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Visual attention plays a central role in current theories of sexual information processing and is key to informing the use of eye-tracking techniques in the study of typical sexual preferences and more recently, in the study of atypical preferences such as pedophilia (prepubescent children) and hebephilia (pubescent children). The aim of this theoretical-empirical review is to connect the concepts of a visual attention-based model of sexual arousal processing with eye movements as indicators of atypical sexual interests, to substantiate the use of eye-tracking as a useful indirect measure of sexual preferences according to sex and age of the stimuli. Implications for research are discussed in terms of recognizing the value, scope and limitations of eye-tracking in the study of pedophilia and other chronophilias in males and females, and the generation of new hypotheses using this type of indirect measure of human sexual response.

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Resumen Los modelos neurocognitivos actuales definen a la atención como un sistema de control cognitivo responsable de la activación y organización jerárquica de los procesos encargados de elaborar la información. La atención juega un rol clave en el desempeño cognitivo infantil y en el aprendizaje escolar. Por ello, resulta importante disponer de instrumentos de evaluación, válidos y confiables, que permitan valorar con mayor precisión el desempeño atencional en niños y niñas. El propósito de este trabajo es analizar las propiedades psicométricas del Test de Anillos (TA), un nuevo instrumento diseñado para evaluar atención visual en niños. El TA se ha construido utilizando el optotipo C de Landolt y sigue la estructura triestímulo propuesta por la prueba de percepción de similitudes y diferencias (CARAS). Es una prueba de papel y lápiz que se compone de 60 bloques de estímulos. La muestra estuvo conformada por 86 escolares entre 8 y 10 años de edad. Para el estudio de las propiedades psicométricas se analizó la validez convergente entre el TA y el Test CARAS y se examinó la estabilidad temporal para analizar la confiabilidad del TA. Los resultados indicaron que el TA es un instrumento válido y confiable para la medición de la atención visual en niños y niñas. Presentó adecuados valores en validez convergente y una satisfactoria estabilidad temporal entre la primera y la segunda evaluación. Se concluye que el TA constituye un aporte a los instrumentos neuropsicológicos existentes para la evaluación de la atención visual en población infantil.

Abstract Current neurocognitive models define attention as a cognitive control system responsible for activation and hierarchical organization of the processes to elaborate information. It plays a key role in child cognitive performance and in school learning. It has been documented that children with greater attention capabilities show better performance in tasks that require cognitive control and better school performance. Therefore, it is important to have valid and reliable assessment instruments, which allow evaluating attentional performance in children with greater precision, and that are adapted to the sociocultural context of the target population. In line with these postulates, this paper presents a new instrument designed to evaluate visual attention in children called the Ring Test. The Ring Test is a visual discrimination test that has been constructed using Landolt's C optotype and following the tristimulus structure proposed by the Perception of Similarities and Differences (FACES) Test. Ring Test is a pencil and paper test that is made up of 60 blocks of stimuli each with triads of optotypes, where two optotypes are the same and one different. Subject's task is to find the different optotype in each stimulus triad and cross it out. This instrument brings into play focused and sustained attention and makes it possible to assess attentional effectiveness (AE), attentional efficiency (AF) and attentional performance (AP). Also, the Ring Test measures impulsivity (ICI) and net correct answers (NCA). The purpose of the study is to analyze psychometric properties for the Ring Test. Study's specific objectives were: (1) analyze the convergent validity between the Ring Test and the FACES Test, and (2) analyze the reliability of the Ring Test through the temporal stability. This study is framed in an instrumental design. The sample was composed of 86 schoolchildren, between 8 to 10 years. The results indicated that the Ring Test presented accurate values of convergent validity with the FACES test. The indicators of the Ring Test (AE, AF, AP, ICI and NCA) weighted for the complete execution of the test, showed the highest convergent validity indexes with the FACES Test (rho: from .55 to .62). AR and NCA for the complete execution of the test were the indicators that presented the highest validity (rho > .58), within the analyzed indicators. Also, the Ring Test presented a satisfactory temporal stability between the first and second measurement. It was observed that the most stable indicators are those that are calculated for the complete performance of the test (rho: from .56 to .76), and not for the partial times. AR and NCA calculated for the complete execution of the test were the indicators that denoted the greatest temporal stability (rho > .65). Another interesting aspect to highlight is that the Ring Test proved to be a valid and reliable instrument to measure attentional efficacy and impulsivity. AE evaluates the accuracy with which a child discriminates targeted stimuli within a set of similar stimuli and, consequently, can be considered a good indicator of attentional control. The ICI assesses the reflexivity or impulsiveness with which a subject performs a visual discrimination task. In sum, the results indicated that the Ring Test is a valid and reliable instrument for measuring visual attention in children. It is recommended to apply the complete test, not in time fractions, because the indicators calculated for the complete execution of the test showed greater convergent validity with the FACES test and greater temporal stability than the part-time indicators. It is concluded that the Ring Test is a contribution to the neuropsychological instruments available for the proper evaluation of visual attention in children.

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Playing specific genres of video games (e.g., action video games) has been linked to improvements in cognitive skills mostly related to attentional phenomena. Nonetheless, do video games have features or dimensions in common that impact cognitive improvements beyond the game genre? Here, we argue that the sensorimotor demand-the amount of demand for precise coordination between movement and perception-is a key element in the improvements associated with playing video games. We conducted a two-part study to test this hypothesis: a self-report online gaming instrument development and validation and an in-lab behavioural and electrophysiological study. In the first study, data from 209 participants were used to devise the sensorimotor demand instrument (SMDI). The SMDI was split into three dimensions of video game playing: sensorimotor contingency, immersion and unfocused gaming. Criterion validity related to video gamers' characteristics supported that the SMDI is sensitive to the input device (e.g., keyboard or touchscreens), and the most recent experience gained during gaming sessions while not being sensitive to the game genre. In the second study, data from 20 participants who performed four visual-attentional tasks previously reported in the literature showed that the SMDI's dimensions were associated with behavioural performance measures and the latency and amplitude of event-related potentials (N1, P2 and P3). Despite the challenge of studying the video gamer population, our study remarks on the relevance of sensorimotor demands in the performance of attentional tasks and its potential use as a dimension to characterize the experience of playing video games beyond the game genre.

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Previous studies have shown that COVID-19 inpatients exhibited significant attentional deficits on the day of discharge. However, the presence of gastrointestinal symptoms (GIS) has not been evaluated. Here, we aimed to verify: (1) whether COVID-19 patients with GIS exhibited specific attention deficits; (2) which attention subdomain deficits discriminated patients with GIS and without gastrointestinal symptoms (NGIS) from healthy controls. On admission, the presence of GIS was recorded. Seventy-four physically functional COVID-19 inpatients at discharge and sixty-eight controls underwent a Go/No-go computerized visual attentional test (CVAT). A Multivariate Analysis of Covariance (MANCOVA) was performed to examine group differences in attentional performance. To discriminate which attention subdomain deficits discriminated GIS and NGIS COVID-19 patients from healthy controls, a discriminant analysis was applied using the CVAT variables. The MANCOVA showed a significant overall effect of COVID-19 with GIS on attention performance. The discriminant analysis indicated that the GIS group could be differentiated from the controls by variability of reaction time and omissions errors. The NGIS group could be differentiated from controls by reaction time. Late attention deficits in COVID-19 patients with GIS may reflect a primary problem in the sustained and focused attention subsystems, whereas in NGIS patients the attention problems are related to the intrinsic-alertness subsystem.

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Understanding users' visual attention on websites is paramount to enhance the browsing experience, such as providing emergent information or dynamically adapting Web interfaces. Existing approaches to accomplish these challenges are generally based on the computation of salience maps of static Web interfaces, while websites increasingly become more dynamic and interactive. This paper proposes a method and provides a proof-of-concept to predict user's visual attention on specific regions of a website with dynamic components. This method predicts the regions of a user's visual attention without requiring a constant recording of the current layout of the website, but rather by knowing the structure it presented in a past period. To address this challenge, the concept of visit intention is introduced in this paper, defined as the probability that a user, while browsing, will fixate their gaze on a specific region of the website in the next period. Our approach uses the gaze patterns of a population that browsed a specific website, captured via an eye-tracker device, to aid personalized prediction models built with individual visual kinetics features. We show experimentally that it is possible to conduct such a prediction through multilabel classification models using a small number of users, obtaining an average area under curve of 84.3%, and an average accuracy of 79%. Furthermore, the user's visual kinetics features are consistently selected in every set of a cross-validation evaluation.

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Nowadays, human action recognition has become an essential task in health care and other fields. During the last decade, several authors have developed algorithms for human activity detection and recognition by exploiting at the maximum the high-performance computing devices to improve the quality and efficiency of their results. However, in real-time and practical human action recognition applications, the simulation of these algorithms exceed the capacity of current computer systems by considering several factors, such as camera movement, complex scene and occlusion. One potential solution to decrease the computational complexity in the human action detection and recognition can be found in the nature of the human visual perception. Specifically, this process is called selective visual attention. Inspired by this neural phenomena, we propose for the first time a spiking neural P system for efficient feature extraction from human motion. Specifically, we propose this neural structure to carry out a pre-processing stage since many studies have revealed that an analysis of visual information of the human brain proceeds in a sequence of operations, in which each one is applied to a specific location or locations. In this way, this specialized processing have allowed to focus the recognition of the objects in a simpler manner. To create a compact and high speed spiking neural P system, we use their cutting-edge variants, such as rules on the synapses, communication on request and astrocyte-like control. Our results have demonstrated that the use of the proposed neural P system increases significantly the performance of low-computational complexity neural classifiers up to more 97% in the human action recognition.

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Few studies have reported specific attention deficits in post-COVID-19 patients. Attention consists of different subdomains. Disruptions to specific attention subdomains might impair a wide range of everyday tasks, including road safety. As there are millions of COVID-19 patients with different socio-economic backgrounds, screening of attentional performance less dependent on education is needed. Here, we verified if physically recovered COVID-19 inpatients showed specific attention decrements at discharge. The Continuous Visual Attention Test (CVAT) is a Go/No-go task which is independent of participants' schooling. It detects visuomotor reaction time (RT = intrinsic alertness), variability of reaction time (VRT = sustained attention), omission (focused-attention), and commission errors (response-inhibition). Thirty physically functional COVID-19 inpatients at discharge and 30 non-infected controls underwent the CVAT. A MANCOVA was performed to examine differences between controls and patients, followed by post-hoc ANCOVAs. Then, we identified the percentile score for each patient within the distribution of the CVAT performance of 211 subjects mentally capable of driving (reference group). COVID-19 patients at discharge showed greater RT and VRT, and more omission errors than controls. Twenty-two patients (73%) had performance below the 5th percentile of the reference group in one or more subdomains. As slow visuomotor RT, deficits in focusing and difficulties in keeping visual attention are associated with traffic accidents, we concluded that most COVID-19 patients at discharge had deficits that may increase the risk of road injuries. As these deficits will probably affect other daily activities, a routine assessment with the CVAT could provide useful information on whom to send to post-COVID centers.

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Abstract In this study, we investigated the influence of the olfactive stimulus on visual attention. Two groups of 30 subjects participated in two experiments. Both experiments presented two arrays of fruits stimulus intercalated by an olfactive intervention. The stimulus was received in the form of images by the first group and in the form of words by the second group. An eye-tracking device monitored the timekeeping of visual attention dispensed in each stimulus. The results showed that olfactive priming influenced visual attention in both cases but with a greater degree in the images stimulus group. This study shows for the first time that image information is more susceptible to priming olfactive information than wording information. This effect may be associated with the formation of mental images in working memory, aroused by fragrances.

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Objective: Continuous performance tests (CPTs) usually utilize visual stimuli. A previous investigation showed that inattention is partially independent of modality, but response inhibition is modality-specific. Here we aimed to compare performance on visual and auditory CPTs in ADHD and in healthy controls. Method: The sample consisted of 160 elementary and high school students (43 ADHD, 117 controls). For each sensory modality, five variables were extracted: commission errors (CEs) and omission errors (OEs), reaction time (RT), variability of reaction time (VRT), and coefficient of variability (CofV = VRT / RT). Results: The ADHD group exhibited higher rates for all test variables. The discriminant analysis indicated that auditory OE was the most reliable variable for discriminating between groups, followed by visual CE, auditory CE, and auditory CofV. Discriminant equation classified ADHD with 76.3% accuracy. Conclusion: Auditory parameters in the inattention domain (OE and VRT) can discriminate ADHD from controls. For the hyperactive/impulsive domain (CE), the two modalities are equally important.

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Human perception differs profoundly between individuals from different cultures. In the present study, we investigated the development of context-sensitive attention (the relative focus on context elements of a visual scene) in a large sample (N = 297) of 5- to 15-year-olds and young adults from rural and urban Brazil, namely from agricultural villages in the Amazon region and the city of São Paulo. We applied several visual tasks which assess context-sensitive attention, including an optical illusion, a picture description, a picture recognition and a facial emotion judgment task. The results revealed that children and adults from the urban sample had a higher level of context-sensitive attention, when compared to children and adults from the rural sample. In particular, participants from São Paulo were more easily deceived by the context elements in an optical illusion task and remembered more context elements in a recognition task than participants from rural Amazon villages. In these two tasks, context-sensitivity increased with age. However, we did not find a cultural difference in the picture description and the facial emotion judgment task. These findings support the idea that visual information processing is highly dependent on the culture-specific learning environments from very early in development. Specifically, they are more consistent with accounts that emphasize the role of the visual environment, than with the social orientation account. However, they also highlight that further research is needed to disentangle the diverse factors that may influence the early development of visual attention, which underlie culture-specific developmental pathways.

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Classical models of exogenous attention suggest that attentional enhancement at the focus of attention degrades gradually with distance from the attended location. On the other hand, the Attentional Attraction Field (AAF) model (Baruch and Yeshurun, 2014) suggests that the shift of receptive fields toward the attended location, reported by several physiological studies, leads to a decreased density of RFs at the attentional surrounds and hence the model predicts that the modulation of performance by spatial attention may have the shape of a Mexican Hat. Motivated by these theories, this study presents behavioral evidence in support of a Mexican Hat shaped modulation in exogenous spatial tasks that appears only at short latencies. In two experiments participants had to decide the location of a small gap in a target circle that was preceded by a non-informative attention capturing cue. The distance between cue and target and the latency between their onsets were varied. At short SOAs the performance curves were cubic and only at longer SOAs- this trend turned linear. Our results suggest that a rapid Mexican Hat modulation is an inherent property of the mechanism underlying exogenous attention and that a monotonically degrading trend, such as advocated by classical models, develops only at later stages of processing. The involvements of bottom-up processes such as the attraction of RFs to the focus of attention are further discussed.

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BACKGROUND: Visual search abilities are essential to everyday life activities and are known to be affected in Alzheimer's disease (AD). However, little is known about visual search efficiency in mild cognitive impairment (MCI), a transitive state between normal aging and dementia. Eye movement studies and machine learning methods have been recently used to detect oculomotor impairments in individuals with dementia. OBJECTIVE: The aim of the present study is to investigate the association between eye movement metrics and visual search impairment in MCI and AD. METHODS: 127 participants were tested: 43 healthy controls, 51 with MCI, and 33 with AD. They completed an eyetracking visual search task where they had to find a previously seen target stimulus among distractors. RESULTS: Both patient groups made more fixations on the screen when searching for a target, with longer duration than controls. MCI and AD fixated the distractors more often and for a longer period of time than the target. Healthy controls were quicker and made less fixations when scanning the stimuli for the first time. Machine-learning methods were able to distinguish between controls and AD subjects and to identify MCI subjects with a similar oculomotor profile to AD with a good accuracy. CONCLUSION: Results showed that eye movement metrics are useful for identifying visual search impairments in MCI and AD, with possible implications in the early identification of individuals with high-risk of developing AD.

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Vergence eye movements are movements of both eyes in opposite directions. Vergence is known to have a role in binocular vision. However recent studies link vergence eye movements also to attention and attention disorders. As attention may be involved in dyslexia, it is sensible to guess that the presence of reading difficulties can be associated with specific patterns in vergence responses. Data from school children performing a word-reading task have been analysed. In the task, children had to distinguish words from non-words (scrambled words or row of X's), while their eye positions were recorded. Our findings show that after stimulus presentation eyes briefly converge. These vergence responses depend on the stimulus type and age of the child, and are different for children with reading difficulties. Our findings support the idea of a role of attention in word reading and offer an explanation of altered attention in dyslexia.

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Researchers are acutely interested in how people engage in social interactions and navigate their environment. However, in striving for experimental or laboratory control, we often instead present individuals with representations of social and environmental constructs and infer how they would behave in more dynamic and contingent interactions. Mobile eye-tracking (MET) is one approach to connecting the laboratory to the experienced environment. MET superimposes gaze patterns captured through head or eye-glass mounted cameras pointed at the eyes onto a separate camera that captures the visual field. As a result, MET allows researchers to examine the world from the point of view of the individual in action. This review touches on the methods and questions that can be asked with this approach, illustrating how MET can provide new insight into social, behavioral, and cognitive processes from infancy through old age.

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A orientação da atenção, por meio de uma dica retroativa endógena, para locais de uma cena memorizada, favorece positivamente o processamento de forma equivalente ao favorecimento associado à dica endógena nas tarefas perceptivas. Na percepção dicas endógenas e exógenas têm dinâmicas temporais diferentes. Nós investigamos a eficácia e a dinâmica temporal da recuperação da informação armazenada na memória de trabalho visual utilizando dicas retroativas endógenas e exógenas. Nossos resultados mostram que as dicas retroativas endógena e exógena proporcionam um ganho equivalente na acurácia (d') e no tempo de resposta, e que este ganho aumenta com a assincronia entre dica e estímulo teste. Nossos dados mostram que o ganho no desempenho está ligado tanto à validade da dica, como ao intervalo dica-estímulo, mas não aos diferentes tipos de dica, pelo menos nos intervalos investigados.

Orienting attention to a memorized scene using an endogenous cue positively favors processing, in a manner similar to endogenous cueing in perceptual tasks. In perception, endogenous and exogenous cues have different temporal dynamics. We investigated the efficacy and temporal dynamics of retrieval of information held in working memory using two types of retro-cue (endogenous and exogenous), presented in different intervals before the probed stimulus. Our results show that both cue types provide an equivalent benefit in accuracy and response time, which increases at longer cue-target-asynchrony. Our data indicate that performance is linked with cue validity and also with cue-target-asynchrony, but it is not linked with cue type, at least at the investigated intervals.

La orientación de la atención, por medio de una pista retroactiva endógena, para lugares de una escena memorizada, favorece positivamente el procesamiento de forma equivalente al favorecimiento asociado a la pista endógena en las tareas perceptivas. En la percepción pistas endógenas y exógenas tienen dinámicas temporales diferentes. Hemos investigamos la eficacia y la dinámica temporal de la recuperación de la información almacenada en la memoria de trabajo utilizando pistas retroactivas endógenas y exógenas, presentadas a diferentes intervalos antes del estímulo test. Nuestros resultados muestran que las pistas retroactivas endógenas y exógenas proporcionan un beneficio equivalente en exactitude (d') y tiempo de respuesta, y que este beneficio aumenta con la asincronía entre pista y estímulo test. El rendimiento parece estar vinculado tanto a la validez de la pista, como al intervalo de estímulo, pero no a los diferentes tipos de pista, al menos en los intervalos investigados.

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We report an experiment that examines the performance of rugby union players and a control group composed of graduate student with no sport experience, in a multiple-object tracking task. It compares the ability of 86 high level rugby union players grouped as Backs and Forwards and the control group, to track a subset of randomly moving targets amongst the same number of distractors. Several difficulties were included in the experimental design in order to evaluate possible interactions between the relevant variables. Results show that the performance of the Backs is better than that of the other groups, but the occurrence of interactions precludes an isolated groups analysis. We interpret the results within the framework of visual attention and discuss both, the implications of our results and the practical consequences.

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Problems in inhibitory control are regarded in Psychology as a key problem associated with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). They, however, might not be primary deficits, but instead a consequence of inattention. At least two components have been identified and dissociated in studies in regards to inhibitory control: interference suppression, responsible for controlling interference by resisting irrelevant or misleading information, and response inhibition, referring to withholding a response or overriding an ongoing behavior. Poor error awareness and self-monitoring undermine an individual's ability to inhibit inadequate responses and change course of action. In non-social contexts, an individual depends on his own cognition to regulate his mistakes. In social contexts, however, there are many social cues that should help that individual to perceive his mistakes and inhibit inadequate responses. The processes involved in perceiving and interpreting those social cues are arguably part of a self-protection system (SPS). Individuals with ADHD not only present impulsive behaviors in social contexts, but also have difficulty perceiving their inadequate responses and overriding ongoing actions toward more appropriate ones. In this paper, we discuss that those difficulties are arguably a consequence of an impaired SPS, due to visual attention deficits and subsequent failure in perceiving and recognizing accurately negative emotions in facial expressions, especially anger. We discuss evidence that children with ADHD exhibit problems in a series of components involved in the activation of that system and advocate that the inability to identify the anger expressed by others, and thus, not experiencing the fear response that should follow, is, ultimately, what prevents them from inhibiting the ongoing inappropriate behavior, since a potential threat is not registered. Getting involved in high-risk situations, such as reckless driving, could also be a consequence of not registering a threat and thus, not experiencing fear.

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Resumo Nós investigamos a recuperação de características visuais (cor, forma) de um objeto armazenado na memória de trabalho visual. Dicas retroativas, espaciais ou baseadas nas características visuais do objeto memorizado, foram apresentadas em uma tarefa de reconhecimento visual. Dicas retroativas espaciais sinalizavam o local ora da cor, ora da forma a ser reconhecida; a dica de forma sinalizava a cor a ser reconhecida; a dica de cor sinalizava a forma. Os resultados mostram que a dica espacial proporciona um ganho no reconhecimento da cor, mas não da forma. Nem a cor nem a forma proporcionam ganhos no reconhecimento, respectivamente, da forma ou da cor. Nossos resultados sugerem que a informação espacial é mais relevante para a recuperação da informação memorizada do que a informação visual. Discutimos o papel da atenção no processo de recuperação e a importância do buffer visual como sistema da memória de trabalho visual.

Abstract We investigate the retrieval of visual characteristics (color, form) of an object stored in visual working memory. Retro-cues based on location or on memorized characteristics were presented in a visual recognition task. Location retro-cues pointed out the place where the to be recognized feature (color or form) was at the memorized scene; color retro-cues cued the to be recognized form; form retro-cues cued color. Results show that spatial retro-cue allows a gain in color recognition but not in form recognition. Neither the color nor the form retro-cues provide significant improvement in recognition of form or color, respectively. Our results suggest that spatial information is more relevant to the recovery of the memorized information than the visual characteristics. We discuss the role of attention in the recovery process and the importance of the visual buffer as a visual working memory system.

Resumen Nosotros investigamos la recuperación de características visuales (color, forma) de un objeto almacenado en la memoria de trabajo visual. Pistas retroactivas, espaciales o embazadas en características del objeto memorizado, fueron presentadas en una tarea de reconocimiento visual. Pistas espaciales señalaron el sitio del color, o de la forma a ser reconocida; la pista de forma señaló el color y la pista de color señaló la forma a ser reconocida. Los resultados muestran que las pistas espaciales proporcionan un gaño en lo reconocimiento del color, pero no de forma. Ni el color ni la forma proporcionan beneficios en el reconocimiento, respectivamente, de la forma o del color. Nuestros resultados sugieren que la información espacial es más relevante para la recuperación que la información visual. Discutimos el rol de la atención en la recuperación y la importancia del visual buffer como un sistema de la memoria de trabajo visual.

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This study aimed to compare the visual attention performance of children newly diagnosed with migraine, children undergoing migraine prophylaxis, and a healthy control group. Eighty-two children aged 8 to 12 years were divided into 3 groups: untreated migraine (n = 30), migraine prophylaxis (n = 22), and control (n = 30). All were subjected to a visual attention assessment with the Trail Making Test parts A and B, Letter-Cancellation Test, and the Brazilian Visual Attention Test 3rd edition. Although performance in attention tasks was within the normal range in all groups, children with untreated migraine performed significantly worse in some visual attention tests than did the control children or children undergoing migraine prophylaxis. The migraine prophylaxis group performed as well as the control group. The deregulation of the neurochemical mechanisms underlying the physiopathology of migraine might induce visual attention deficits, but an effective prophylactic treatment might reverse migraine symptoms.

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