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We reliably judge locations of static objects when we walk despite the retinal images of these objects moving with every step we take. Here, we showed our brains solve this optical illusion by adopting an allocentric spatial reference frame. We measured perceived target location after the observer walked a short distance from the home base. Supporting the allocentric coding scheme, we found the intrinsic bias , which acts as a spatial reference frame for perceiving location of a dimly lit target in the dark, remained grounded at the home base rather than traveled along with the observer. The path-integration mechanism responsible for this can utilize both active and passive (vestibular) translational motion signals, but only along the horizontal direction. This asymmetric path-integration finding in human visual space perception is reminiscent of the asymmetric spatial memory finding in desert ants, pointing to nature's wondrous and logically simple design for terrestrial creatures.

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BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: Perception of verticality is clinically assessed using the subjective visual vertical (SVV), a test of the otolith system that consists of aligning a bar on the gravitational vertical in darkness. Patients with acute unilateral vestibulopathy (AUVP) show a systematic SVV bias toward the affected side, whichever the side of line orientation. Whether SVV estimates are symmetrical has not been investigated. SUBJECTS AND METHODS: This study included 10 patients with AUVP (vestibular neuritis) and 10 with BPPV (posterior semicircular canal). SVV measurements were made at two preset angles of line orientation (15° and 30°) toward the ipsilateral and contralateral sides, relative to the affected side. RESULTS: The results showed asymmetrical SVV estimates in the AUVP group, with significantly greater SVV errors for ipsilateral than contralateral line orientation, as well as for the preset angle of 30° compared to 15°. SVV estimates were significantly lower in patients with BPPV who also exhibited SVV asymmetry. SVV estimates remained unchanged just after the maneuver and were normalized some days later or after supplementary maneuvers. CONCLUSIONS: SVV asymmetry should be routinely considered in the clinic. We recommend individually assessing ipsilateral and contralateral SVV and using at least two preset angles. This allows for a better assessment and diagnosis of otolith organ imbalance that can trigger chronic instability and dizziness. The contribution of neck afferents related to head position in space seems to be the main source of SVV asymmetry.

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This study investigated the seat layout of automobile interiors and its impact on the fluidity and privacy of interior space using spatial perception and space syntax research methods. The interior of an automobile is a typical "miniature" passenger space. First, to explore the perception characteristics of interior space fluidity and privacy across different seat configurations, we conducted a perception experiment on the interior space of seven automobile models with various seat layouts. The depth, connection, global integration degree, and standardized integration degree values were obtained using spatial syntax to perform topological calculations on the experimental automobile models. We conducted a correlation analysis in conjunction with the results of the perception experiment and the spatial syntax analysis. The calculation results of spatial syntax analysis are consistent with the experimental results of perception of automobile interior space layout on the fluidity and privacy. The different layout of automobile seats can affect people's perception on the fluidity and privacy of automobile interior space. At the same time, spatial syntax can provide an effective design analysis tool for the fluidity and privacy of automobile interior space.

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Prolonged exposure to a sensory stimulus induces perceptual adaptation aftereffects. Traditionally, aftereffects are known to change the appearance of stimulus features, like contrast, color, or shape. However, shifts in the spatial position of objects have also been observed to follow adaptation. Here, I demonstrate that visual adaptation produced by different adapter stimuli generates a bi-directional spatial repulsion. Observers had to judge the distance between a probe dot pair presented in the adapted region and compare them to a reference dot pair presented in a region not affected by adaptation. If the probe dot pair was present inside the adapted area, observers underestimated the distance. If, however, the dot pair straddled the adapted area, the distance was perceived as larger with a stronger distance expansion than compression. Bi-directional spatial repulsion was found with a similar magnitude for size and density adapters. Localization estimates with mouse pointing revealed that adaptation also affected absolute position judgments. Bi-directional spatial repulsion is most likely produced by the lines of adapter stimuli since single bars used as adapters were sufficient to induce spatial repulsion. Spatial repulsion was stronger for stimuli presented in the periphery. This finding explains why distance expansion is stronger than distance compression.

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Introduction: Exposure to green space can bring many benefits to physical and mental health, but in China, the attractiveness of green space to youth groups seems to be not significant. The question of how to encourage young people to go out of the house to better perceive green space, enjoy nature, and promote physical and mental health is on our minds. Methods: This study combines young people's green space perception, green space use, and purpose of visit to explore its impact on the emotional health of youth groups, combined with the PANAS psychological data scale, an online questionnaire survey of 426 residents (18-35 years old) in three Chinese cities, and was used to construct a multiple regression model and AMOS structural equations. Results and discussion: The results of the study showed that, firstly, environmental attractiveness, environmental odor, and number of facilities were the key factors influencing adolescents' landscape perception evaluation, while activity space, environmental odor, and environmental attractiveness had a greater impact on adolescents' emotional well-being. Second, among adolescents' visit purposes, socializing and fitness were more likely to help them generate positive emotions while resting and viewing activities were effective in helping them alleviate negative emotions. In addition, in terms of usage, residents who took public transportation as well as those who arrived on foot were the most emotionally healthy. The findings of this paper provide insights for public policymakers, urban planners, and landscape architects to better encourage youth participation in green spaces when they are installed.

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To solve spatial tasks, the human brain asks for support from the visual cortices. Nonetheless, representing spatial information is not fixed but depends on the reference frames in which the spatial inputs are involved. The present study investigates how the kind of spatial representations influences the recruitment of visual areas during multisensory spatial tasks. Our study tested participants in an electroencephalography experiment involving two audio-visual (AV) spatial tasks: a spatial bisection, in which participants estimated the relative position in space of an AV stimulus in relation to the position of two other stimuli, and a spatial localization, in which participants localized one AV stimulus in relation to themselves. Results revealed that spatial tasks specifically modulated the occipital event-related potentials (ERPs) after the onset of the stimuli. We observed a greater contralateral early occipital component (50-90 ms) when participants solved the spatial bisection, and a more robust later occipital response (110-160 ms) when they processed the spatial localization. This observation suggests that different spatial representations elicited by multisensory stimuli are sustained by separate neurophysiological mechanisms.

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Creating a healthy living environment for middle-aged and older adults is a key strategy for countries to address the aging challenge, but the effects of such an environment on the health-related quality of life (HRQoL) of middle-aged and older adults remain underexplored. This study aimed to examine the link between public sports facilities and the HRQoL of middle-aged and older adult residents in communities. A total of 1169 respondents (average age: 66.84; male: 46.19%) were selected from the Shandong, China. This study measured respondents 'physical activity (PA) using the International Physical Activity Questionnaire, the HRQoL of respondents using the 36-item Short Form Health Survey, and the Public Sports Space Perception Scale for respondents' public sports space perception. Correlation analysis and logistic regression analysis were employed to test the relationship among public sports space perception, physical activity (PA), and HRQoL. The mediating role of PA was conducted using the PROCESS macro for SPSS. The results revealed that public sports space perception only influenced the HRQoL of middle-aged and older adults through light-intensity PA (PCS: B = 0.09, 95% CI 0.01, 0.03; MCS: B = 0.02, 95% CI 0.01, 0.05) among light-intensity PA, moderate-intensity PA, vigorous-intensity PA., and this mediation model varied across different age groups of middle-aged and older adults. Moreover, digital inclusion only moderated the psychological aspect of HRQoL of middle-aged and older adults (p < 0.05). This study provided empirical evidence for enhancing the HRQoL of middle-aged and older adults and offered useful insights for the planning and design of public sports facilities and the formulation of health management policies for middle-aged and older adults.

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BACKGROUND: Cochlear implantation (CI) is associated with changes in the histopathology of the inner ear and impairment of vestibular function. OBJECTIVE: The objectives of our study were to evaluate patients for clinical manifestations of space perception and balance changes before surgery, compare them with asymptomatic subjects (controls), and report changes in posturography and subjective visual vertical (SVV) during the acute post-surgery period in patients. METHODS: Examination was performed using static posturography and the SVV measurement. We examined 46 control subjects and 39 CI patients. Patients were examined pre-surgery (Pre), 2nd day (D2) and then 14th day (D14) after implantation. RESULTS: Baseline SVV was not different between patients and control group. There was a statistically significant difference (p < 0.001) in SVV between subgroups of right- and left-implanted patients at D2 (-1.36±3.02° and 2.71±2.36°, right and left side implanted respectively) but not Pre (0.76±1.07° and 0.31±1.82°) or D14 (0.72±1.83° and 1.29±1.60°). Baseline posturography parameters between patients and control group were statistically significantly different during stance on foam with eyes closed (p < 0.05). There was no statistically significant difference in posturography among Pre, D2 and D14. CONCLUSIONS: CI candidates have impaired postural control before surgery. CI surgery influences perception of subjective visual vertical in acute post-surgery period with SVV deviation contralateral to side of cochlear implantation, but not after two weeks.

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An altered sensory environment, especially a homogeneous one like a ganzfeld, can induce a wide range of experiences in people immersed in it. The ganzfeld of our current focus is the OVO Whole-Body Perceptual Deprivation chamber (OVO-WBPD). Previous literature has found this specific immersive environment to be capable of softening and dissolving perception of boundaries across time and sensory modalities, among other domains. Since recent published electrophysiological results demonstrated that immersion in the OVO-WBPD significantly increased delta and beta activity, in the left inferior frontal cortex and in the left insula, we sought to better understand the subjective experiences of participants utilizing this altered sensory environment via semi-qualitative methodology. Consequently, semi-structured interviews of participants were analyzed by three independent evaluators focusing on several domains of experience often reported in perceptual deprivation environments. We found a significantly shared consensus on the presence of experiences belonging to semantic domains of altered experience, demonstrating that the OVO-WBPD chamber consistently elicits positively connotated, bodily-oriented and cognitively dedifferentiated subjective states of consciousness in the majority of 32 examined participants.

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INTRODUCTION: Visual perception of moving objects is integral to our day-to-day life, integrating visual spatial and temporal perception. Most research studies have focused on finding the brain regions activated during motion perception. However, an empirically validated general mathematical model is required to understand the modulation of the motion perception. Here, we develop a mathematical formulation of the modulation of the perception of a moving object due to a change in speed, under the formulation of the invariance of causality. METHODS: We formulated the perception of a moving object as the coordinate transformation from a retinotopic space onto perceptual space and derived a quantitative relationship between spatiotemporal coordinates. To validate our model, we undertook the analysis of two experiments: (i) the perceived length of the moving arc, and (ii) the perceived time while observing moving stimuli. We performed a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) tractography investigation of subjects to demarcate the anatomical correlation of the modulation of the perception of moving objects. RESULTS: Our theoretical model shows that the interaction between visual-spatial and temporal perception, during the perception of moving object is described by coupled linear equations; and experimental observations validate our model. We observed that cerebral area V5 may be an anatomical correlate for this interaction. The physiological basis of interaction is shown by a Lotka-Volterra system delineating interplay between acetylcholine and dopamine neurotransmitters, whose concentrations vary periodically with the orthogonal phase shift between them, occurring at the axodendritic synapse of complex cells at area V5. CONCLUSION: Under the invariance of causality in the representation of events in retinotopic space and perceptual space, the speed modulates the perception of a moving object. This modulation may be due to variations of the tuning properties of complex cells at area V5 due to the dynamic interaction between acetylcholine and dopamine. Our analysis is the first significant study, to our knowledge, that establishes a mathematical linkage between motion perception and causality invariance.

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The laws of physics and mathematics describe the world we live in as internally consistent. As these rules provide a very effective description, and our interaction with the world is also very effective, it seems self-evident that our perception follows these laws. As a result, when trying to explain imperfections in perception, we tend to impose consistency and introduce concepts such as deformations of visual space. In this review, we provide numerous examples that show that in many situations we perceive related attributes to have inconsistent values. We discuss how our tendency to assume consistency leads to erroneous conclusions on how we process sensory information. We propose that perception is not about creating a consistent internal representation of the outside world, but about answering specific questions about the outside world. As the information used to answer a question is specific for that question, this naturally leads to inconsistencies in perception and to an apparent dissociation between some perceptual judgments and related actions.

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BACKGROUND: Many women experience giving birth as a negative or even as a traumatic event. Birth space and its occupants are fundamentally interconnected with negative and traumatic experiences, highlighting the importance of the social space of birth. AIM: To explore experiences of women who have had a negative or traumatic birth to identify the value, sense and meaning they assign to the social space of birth. METHODS: A feminist standpoint theory guided the research. Secondary discourse analysis of 51 qualitative data sets/transcripts from Dutch and Czech Republic postpartum women and 551 free-text responses of the Babies Born Better survey from women in the United Kingdom, Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, Austria, Spain, and the Czech Republic. FINDINGS: Three themes and associated sub-themes emerged: 1. The institutional dimension of social space related to staff-imposed boundaries, rules and regulations surrounding childbirth, and a clinical atmosphere. 2. The relational dimension of social space related to negative women-healthcare provider interactions and relationships, including notions of dominance, power, authority, and control. 3. The personal dimension of social space related to how women internalised and were affected by the negative social dimensions including feelings of faith misplaced, feeling disconnected and disembodied, and scenes of horror. DISCUSSION/CONCLUSION: The findings suggest that improving the quality of the social space of birth may promote better birth experiences for women. The institutional, relational, and personal dimensions of the social space of birth are key in the planning, organisation, and provision of maternity care.

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Clear evidence demonstrated a supramodal organization of sensory cortices with multisensory processing occurring even at early stages of information encoding. Within this context, early recruitment of sensory areas is necessary for the development of fine domain-specific (i.e., spatial or temporal) skills regardless of the sensory modality involved, with auditory areas playing a crucial role in temporal processing and visual areas in spatial processing. Given the domain-specificity and the multisensory nature of sensory areas, in this study, we hypothesized that preferential domains of representation (i.e., space and time) of visual and auditory cortices are also evident in the early processing of multisensory information. Thus, we measured the event-related potential (ERP) responses of 16 participants while performing multisensory spatial and temporal bisection tasks. Audiovisual stimuli occurred at three different spatial positions and time lags and participants had to evaluate whether the second stimulus was spatially (spatial bisection task) or temporally (temporal bisection task) farther from the first or third audiovisual stimulus. As predicted, the second audiovisual stimulus of both spatial and temporal bisection tasks elicited an early ERP response (time window 50-90 ms) in visual and auditory regions. However, this early ERP component was more substantial in the occipital areas during the spatial bisection task, and in the temporal regions during the temporal bisection task. Overall, these results confirmed the domain specificity of visual and auditory cortices and revealed that this aspect selectively modulates also the cortical activity in response to multisensory stimuli.

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Space perception is systematically biased. Few theories of spatial bias address the possible functional advantages of mechanisms that produce spatial biases. The scale expansion hypothesis proposes that many spatial biases are due to the perceptual expansion of visual angles, which acts somewhat like a natural magnifying glass in vision. The present study examined the idea that visual expansion may improve motor precision (i.e., reduce motor variability) in movements when using closed-loop control but not when using open-loop control. Experiment 1 tested this idea in an online tracking task (closed-loop control), whereas Experiment 2 tested it in a fast-hitting task (open-loop control). The results were consistent with the hypothesis. To rule out the effect of the task difference (i.e., tracking vs fast hitting), Experiment 3 examined the effect of visual expansion on the variability of motor performance in a line-reproduction task. The control type (closed-loop or open-loop) was manipulated by the form of visual feedback (online or offline). The results were again consistent with the present assumption. Taken together, the present data suggest that perceptual expansion in vision improves motor-control precision when using closed-loop control (but not when using open-loop control), which supports the scale expansion hypothesis. In addition, the present findings also improve our understanding of how visual error amplification affects motor control.

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Space, time, and number are important parts of our experiences and they are crucial for maintaining our behaviors in daily life. Comprehending the spatial and numerical features of our environment and perceiving and constructing the temporal framework are critical for healthy cognitive functioning and also survival. Although the problem of how these three perceptual processes work was initially studied separately, the emergence of behavioral interactions between these perceptions led to the idea that they could be run by a "common system". Besides the behavioral interactions for space, time, and number perception, the lesion and neuroimaging studies investigating the neural basis of these perceptions suggest the existence of a common size perception system represented in a fronto-parietal network formed around the intraparietal sulcus. However, on the other side of the coin, there are different views proposed based on findings that contradict this common magnitude system theory. The purpose of this review is to evaluate suggested ideas together and to examine whether the representation of space, time, and number perception in the brain can be explained by a common magnitude system theory.

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Over many centuries, the homing pigeon has been selectively bred for returning home from a distant location. As a result of this strong selective pressure, homing pigeons have developed an excellent spatial navigation system. This system passes through the hippocampal formation (HF), which shares many striking similarities to the mammalian hippocampus; there are a host of shared neuropeptides, interconnections, and its role in the storage and manipulation of spatial maps. There are some notable differences as well: there are unique connectivity patterns and spatial encoding strategies. This review summarizes the comparisons between the avian and mammalian hippocampal systems, and the responses of single neurons in several general categories: (1) location and place cells responding in specific areas, (2) path and goal cells responding between goal locations, (3) context-dependent cells that respond before or during a task, and (4) pattern, grid, and boundary cells that increase firing at stable intervals. Head-direction cells, responding to a specific compass direction, are found in mammals and other birds but not to date in pigeons. By studying an animal that evolved under significant adaptive pressure to quickly develop a complex and efficient spatial memory system, we may better understand the comparative neurology of neurospatial systems, and plot new and potentially fruitful avenues of comparative research in the future.

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Sensory processing is often studied by examining how a given neuron responds to a parameterized set of stimuli (tuning curve) or how a given stimulus evokes responses from a parameterized set of neurons (population response). Although tuning curves and the corresponding population responses contain the same information, they can have different properties. These differences are known to be important because the perception of a stimulus should be decoded from its population response, not from any single tuning curve. The differences are less studied in the spatial domain where a cell's spatial tuning curve is simply its receptive field (RF) profile. Here, we focus on evaluating the common belief that perrisaccadic forward and convergent RF shifts lead to forward (translational) and convergent (compressive) perceptual mislocalization, respectively, and investigate the effects of three related factors: decoders' awareness of RF shifts, changes of cells' covering density near attentional locus (the saccade target), and attentional response modulation. We find that RF shifts alone produce either no shift or an opposite shift of the population responses depending on whether or not decoders are aware of the RF shifts. Thus, forward RF shifts do not predict forward mislocalization. However, convergent RF shifts change cells' covering density for aware decoders (but not for unaware decoders) which may predict convergent mislocalization. Finally, attentional modulation adds a convergent component to population responses for stimuli near the target. We simulate the combined effects of these factors and discuss the results with extant mislocalization data. We speculate that perisaccadic mislocalization might be the flash-lag effect unrelated to perisaccadic RF remapping but to resolve the issue, one has to address the question of whether or not perceptual decoders are aware of RF shifts.

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Objective@#To examine the effect of functional sports training on the development of spatial awareness in children aged 6-8 years old,to provide a reference to improve children s ability of spatial sense.@*Methods@#A class of 125 children aged 6-8 years from first, second, and third grades of an elementary school in Zhengzhou City were conveniently selected by stratified random sampling, who were divided into the experimental group ( n =62) and the control group ( n =63) by random number tables. The experimental group received functional sports intervention for 8 weeks,3 times a week,20 min each time, and the control group received traditional sports game program.@*Results@#After the intervention,the error values of depth perception, orientation perception, and space perception in the experimertal group of 6 and 7 year old children reduced by 1.98 cm, 2.88°, and 22.00 cm (6 year old children) and 1.61 cm, 2.34°, and 17.99 cm (7 year old children) compared with the control group, respectively. Compared with those in the control group of 8 year old after the intervention, and the differences were of statistical signifiance( t =-3.07, -2.94, -3.07 ; -3.25, -3.29, -3.15, P <0.01). There was no significant difference in the error values of depth perception, orientation perception and space perception between the experimental group and the control group after intervention ( P >0.05). In the experimental group, the error values of depth perception, orientation perception and space perception reduced by 2.30 cm, 3.88°, 28.05 cm (6 year old children), 2.16 cm, 2.15°, 17.45 cm (7 year old children) and 1.16 cm, 1.81°, 9.10 cm (8 year old children) in children aged 6-8 years after intervention, significant improvement were observed compared with before intervention ( t = 8.50 , 9.04, 7.35; 7.39, 10.30, 11.05; 4.67, 4.46, 14.14, P <0.01). Compared with before the intervention, children aged 6-8 in the control group only had significant differences in space perception( t =4.13, 6.71, 8.93, P <0.01).@*Conclusion@#Functional sports games can improve depth perception, orientation perception and spatial perception for children aged 6-8 years. It can be integrated into children s daily activities to play a positive role in promoting the healthy growth of children.

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Spatial memory impairments are observed in people with Huntington's disease (HD), however, the domain of spatial memory has received little focus when characterizing the cognitive phenotype of HD. Spatial memory is traditionally thought to be a hippocampal-dependent function, while the neuropathology of HD centers on the striatum. Alongside spatial memory deficits in HD, recent neurocognitive theories suggest that a larger brain network is involved, including the striatum. We examined the relationship between hippocampal and striatal volumes and spatial memory in 36 HD gene expansion carriers, including premanifest (n = 24) and early manifest HD (n = 12), and 32 matched healthy controls. We assessed spatial memory with Paired Associates Learning, Rey-Osterrieth Complex Figure Test, and the Virtual House task, which assesses three components of spatial memory: navigation, object location, and plan drawing. Caudate nucleus, putamen, and hippocampal volumes were manually segmented on T1-weighted MR images. As expected, caudate nucleus and putamen volumes were significantly smaller in the HD group compared to controls, with manifest HD having more severe atrophy than the premanifest HD group. Hippocampal volumes did not differ significantly between HD and control groups. Nonetheless, on average, the HD group performed significantly worse than controls across all spatial memory tasks. The spatial memory components of object location and recall of figural and topographical drawings were associated with striatal and hippocampal volumes in the HD cohort. We provide a case to include spatial memory impairments in the cognitive phenotype of HD, and extend the neurocognitive picture of HD beyond its primary pathology within the striatum.

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The hypothesis that perspective foreshortening leads to errors in the visual perception of angles, was tested in four experiments. An oblique to a z-dimension line was presented (a) on the ground in Experiments 1 and 2, and (b) on a wall in Experiments 3 and 4. Observers judged the acute angle between the oblique and the z-line. Foreshortening increased with the oblique's distance along the z-line and, in Experiments 2 and 4, shorter distances from the eye to the ground or wall. As distance and eye-height vary, so does the target's slant to the line of sight. We argue the apparent angles between the lines increased with foreshortening because vision underestimates the fast rate of foreshortening with elevation compared with the slower rates in azimuth.

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