OKN眼动跟踪在运动文字识别中的作用

用运动文字的阅读眼动实验来研究运动图像识别与眼动控制的关系,并与一般OKN眼动及一般正常阅读进行对比,探讨了速度及位置信息处理与内容信息处理的关系.实验结果表明;(1)一般正常文字阅读的眼动是Saccades眼动与注视停顿;运动文字识别阅读的眼动中没有注视停顿,而是快、慢交替的OKN眼动,在其慢相期间即运动文字与视网膜相对静止期间采集内容信息进行处理,慢相期间既处理文字内容信息又处理运动速度信息,说明对运动速度与内容信息的处理是并行的.(2)在运动文字运动速度高达80°/s以上时,已不能阅读甚至不能识别单字意义,但仍可产生OKN眼动;这一方面证实阅读速度的受限不在于眼球运动的跟踪能力,而在于高级识别中枢的解码速度,另一方面也说明OKN眼动不是在识别后才产生,而是进行运动图象识别的必要条件.(3)运动文字识别阅读的速度不低于一般正常文字阅读的速度.本文的结果还证实OKN眼动的快相眼动有别于Foveating Saccades.     

无眼动条件下中文阅读的研究

设计了计算机控制的中文阅读材料的不同显示方式,并对各种阅读过程中的徙动波形进行记录和分析。实验结果表明,无眼动的阅读速度较正常有眼动高,分别为853字/分和640字/分。通过固定窗口显示方式和知动窗口显示方式条件下中文阅读的比较,排除了强迫阅读的因素,说明有无眼动是产生阅读速度差异的主要原因;根据以上实验结果,可得出结论,在有眼动的情况下,除了saccade抑制影响阅读和识别外,主要的因素在于高级中枢对位置信号的处理,眼动的驱动控制及运动过程影响了高级中枢对阅读内容和识别内容的解码速率。无眼动阅读的速度主要受到高级中枢解码速率和记忆的影响,而不是周边视觉系统的限制。实验结果还表明,在无眼动的情况下,周边信息对阅读不仅不起帮助作用,反而起到干扰作用。     

非快速眼动睡眠期间神经同步活动与记忆巩固关系研究进展

神经同步活动被认为是神经系统信息处理的关键。脑内存在多种不同频段的局部同步活动和区域间同步活动,这些神经同步活动与多种行为和认知功能相关。记忆作为脑的高级认知功能,其形成和巩固的过程与神经同步活动关系密切。本文主要从体内非快速眼动(non-rapid eye movement, NREM)睡眠期间多个脑区间的神经振荡活动以及体外培养神经网络的同步爆发活动两个层面综述了神经同步活动与记忆巩固关系的研究进展,分析了当前研究存在的问题,并对今后的相关研究作出展望。     

《生理学报》投稿须知

<正>1.《生理学报》(Acta Physiologica Sinica)主要刊登生理科学及其相关生命科学的文章,设立的栏目主要有:研究论文、实验技术、综述和科海拾贝,还适当刊登重要的生理学及相关生命科学学术会议的专题报告。文章用中文或英文发表。来稿的内容应具有原创性,论点明确、结果可靠、结构严谨、文字精练。欢迎国内外生理科学及相关生命科学的工作者投稿。鼓励作者投送英文稿件,对学术内容和英文文字表述较好的文章予以优先发表。     

《生理学报》投稿须知

<正>1.《生理学报》(Acta Physiologica Sinica)主要刊登生理科学及其相关生命科学的文章,设立的栏目主要有:研究论文、实验技术、综述和科海拾贝,还适当刊登重要的生理学及相关生命科学学术会议的专题报告。文章用中文或英文发表。来稿的内容应具有原创性,论点明确、结果可靠、结构严谨、文字精练。欢迎国内外生理科学及相关生命科学的工作者投稿。鼓励作者投送英文稿件,对学术内容和英文文字表述较好的文章予以优先发表。     

投稿指南

来稿可用中文或英文撰写,用英文撰写的论文,请附上较英文摘要更为详细的中文摘要。用中文撰写的论文,应附较中文摘要更为详细的英文摘要,格式严格遵照国际医学期刊编辑委员会制定的《生物医学期刊投稿的统一要求》撰写。投稿前请登陆本刊网站下载《投稿承诺书》.按照文章署名顺序签名并加盖单位公章.确保论文未一稿两投凡查出并证实存在侵权或泄密行为的稿件,将由作者承担一切后果。作者来稿一律文责自负。依照《著作权法》有关规定,编辑部可以对稿件作文字修改、删节,凡涉及原意的重大修改,则请作者考虑。     

投稿指南

来稿可用中文或英文撰写,用英文撰写的论文,请附上较英文摘要更为详细的中文摘要。用中文撰写的论文.应附较中文摘要更为详细的英文摘要,格式严格遵照国际医学期刊编辑委员会制定的《生物医学期刊投稿的统一要求》撰写。投稿前请登陆本刊网站下载《投稿承诺书》,按照文章署名顺序签名并加盖单位公章,确保论文未一稿两投。凡查出并证实存在侵权或泄密行为的稿件,将由作者承担一切后果。作者来稿一律文责自负。依照《著作权法》有关规定,编辑部可以对稿件作文字修改、删节,凡涉及原意的重大修改,则请作者考虑。     

投稿指南

来稿可用中文或英文撰写,用英文撰写的论文,请附上较英文摘要更为详细的中文摘要。用中文撰写的论文,应附较中文摘要更为详细的英文摘要,格式严格遵照国际医学期刊编辑委员会制定的《生物医学期刊投稿的统一要求》撰写。投稿前请登陆本刊网站下载《投稿承诺书》,按照文章署名顺序签名并加盖单位公章,确保论文未一稿两投。凡查出并证实存在侵权或泄密行为的稿件,将由作者承担一切后果。作者来稿一律文责自负。依照《著作权法》有关规定,编辑部可以对稿件作文字修改、删节,凡涉及原意的重大修改.则请作者考虑。     

视觉图像辨认眼动中的Top－down信息处理

在视觉图像辨认过程中,眼球不是均匀地扫描全幅图像,而是通过一系列快速的眼球跳动来改变注视点位置,有选择地通过注视停顿来采集图象中的关键信息。通过实验对不同图像刺激时的眼动轨迹进行记录与分析,发现：（１）对于简单的几何图形,眼动注视停顿主要集中在图像中几何特征之处,亦即与周围不同的奇异点上;（２）对复杂图象刺激,眼动注视点位置决定于受试者的已有概念模型及其兴趣所在;（３）对中文单字进行辩认时,其眼动模式也是取决于受试者对该单字的知识（也即概念模型）。以上结果提示,视觉图象辨认主要是通过自上而下（ｔｏｐ－ｄｏｗｎ）的信息处理方式才完成．由中枢控制眼球运动,将注视点落到中枢决定的图形奇点上来,通过注视停顿对中枢认为的关键信息之处进行抽提,以实现辨认。这种处理方式不是只取决于输入的图像信息,也不必对目标图像的每个象素进行处理,而只需对图象中少量的关键信息部位进行重点的检测和处理,从而提高了图象信息处理的能力及效率。     

Do Chinese Readers Follow the National Standard Rules for Word Segmentation during Reading?

We conducted a preliminary study to examine whether Chinese readers’ spontaneous word segmentation processing is consistent with the national standard rules of word segmentation based on the Contemporary Chinese language word segmentation specification for information processing (CCLWSSIP). Participants were asked to segment Chinese sentences into individual words according to their prior knowledge of words. The results showed that Chinese readers did not follow the segmentation rules of the CCLWSSIP, and their word segmentation processing was influenced by the syntactic categories of consecutive words. In many cases, the participants did not consider the auxiliary words, adverbs, adjectives, nouns, verbs, numerals and quantifiers as single word units. Generally, Chinese readers tended to combine function words with content words to form single word units, indicating they were inclined to chunk single words into large information units during word segmentation. Additionally, the “overextension of monosyllable words” hypothesis was tested and it might need to be corrected to some degree, implying that word length have an implicit influence on Chinese readers’ segmentation processing. Implications of these results for models of word recognition and eye movement control are discussed.     

Both Lexical and Non-Lexical Characters Are Processed during Saccadic Eye Movements

On average our eyes make 3–5 saccadic movements per second when we read, although their neural mechanism is still unclear. It is generally thought that saccades help redirect the retinal fovea to specific characters and words but that actual discrimination of information only occurs during periods of fixation. Indeed, it has been proposed that there is active and selective suppression of information processing during saccades to avoid experience of blurring due to the high-speed movement. Here, using a paradigm where a string of either lexical (Chinese) or non-lexical (alphabetic) characters are triggered by saccadic eye movements, we show that subjects can discriminate both while making saccadic eye movement. Moreover, discrimination accuracy is significantly better for characters scanned during the saccadic movement to a fixation point than those not scanned beyond it. Our results showed that character information can be processed during the saccade, therefore saccades during reading not only function to redirect the fovea to fixate the next character or word but allow pre-processing of information from the ones adjacent to the fixation locations to help target the next most salient one. In this way saccades can not only promote continuity in reading words but also actively facilitate reading comprehension.     

Using Eye Movements to Evaluate the Cognitive Processes Involved in Text Comprehension

The present article describes how to use eye tracking methodologies to study the cognitive processes involved in text comprehension. Measuring eye movements during reading is one of the most precise methods for measuring moment-by-moment (online) processing demands during text comprehension. Cognitive processing demands are reflected by several aspects of eye movement behavior, such as fixation duration, number of fixations, and number of regressions (returning to prior parts of a text). Important properties of eye tracking equipment that researchers need to consider are described, including how frequently the eye position is measured (sampling rate), accuracy of determining eye position, how much head movement is allowed, and ease of use. Also described are properties of stimuli that influence eye movements that need to be controlled in studies of text comprehension, such as the position, frequency, and length of target words. Procedural recommendations related to preparing the participant, setting up and calibrating the equipment, and running a study are given. Representative results are presented to illustrate how data can be evaluated. Although the methodology is described in terms of reading comprehension, much of the information presented can be applied to any study in which participants read verbal stimuli.     

The Relation between Reading Skills and Eye Movement Patterns in Adolescent Readers: Evidence from a Regular Orthography

Over the past decades, the relation between reading skills and eye movement behavior has been well documented in English-speaking cohorts. As English and German differ substantially with regard to orthographic complexity (i.e. grapheme-phoneme correspondence), we aimed to delineate specific characteristics of how reading speed and reading comprehension interact with eye movements in typically developing German-speaking (Austrian) adolescents. Eye movements of 22 participants (14 females; mean age = 13;6 years;months) were tracked while they were performing three tasks, namely silently reading words, texts, and pseudowords. Their reading skills were determined by means of a standardized German reading speed and reading comprehension assessment (Lesegeschwindigkeits- und -verständnistest für Klassen 6−12). We found that (a) reading skills were associated with various eye movement parameters in each of the three reading tasks; (b) better reading skills were associated with an increased efficiency of eye movements, but were primarily linked to spatial reading parameters, such as the number of fixations per word, the total number of saccades and saccadic amplitudes; (c) reading speed was a more reliable predictor for eye movement parameters than reading comprehension; (d) eye movements were highly correlated across reading tasks, which indicates consistent reading performances. Contrary to findings in English-speaking cohorts, the reading skills neither consistently correlated with temporal eye movement parameters nor with the number or percentage of regressions made while performing any of the three reading tasks. These results indicate that, although reading skills are associated with eye movement patterns irrespective of language, the temporal and spatial characteristics of this association may vary with orthographic consistency.     

Language Differences in the Brain Network for Reading in Naturalistic Story Reading and Lexical Decision

Differences in how writing systems represent language raise important questions about whether there could be a universal functional architecture for reading across languages. In order to study potential language differences in the neural networks that support reading skill, we collected fMRI data from readers of alphabetic (English) and morpho-syllabic (Chinese) writing systems during two reading tasks. In one, participants read short stories under conditions that approximate natural reading, and in the other, participants decided whether individual stimuli were real words or not. Prior work comparing these two writing systems has overwhelmingly used meta-linguistic tasks, generally supporting the conclusion that the reading system is organized differently for skilled readers of Chinese and English. We observed that language differences in the reading network were greatly dependent on task. In lexical decision, a pattern consistent with prior research was observed in which the Middle Frontal Gyrus (MFG) and right Fusiform Gyrus (rFFG) were more active for Chinese than for English, whereas the posterior temporal sulcus was more active for English than for Chinese. We found a very different pattern of language effects in a naturalistic reading paradigm, during which significant differences were only observed in visual regions not typically considered specific to the reading network, and the middle temporal gyrus, which is thought to be important for direct mapping of orthography to semantics. Indeed, in areas that are often discussed as supporting distinct cognitive or linguistic functions between the two languages, we observed interaction. Specifically, language differences were most pronounced in MFG and rFFG during the lexical decision task, whereas no language differences were observed in these areas during silent reading of text for comprehension.     

Eye Movement Patterns in Natural Reading: A Comparison of Monolingual and Bilingual Reading of a Novel

Introduction and Method

This paper presents a corpus of sentence level eye movement parameters for unbalanced bilingual first language (L1) and second-language (L2) reading and monolingual reading of a complete novel (56 000 words). We present important sentence-level basic eye movement parameters of both bilingual and monolingual natural reading extracted from this large data corpus.

Results and Conclusion

Bilingual L2 reading patterns show longer sentence reading times (20%), more fixations (21%), shorter saccades (12%) and less word skipping (4.6%), than L1 reading patterns. Regression rates are the same for L1 and L2 reading. These results could indicate, analogous to a previous simulation with the E-Z reader model in the literature, that it is primarily the speeding up of lexical access that drives both L1 and L2 reading development. Bilingual L1 reading does not differ in any major way from monolingual reading. This contrasts with predictions made by the weaker links account, which predicts a bilingual disadvantage in language processing caused by divided exposure between languages.     

The Effect of Sign Language Structure on Complex Word Reading in Chinese Deaf Adolescents

The present study was carried out to investigate whether sign language structure plays a role in the processing of complex words (i.e., derivational and compound words), in particular, the delay of complex word reading in deaf adolescents. Chinese deaf adolescents were found to respond faster to derivational words than to compound words for one-sign-structure words, but showed comparable performance for two-sign-structure words. For both derivational and compound words, response latencies to one-sign-structure words were shorter than to two-sign-structure words. These results provide strong evidence that the structure of sign language affects written word processing in Chinese. Additionally, differences between derivational and compound words in the one-sign-structure condition indicate that Chinese deaf adolescents acquire print morphological awareness. The results also showed that delayed word reading was found in derivational words with two signs (DW-2), compound words with one sign (CW-1), and compound words with two signs (CW-2), but not in derivational words with one sign (DW-1), with the delay being maximum in DW-2, medium in CW-2, and minimum in CW-1, suggesting that the structure of sign language has an impact on the delayed processing of Chinese written words in deaf adolescents. These results provide insight into the mechanisms about how sign language structure affects written word processing and its delayed processing relative to their hearing peers of the same age.     

What We Can Learn about Reading Development from the Analysis of Eye Movements

The paper presents the results of the study on reading mechanisms in children of primary school age performed using eye tracking. The participants were 36 second-grade pupils. Eye movements were registered when reading a specially developed set of sentences containing words with controlled length and frequency. Neuropsychological assessment and reading of words with regular and irregular spelling were also performed. The results confirm the data of reading analysis obtained in other languages and show that characteristics of eye movements during reading depend on the length and frequency of the word. The results indicate a close relationship between the characteristics of the oculomotor activity and the level of the development of reading skills. Analysis of the relationship of eye movements and neuropsychological assessments of the cognitive abilities of children shows that the executive functions and functions for visuospatial information processing are the most important in the second year of reading aquisition. The role of auditory information processing functions requires further investigation.     

Eye Movements Reveal Effects of Visual Content on Eye Guidance and Lexical Access during Reading

Background

Normal reading requires eye guidance and activation of lexical representations so that words in text can be identified accurately. However, little is known about how the visual content of text supports eye guidance and lexical activation, and thereby enables normal reading to take place.

Methods and Findings

To investigate this issue, we investigated eye movement performance when reading sentences displayed as normal and when the spatial frequency content of text was filtered to contain just one of 5 types of visual content: very coarse, coarse, medium, fine, and very fine. The effect of each type of visual content specifically on lexical activation was assessed using a target word of either high or low lexical frequency embedded in each sentence

Results

No type of visual content produced normal eye movement performance but eye movement performance was closest to normal for medium and fine visual content. However, effects of lexical frequency emerged early in the eye movement record for coarse, medium, fine, and very fine visual content, and were observed in total reading times for target words for all types of visual content.

Conclusion

These findings suggest that while the orchestration of multiple scales of visual content is required for normal eye-guidance during reading, a broad range of visual content can activate processes of word identification independently. Implications for understanding the role of visual content in reading are discussed.     

You look familiar: how Malaysian Chinese recognize faces

East Asian and white Western observers employ different eye movement strategies for a variety of visual processing tasks, including face processing. Recent eye tracking studies on face recognition found that East Asians tend to integrate information holistically by focusing on the nose while white Westerners perceive faces featurally by moving between the eyes and mouth. The current study examines the eye movement strategy that Malaysian Chinese participants employ when recognizing East Asian, white Western, and African faces. Rather than adopting the Eastern or Western fixation pattern, Malaysian Chinese participants use a mixed strategy by focusing on the eyes and nose more than the mouth. The combination of Eastern and Western strategies proved advantageous in participants' ability to recognize East Asian and white Western faces, suggesting that individuals learn to use fixation patterns that are optimized for recognizing the faces with which they are more familiar.