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Two models of visual orienting of attention are frequently described. Voluntary orienting is usually induced by central cues that direct subjects' attention to a given location in the visual space. Automatic orienting is provoked by presentation of peripheral cues. It is shown that automatic orienting induces greater attentional costs and benefits, and is less under a subject's control (Jonides 1981). Furthermore, it is not similarly affected by factors such as signal eccentricity (Umiltà et al. 1991). The present experiment was undertaken to investigate how sensitive automatic orienting produced by peripheral cues is to voluntary modulations of attention. In experiment 1, subjects facing situations daily in which attentional requirements are high, were compared to non-practiced ones. In experiment 2, other groups of practiced subjects facing high or low attentional-demanding situations were tested. In both experiments, subjects were asked to respond to signals, presented in rapid succession, in one of two possible locations in space, on each side of central fixation point. The cue signal automatically oriented attention to one of the two locations in which a first stimulus was presented with 100% probability; 100 ms after the first response (RT1), a second response signal (RT2) was delivered either in the same location (valid condition) or in the opposite location (invalid condition). Four cue probabilities were manipulated for this second stimulus: 100%/0%, 80%/20%, 50%/50%, and 20%/80%. Two eccentricities of 3 degrees and 6 degrees were tested. RT2 data demonstrated that (1) there was no eccentricity effect; (2) the higher the cue probability, the greater were the attentional costs; (3) the attentional effects were smaller in the practiced subjects who faced attention-demanding situations daily, than in the other groups. Put together, these data suggest that automatic orienting of attention can be modulated by voluntary attentional processes, according to cue probability. Furthermore, experienced subjects seem to be able to better distribute their attentional resources in space, with increased task requirements. The adoption of an optimal criterion might lead to the use of a cost minimizing strategy.

The base question being asked in this chapter is, “Why would a man, any man, want to be a father?” A secondary question becomes, “What is the genesis of that want? Why is want there at all? A tertiary question becomes, “How would someone investigate that want or inclination?

Publisher Summary This chapter focuses on the role of superior colliculus (SC) in determining the animals' immediate reactions to sudden novel events, including the activation of emotional motor mechanisms. The role of the SC in visual orienting has been widely recognized. More recently, its role in the production of orienting movements to a wide range of innocuous multimodal stimuli has been emphasized. The present results demonstrate that the orientation-approach role of the SC is not limited to innocuous stimuli. Rather, the SC plays a significant role in organizing approach responses to persistent noxious stimuli when immediate withdrawal responses prove to be ineffective in ameliorating discomfort. The neural basis by which the initial withdrawal and escape behaviors, that are appropriate in certain situations, are converted to more adaptive approach and orient behaviors that are required when dealing with a persistent noxious stimulus, as well as how this relates to the circuitry of the SC, remains far from clear.

Publisher Summary This chapter reviews the relative contributions of oculomotor inflow and outflow to the perception of location and to visually guided behavior. It focuses on the properties of outflow. Coverage is limited to the translations of the visual array rather than rotations and is largely confined to the horizontal dimension and to the fixed head, where there is no role for gravity receptors, head acceleration receptors, and skeletal muscle proprioceptors. The concept of oculomotor efference copy has come a long way in the past few decades. From a simple assumption about monitoring of eye innervation, the concept has grown to a family of related signals with varying gains, dynamics, and access to perceptual and motor apparatus. A subdiscipline of the neurosciences has grown up around the concepts of feedforward monitoring of eye position, and it is tackling the many problems that the research to date has revealed.

Previous studies have shown that in patients with unilateral vestibular deafferentation (UVD) there is a close relationship between the change in ocular torsional position consequent on the UVD, and the visually perceived orientation of short dim lines in an otherwise darkened room (1). However that result may have been confounded because the UVD may have affected both ocular torsion and sensory information about head position re gravity which must be used in making the visual perceptual judgement. Therefore we have sought a means of testing the relationship between ocular torsional position and the visual perception of orientation which was not confounded by the possible effect of changes in perceived head position.

The Attention Network Test (ANT) assesses the effect of alerting and orienting cues on a visual flanker task measuring executive attention. Previous findings revealed that older adults demonstrate greater RT benefits when provided with visual orienting cues that offer both spatial and temporal information of an ensuing target. Given the overlap of neural correlates involved in multisensory processing and cueing (i.e., alerting and orienting), especially in the superior colliculus, thalamus, superior temporal and parietal regions, an investigation of multisensory cueing effects was warranted. The current study was designed to determine whether participants, both old and young, benefited from receiving multisensory alerting and orienting cues on a visual flanker task. Eighteen young (M = 19.17 yrs) and eighteen old (M = 76.44 yrs) individuals that were determined to be non-demented and without any medical or psychiatric conditions that would affect their performance were included. Results revealed main effects for the executive attention and orienting networks, but not for the alerting network. In terms of orienting, both old and young adults demonstrated significant orienting effects for auditory–somatosensory (AS), auditory–visual (AV), and visual–somatosensory (VS) cues. Benefits of multisensory compared to unisensory averaged orienting effects differed by cue type and age group; younger adults demonstrated significantly greater RT benefits for AS orienting cues whereas older adults demonstrated significantly greater RT benefits for AV orienting cues. Both groups, however, demonstrated significant RT benefits for VS orienting cues. These findings provide evidence for the facilitative effect of multisensory orienting cues, and not multisensory alerting cues, in old and young adults.

WOS:A1994QA02600002; International audience; The aim of these experiments was to investigate the type of cues used in homing processes by young Blattella germanica L. larvae. Several types of stimuli were tested: path integration with kinesthetic cues and visual orientation with landmark cues. Tests measured the escape direction of larvae from the food box after disturbance. Either type of cue alone, path integration or visual landmarks, was sufficient to allow larvae to orient towards their shelters, but they oriented more precisely when both types of cue were used. When several landmark cues (proximal and distal) were present, their relative angular position seemed important in the orientation process. Macroscopic shapes in the environment appeared to be used as a global image, memorized to reach the shelter.

People with ADHD are more often found to be involved in automobile accidents as well as attained a higher number of driving violations as compared with the statistical norm. The main reasons which might cause these differences are: attention deficit due to distractions, impulsive actions, as well as the elevated co-morbidity with alcohol and drugs. ADHD should be considered and reviewed as an influential factor of driver fitness. By treating ADHD with certain stimulatory medications very successful results have been obtained. These results include a better ability to adapt to traffic situations, avoiding accidents as well as following traffic regulations.In an own study, we compared 27 untreated clinical referred adults with ADHD with 27 controls matched by age and gender. Nineteen of the ADHD-subjects performed a test battery to assess driving related cognitive measures and were reassessed after at least six weeks of treatment with methylphenidate (n = 9) or after a six week medication free period (n = 10). We found, that the ADHD subjects were more often fined and registered by traffic authorities and were more frequently involved in traffic accidents. Methylphenidate treatment resulted in improved performance, e.g. better visu-motor coordination, improved visual orientation and sustained attention, compared to baseline and the untreated control group.

1. 1. Visual orientation greatly relies on the evaluation of the motion patterns received by the eyes when the animal moves around. 2. 2. In a combination of behavioral, neurophysiological and pharmacological analysis and modelling, the mechanisms are established by which the visual system of the fly extracts three types of-basic retinal motion patterns. 3. 3. Coherent retinal large-field motion as is induced during deviations of the animal from its course, image expansion occurring when the animal approaches an obstacle, and relative motion which is induced when a nearby object is passed in front of its background. 4. 4. Separate neuronal networks are specifically tuned to each of these motion patterns and make use of them in three different orientation tasks: in compensatory course stabilization, the control of landing behaviour and the fixation of objects.

Children with early treated phenylketonuria (ETPKU), a disorder associated with developmental dopamine depletion, were tested with a visual orienting paradigm to determine the existence of lateralized deficits in specific attentional operations. Male ETPKU subjects showed a right visual field impairment in disengaging attention, indicating left hemisphere dysfunction, and overall slowed reaction times. Female ETPKU and normal subjects did not differ. The results suggest that for males, dopamine depletion disrupts left hemisphere function. This finding has important implications for disorders with suspected developmental dopamine abnormalities, and may also illustrate how sex differences in functional lateralization develop in the normal brain.

In previous research on symmetry detection, factors contributing to orientational effects (axis and virtual lines connecting symmetrically positioned dots) and component processes (axis selection and pointwise evaluation) have always been confounded. The reason is the restriction to bilateral symmetry (BS), with pointwise correspondences being orthogonal to the axis of symmetry. In our experiments, subjects had to discriminate random dot patterns from symmetries defined by combining 12 axis orientations (every 15-degrees) with seven reflection angles (0-degrees, yielding BS, and three clockwise and counterclockwise 15-degrees steps, yielding skewed symmetry, SS). In Experiment 1, with completely randomized trial order, a significant interaction between axis and skewing angle was obtained, indicating that classically observed orientational effects are restricted to BS and that the orientation of the pointwise correspondences is important. These basic findings were replicated in three subsequent experiments, which differed in that they used blocks containing patterns with the same axis (Experiment 2), virtual lines orientation (Experiment 3), or their combination (Experiment 4). Based on a comparison between the results obtained by these manipulations, we suggest a possible reason for the failure of preattentive symmetry detection in the case of dot patterns with SS. ispartof: The Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology A, Human Experimental Psychology vol:44 issue:3 pages:475-508 status: published

Visual orientation in foraging parasitoids has recently receiving increasing attention. Wackers & Lewis (1992) demonstrated that parasitoids can use visual information during various stages of the host-location process. Feeding damage, besides being a main source of plant derived volatiles, can be a distinct visual indicator of herbivore presence. The visual image of the damaged leaf could convey specific information to the parasitoid, such as the species of the herbivore and its stage of development. The role of behavioural chemicals in parasitoid foraging has been studied in great detail (Turlings et al.,1992). We investigated whether Cotesia rubecula (Marshall), a solitary parasitoid of Pieris spp., uses visual information from herbivore damage during host foraging.

Selection models of behavior presuppose "selectable variation", diversity in the brain that is stable over time. Diversity can arise spontaneously through the mutual interactions of cell assemblies, which are postulated to align or disalign their neighbors into processing modes conforming to or opposite from their own. These processes are similar to magnetization and crystallization. If aligning and disaligning influences are distributed at random, a state resembling a spin glass can arise, where processing modes are highly varied in space but stable in time. If disalignment occurs regularly at the points of a two-dimensional lattice, and elsewhere the interactions are aligning, a pattern emerges with properties remarkably similar to visual orientation columns. These patterns are maintained dynamically, and emerge statistically without detailed genetic specification.

Contour orientation discrimination accuracy is determined by the orientation bandwidth, response variance and response strength of single units that code for orientation. We measured the latter three properties for V1 cells of monkeys which were performing an orientation discrimination of the grating stimulating the cell under study. We recorded from 285 cells, of which 76% responded to the grating. The orientation bandwidth, measured as full width at half height of the tuning curve, varied over a wide range amongst cells. The median bandwidth was 41 degrees. The response variance of the cells also varied considerably between cells; on average it was about two times the response strength. We also studied the temporal properties of the responses. Most of our cells had a latency between 40 and 100 ms. The response variance was found to be smaller in the initial phases of the response than at the later response stages. In some cells the orientation tuning varied in successive stages of the response, while in others the orientation bandwidth and preferred orientation remained stable throughout the response. However, all orientation sensitive cells were orientation tuned from the start of the response, a property which contribute to the fast and reliable coding of contour orientation. These results provide for the first time an estimation of the orientation tuning properties of V1 cells during visual orientation discrimination. They will be very useful to compare single cell properties of other areas to as well as in simulation studies of models of primate visual discriminations.

Many studies of covert orienting of visual attention in response to informative pre-cues have focused on the spatial distribution of improved or impaired performance. One can find at least four different models in the literature, each describing a different distribution: the fixed gradient spotlight; the zoom lens spotlight; the hemifield activation hypothesis; and the flexible allocation of resources model. In previous work examining procedural details that might have led to the formulation of the hemifield activation hypothesis, it was postulated (Klein and McCormick 1989) that under conditions of uncertainty about which of two locations to attend, an observer may focus attention on a visual channel (i.e., midlocation placement of a fixed gradient spotlight) that is spatially intermediate. The present experiment was designed to distinguish among the four models of attentional distribution, and to test the midlocation placement strategy. Our findings show support for midlocation placement, demonstrate evidence against flexible allocation and hemifield activation, but could not differentiate between fixed gradient and zoom lens variants of the spotlight model.

Crickets respond to the conspecific male calling song in two ways: they begin walking or alter the mode and speed of walking bouts, and they track the sound source by meandering towards it. Although much has been learned from arena and Y-maze experiments (Zaretsky 1972; Popov and Shuvalov 1977; Eisner and Popov 1978; Stout et al. 1983), the Kramer spherical treadmill (Kramer 1975) has enhanced considerably the possibilities to pursue the quantitative aspects of phonotactic behavior (Wendler et al. 1981; Weber et al. 1981; Schmitz et al. 1982; Doherty 1985). With the female walking “in place” the tracking of a sound source can be studied for hours, while changes of sound patterns are computer controlled and allow checks for reproducibility.

Visual orientation greatly relies on the evaluation of the motion patterns received by the eyes when the animal moves around. In a combination of both behavioral and neurophysiological analysis and modeling, the mechanisms are established by which the visual system of the fly extracts three types of basic retinal motion patterns: Coherent retinal large-field motion as is induced during deviations of the animal from its course, image expansion occurring when the animal approaches an obstacle, and relative motion which is induced when a nearby object is passed in front of its background. Separate neuronal networks are specifically tuned to each of these motion patterns and make use of them in three different orientation tasks: in compensatory course stabilization, the control of landing behavior, and the fixation of objects.

Visual orienting serves several functions for the developing child, including automatically alerting her to salient events, actively preparing him to encounter events that are expected, and facilitating the selective processing of information in the visual field. Research with adults has revealed an important distinction between overt (i.e., shifts of attention accompanied by shifts in gaze) and covert orienting (i.e., shifts of attention independent of shifts in gaze). Covert orienting is of particular interest to developmental researchers because it allows attention to be studied independently from the muscular and motoric components involved in overt orienting. The purpose of the present chapter is to review recent research, summarize important unanswered questions, and suggest future directions for research on the development of covert orienting.

In 1981 (Posner & Rothbart, 1981), we argued that the attention system served as the basis for self regulation and reviewed its development in infancy. In this paper we review new findings about the structures and functions of human attention, and outline our current program of research exploring their early development. The attention system of the human brain can be divided into posterior orienting systems that operate in conjunction with sensory processes, anterior systems that form the basis of voluntary actions and vigilance systems that maintain the alert state. The infant represents an excellent model to explore the development of these systems and their role in the emergence of volition. In the early months of infancy the attentional system matures to achieve voluntary control of visual orienting and to provide a way of representing sensory stimuli in their absence. We examine the logic of using chronometric methods to isolate anatomically defined attentional subsystems in the study of development.

Background. Several studies using spatial cueing paradigms have demonstrated that seeing gaze direction may trigger a reflexive visual orienting in the gazed-at direction. Recently, it has been reported that facial expression may enhance the reflexive orienting of attention to gaze stimuli. However, some researchers have also suggested that, rather than facilitating attentional orienting away from the face, emotional expressions may, in fact, delay or prevent orienting. In the present study we investigated the effects of facial expression and gaze direction on a visual orienting oculomotor task to test whether an angry face may or may not interfere with visual orienting. Method. Participants performed an oculomotor task in which they had to make a saccade towards one of two lateral targets, depending upon the colour of the fixation dot which appeared at the centre of the computer screen. The instruction dot remained visible for 50ms and then disappeared. At different time intervals (stimulus onset asynchronies, SOAs: 50, 100, 150 ms) following the onset of the instruction cue, a real face (gazing either to the right or to the left) was presented at the centre of the monitor. Gaze direction could be congruent or incongruent with respect to the instruction and target location. Facial expression was also manipulated. In half of the trials the diverted gaze (i.e., congruent or incongruent) appeared with an angry expression, whereas in the other half the face had a neutral expression. Participants were instructed to saccade either to the target on the left or to the target on the right (the targets were visible throughout the trial), as indicated by the instruction dot, while completely disregarding the face because it was irrelevant for the task. Results. Eye movement recordings on correct trials showed that saccades congruent with the direction of the distracting gaze had shorter latencies than incongruent ones. However, the time-course of this effect varied depending on facial expression. With a neutral expression, the congruency effect was found only at the shortest SOA (50 ms). On the contrary, for angry face the congruency effect occurred at the longer SOAs. These findings suggest that gaze direction (even when task-irrelevant) is capable of interfering with over orienting of visual attention, and that faces with an angry expression may hold attention and affect its orienting longer than a neutral expression.

In order to explore the development of self-evaluative biases, children at 3 age levels (5–6, 7–8, 9–10) evaluated themselves or another child when given social or temporal comparison feedback. Evaluative biases were indicated by higher evaluations for the self than another, especially after failure. Children at different ages were not differentially responsive to temporal vs. social comparison information. However, evaluative bias in response to the type of evaluation differed by age; there was greater bias for general ability evaluations by older children and greater bias for specific performance evaluations by younger children. Alternative explanations for these self-other differences were minimized, as differences in visual orientation were held constant and differences in knowledge of effort were controlled statistically. Other aspects of the design as well as sex differences support a motivational interpretation of these biases. How these biases are manifested is related to children's level of understanding and concerns at different ages.

As the computer becomes more greatly accepted in the arts, much of what we now call ‘computer art’ will be absorbed by existing media. At the same time, computer art will develop from a minor, derivative medium to one with its own distinctive (and as yet mostly unimagined) characteristics. New opportunities will abound for the artist to develop the possibilities that the computer presents. Programming is the most effective way to explore and develop these possibilities. It should be taught to artists in a way in a way tailored to their visual orientation, perhaps using one of the new versions of computer languages that make visual programming less frustrating for the novice. Artists should also make a contribution to software development in general.

Summary Three groups of visually deprived cats were studied for evidence that one eye gained a competitive advantage over the other during development of central connections. We attempted to detect such an advantage by measuring lateral geniculate cell sizes, by recording the proportion of lateral geniculate Y-cells and the ocular dominance of cortical neurons, and/or by testing visual orienting behavior. Three cats were raised with one eye covered by the lids, and the other, by the nictitating membrane. Lids reduce illumination by 3–4 log units, nictitating membranes, by about one log unit, and both eliminate spatial patterns. Neither eye in these cats appeared to develop with a competitive advantage over the other. Four cats raised with monocular nictitating membrane closure developed with a clear advantage to the open eye, and in all ways data from these cats were indistinguishable from those previously reported for monocularly lid sutured cats. Finally, 4 cats teared with binocular lid closure, but with additional, temporally modulated stimulation through the right lids, showed no evidence of a competitive advantage to either eye. We conclude that interocular differences in light intensity or temporal patterns do not confer a significant competitive advantage to either eye during development of central connections.

Calling ♀ black cutworms, Agrotis ipsilon (Hufnagel), showed visual orientation to live and dead moths. Traps baited with virgin females were most effective at a height of 1.5 meters. Females were most active in calling from midnight to 3 AM. Most matings occurred about 6 h after dark under a 10-h scotophase. Females 4 days old were most attractive to males. Peak attractancy corresponded to age of peak ovarian development. The mean age at copulation for females was also 4 days. Oviposition by the black cutworm commenced on the 3rd day and peaked the 6th day after emergence at 24±1.1°C and 7O±5% RH.

We have studied the visual prey acquisition behavior of frogs with unilateral optic nerve section, unilateral tectal lobe ablation, and unilateral transverse hemisection at a level between the tectum and the cerebellum. The first two groups of animals oriented normally to stimuli throughout the region of visual field overlap and failed to respond to more peripheral stimuli on one side. Hemisected animals responded to stimuli at all positions in the visual field. For stimuli located contralateral to the lesion, the frogs oriented normally. For ipsilateral stimuli, the frogs oriented forward.