Does hand position affect orienting when no action is required? An electrophysiological study

Previous research has shown that attention can be biased to targets appearing near the hand that require action responses, arguing that attention to the hand facilitates upcoming action. It is unclear whether attention orients to non-targets near the hand not requiring responses. Using electroencephalography/event-related potentials (EEG/ERP), this study investigated whether hand position affected visual orienting to non-targets under conditions that manipulated the distribution of attention. We modified an attention paradigm in which stimuli were presented briefly and rapidly on either side of fixation; participants responded to infrequent targets (15%) but not standard non-targets and either a hand or a block was placed next to one stimulus location. In Experiment 1, attention was distributed across left and right stimulus locations to determine whether P1 or N1 ERP amplitudes to non-target standards were differentially influenced by hand location. In Experiment 2, attention was narrowed to only one stimulus location to determine whether attentional focus affected orienting to non-target locations near the hand. When attention was distributed across both stimulus locations, the hand increased overall N1 amplitudes relative to the block but not selectively to stimuli appearing near the hand. However, when attention was focused on one location, amplitudes were affected by the location of attentional focus and the stimulus, but not by hand or block location. Thus, hand position appears to contribute only a non-location-specific input to standards during visual orienting, but only in cases when attention is distributed across stimulus locations.

IMPACT OF OPEN ENROLLMENT IN COURSE-BASED UNDERGRADUATE RESEARCH EXPERIENCES WITH AT-RISK STUDENT POPULATIONS

Participation in authentic research activities, particularly mentored undergraduate research experiences, at the University of Texas at El Paso has long been associated with student success measures such as graduation and matriculation to strong graduate programs in STEM. However, these opportunities typically are available to upper division students, despite evidence suggesting that the first (Freshman) year at university is determinant for individuals to complete STEM degrees. To expand the number of research opportunities and to extend them preferentially to new, entering students, we established the Freshman Year Research Intensive Sequence (FYRIS) in 2015, a course sequence consisting of a research foundations course and one or two laboratory courses redesigned by faculty into small, special topic Course-based Undergraduate Research Experiences (CUREs). CUREs provide authentic research experiences with similar early-, middle-, and late-term benefits to those found in traditional mentored experiences. Several of these benefits can be conceptualized as "hubs", which derive from earlier benefits, while facilitating later positive outcomes. Self-efficacy is one such hub, while retention and persistence in science enrollment represent late-phase positive outcomes. In this report, we examined self-efficacy of FYRIS participants in surveys administered at the start and end of each course to assess their confidence in conducting fundamental and specific research activities in the foundations and research driven courses, respectively. Specific items from a validated survey were used in addition to items developed for each course based on specific learning objectives. Retention was measured across three years of assessment of participants and non-participants, controlling for key scholastic characteristics. Results on retention rates after FYRIS vary depending on whether students fully or partially participated in the course-sequence. Results will be presented for three cohorts of students: 2015-16, 2016-17, and 2017-18.

Attention orienting near the hand following performed and imagined actions

Recent studies have documented that the hand's ability to perform actions affects the visual processing and attention for objects near the hand, suggesting that actions may have specific effects on visual orienting. However, most research on the relation between spatial attention and action focuses on actions as responses to visual attention manipulations. The current study examines visual attention immediately following an executed or imagined action. A modified spatial cuing paradigm tested whether a brief, lateralized hand-pinch performed by a visually hidden hand near the target location, facilitated or inhibited subsequent visual target detection. Conditions in which hand-pinches were fully executed (action) were compared to ones with no hand-pinch (inaction) in Experiment 1 and imagined pinches (imagine) in Experiment 2. Results from Experiment 1 indicated that performed hand pinches facilitated rather than inhibited subsequent detection responses to targets appearing near the pinch, but target detection was not affected by inaction. In Experiment 2, both action and imagined action conditions cued attention and facilitated responses, but along differing time courses. These results highlight the ongoing nature of visual attention and demonstrate how it is deployed to locations even following actions.

I. EXECUTIVE CONTROL IN EARLY CHILDHOOD

Executive control (EC) is a central construct in developmental science, although measurement limitations have hindered understanding of its nature and development in young children, relation to social risk, and prediction of important outcomes. Disentangling EC from the foundational cognitive abilities it regulates and that are inherently required for successful executive task completion (e.g., language, visual/spatial perception, and motor abilities) is particularly challenging at preschool age, when these foundational abilities are still developing and consequently differ substantially among children. A novel latent bifactor modeling approach delineated respective EC and foundational cognitive abilities components that undergird executive task performance in a socio demographically stratified sample of 388 preschoolers in a longitudinal, cohort-sequential study. The bifactor model revealed a developmental shift, where both EC and foundational cognitive abilities contributed uniquely to executive task performance at ages 4.5 and 5.25 years, but were not separable at ages 3 and 3.75. Contrary to the view that EC is vulnerable to socio-familial risk, the contributions of household financial and learning resources to executive task performance were not specific to EC but were via their relation to foundational cognitive abilities. EC, though, showed a unique, discriminant relation with hyperactive symptoms late in the preschool period, whereas foundational cognitive abilities did not predict specific dimensions of dysregulated behavior. These findings form the basis for a new, integrated approach to the measurement and conceptualization of EC, which includes dual consideration of the contributions of EC and foundational cognitive abilities to executive task performance, particularly in the developmental context of preschool.

Perceptual-attentional and motor-intentional bias in near and far space

Spatial bias demonstrated in tasks such as line-bisection may stem from perceptual-attentional (PA) "where" and motor-intentional (MI) "aiming" influences. We tested normal participants' line bisection performance in the presence of an asymmetric visual distracter with a video apparatus designed to dissociate PA from MI bias. An experimenter stood as a distractor to the left or right of a video monitor positioned in either near or far space, where participants viewed lines and a laser point they directed under (1) natural and (2) mirror-reversed conditions. Each trial started with the pointer positioned at either the top left or top right corner of the screen, and alternated thereafter. Data analysis indicated that participants made primarily PA leftward errors in near space, but not in far space. Furthermore, PA, but not MI, bias increased bilaterally in the direction of distraction. In contrast, MI, but not PA, bias was shifted bilaterally in the direction of startside. Results support the conclusion that a primarily PA left sided bias in near space is consistent with right hemisphere spatial attentional dominance. A bottom-up visual distractor specifically affected PA "where" spatial bias while top-down motor cuing influenced MI "aiming" bias.