP responses to priming and reversal conditions was significantly larger for the younger than for the older adults. This study provides the first electrophysiological evidence that brain aging leads to delayed processing of single motion direction and visual motion priming as early as 100 ms in the early visual cortex. Age-related changes in strength and temporal characteristics of neural responses in temporal-parietal regions were particularly pronounced in older adults when successive motion signals are placed closely in time, within 400 ms.
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Affiliation(s)
- Yang Jiang
- Behavioral Science Department, University of Kentucky College of Medicine, Lexington, 40536, USA.
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Norton D, McBain R, Chen Y. Reduced ability to detect facial configuration in middle-aged and elderly individuals: associations with spatiotemporal visual processing. J Gerontol B Psychol Sci Soc Sci 2009; 64:328-34. [PMID: 19255087 DOI: 10.1093/geronb/gbp008] [Citation(s) in RCA: 18] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.2] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/13/2022] Open
Abstract
Visual sensitivity decreases with age, and this presumably has an impact on face recognition. However, the relationship between aging in basic visual processing and in the sensory and cognitive mechanisms mediating face recognition is not well understood. Face detection, a foundational step in recognizing faces, relies primarily on sensory information. This study measured the ability to detect facial configuration and contrast detection in young (<40 years), middle-aged (40-59 years), and elderly adults (>59 years). Performance on both face detection and contrast detection was moderately degraded in the middle-aged group compared with the young group and was further degraded in elderly adults. Face detection was correlated strongly with contrast sensitivities, but only weakly with verbal IQ. The results suggest that face detection ability begins to reduce in early aging, and is associated with spatiotemporal visual processing.
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Affiliation(s)
- Daniel Norton
- Visual Psychophysiology Laboratory, McLean Hospital, Belmont, Massachusetts, USA
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Abstract
BACKGROUND Schizophrenia is a brain disorder that spans across biological and behavioral levels. The links between altered neural circuitry and abnormal behaviors are yet to be understood. Visual motion perception has been established in basic neuroscience and may provide an opportunity to link different levels of brain functions in schizophrenia. Center-surround interaction is a ubiquitous neural mechanism underlying the organization of visual information over different spatial locations. METHODS We applied a psychophysical paradigm to examine center-surround interaction in schizophrenia. Patients (n = 24) and control subjects (n = 33) judged the direction of a moving random dot pattern (RDP, center) with and without the presence of another concentric surrounding RDP (surround). RESULTS The presence of a moving surround shifted the perceptual judgments of center motion in the opposite direction from the surround in both subject groups but the magnitude of the perceptual shift was significantly larger in patients. The increased perceptual shift was not correlated with psychotic symptoms, which were mild in this patient sample, or antipsychotic medication. CONCLUSIONS The increased perceptual shift suggests that the putative surround suppression on visual motion perception is abnormally increased in schizophrenia. This result provides perceptual evidence for altered basic inhibitory control of visual motion context in schizophrenia.
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Affiliation(s)
- Yue Chen
- McLean Hospital, Department of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School, Belmont, Massachusetts, USA.
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Abstract
Schizophrenia is often accompanied by a range of visual perception deficits, with many involving impairments in motion perception. The presence of perceptual abnormalities may impair neural processes that depend on normal visual analysis, which in turn may affect overall functioning in dynamic visual environments. Here, we examine the integrity of suppressive center-surround mechanisms in motion perception of schizophrenic patients. Center-surround suppression has been implicated in a range of visual functions, including figure-ground segregation and pursuit eye movements, visual functions that are impaired in schizophrenia. In control subjects, evidence of center-surround suppression is found in a reduced ability to perceive motion of a high-contrast stimulus as its size increases. This counterintuitive finding is likely a perceptual correlate of center-surround mechanisms in cortical area MT. We now show that schizophrenic patients exhibit abnormally weak center-surround suppression in motion, an abnormality that is most pronounced in patients with severe negative symptoms. Interestingly, patients with the weakest surround suppression outperformed control subjects in motion discriminations of large high-contrast stimuli. This enhanced motion perception of large high-contrast stimuli is consistent with an MT abnormality in schizophrenia and has a potential to disrupt smooth pursuit eye movements and other visual functions that depend on unimpaired center-surround interactions in motion.
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Affiliation(s)
- Duje Tadin
- Vanderbilt Vision Research Center and Department of Psychology, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tennessee 37203
| | - Jejoong Kim
- Vanderbilt Vision Research Center and Department of Psychology, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tennessee 37203
| | - Mikisha L. Doop
- Vanderbilt Vision Research Center and Department of Psychology, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tennessee 37203
| | - Crystal Gibson
- Vanderbilt Vision Research Center and Department of Psychology, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tennessee 37203
| | - Joseph S. Lappin
- Vanderbilt Vision Research Center and Department of Psychology, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tennessee 37203
| | - Randolph Blake
- Vanderbilt Vision Research Center and Department of Psychology, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tennessee 37203
| | - Sohee Park
- Vanderbilt Vision Research Center and Department of Psychology, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tennessee 37203
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Abstract
One central issue in schizophrenia research is to identify and characterize behavioral and biological markers that are intrinsic to the complex psychiatric disorder and that can serve as targets for detection, treatment, and prevention. A trait marker represents the properties of the behavioral and biological processes that play an antecedent, possibly causal, role in the pathophysiology of the psychiatric disorder, whereas a state marker reflects the status of clinical manifestations in patients. Certain visual functions, while deficient in schizophrenia, may be independent of psychosis. The question of what types of visual functions can serve as trait or state markers is beginning to be understood. Examining clinically unaffected relatives of schizophrenia patients and patients with bipolar disorder can provide information about the relationship between a schizophrenic disposition and visual response traits. In this effort, researchers found that motion integration is dysfunctional in schizophrenia patients but not in their relatives or bipolar patients, whereas motion discrimination is dysfunctional in schizophrenia patients and their relatives, but not in bipolar patients. By synthesizing these findings, this review suggests that distinguishing enduring trait markers from transient state markers for schizophrenia through visual processes is helpful for developing neurobiologically and psychologically based intervention strategies.
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Affiliation(s)
- Yue Chen
- Department of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School, USA
- McLean Hospital, USA
- *Address correspondence to this author at the Room G06B, Centre Building, 115 Mill Street, Belmont, MA 02478, USA; Tel: 1 617 855 3615; Fax: 1 617 855 3611; E-mail:
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