The canonical deep neural network as a model for human symmetry processing.

A key property of our environment is the mirror symmetry of many objects, although symmetry is an abstract global property with no definable shape template, making symmetry identification a challenge for standard template-matching algorithms. We therefore ask whether Deep Neural Networks (DNNs) trained on typical natural environmental images develop a selectivity for symmetry similar to that of the human brain. We tested a DNN trained on such typical natural images with object-free random-dot images of 1, 2, and 4 symmetry axes.

Microsaccades Tracking by Secondary Speckle Pattern Analysis.

Here we propose a not pupil-dependent microsaccades tracking technique and a novel detection method. We present a proof of concept for detecting microsaccades using a non-contact laser-based photonic system recording and processing the temporal changes of speckle patterns scattered from an eye sclera. The data, simultaneously recorded by the speckle-based tracker (SBT) and the video-based eye tracker (Eyelink), was analyzed by the frequently used detection method of Engbert and Kliegl (E&K) and by advanced machine learning detection (MLD) techniques.

Oculomotor inhibition markers of working memory load.

Involuntary eye movements occur constantly even during fixation and were shown to convey information about cognitive processes. They are inhibited momentarily in response to external stimuli (oculomotor inhibition, OMI), with a time and magnitude that depend on stimulus saliency, attention, and expectations. It was recently shown that the working memory load for numbers modulates the microsaccade rate; however, the generality of the effect and its temporal properties remain unclear.

Oculomotor randomness is higher in autistic children and increases with the severity of symptoms.

A variety of studies have suggested that at least some children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) view the world differently. Differences in gaze patterns as measured by eye tracking have been demonstrated during visual exploration of images and natural viewing of movies with social content. Here we analyzed the temporal randomness of saccades and blinks during natural viewing of movies, inspired by a recent measure of "randomness" applied to micro-movements of the hand and head in ASD (Torres et al.

Fixation-related visual mismatch negativity.

Vision under natural conditions could be studied by combining electroencephalogram (EEG) and eye tracking as well as using saccades as triggers for the onset of the fixation-related potentials (FRPs) and for the oculomotor inhibition (OMI) that follows every saccade. The result of this analysis is thought to be equivalent to the event-related response following a peripheral preview. Previous studies that measured responses to visual deviants in a sequence of flashed stimuli found an increased negativity in the occipital N1 component (visual mismatch negativity [vMMN]), and prolonged saccadic inhibition for unexpected events.

Face familiarity revealed by fixational eye movements and fixation-related potentials in free viewing.

Event-related potentials (ERPs) and the oculomotor inhibition (OMI) in response to visual transients are known to be sensitive to stimulus properties, attention, and expectation. We have recently found that the OMI is also sensitive to face familiarity. In natural vision, stimulation of the visual cortex is generated primarily by saccades, and it has been recently suggested that fixation-related potentials (FRPs) share similar components with the ERPs.

Involuntary oculomotor inhibition markers of saliency and deviance in response to auditory sequences.

Our eyes move constantly but are often inhibited momentarily in response to external stimuli (oculomotor inhibition [OMI]), depending on the stimulus saliency, anticipation, and attention. Previous studies have shown prolonged OMI for auditory oddballs; however, they required counting the oddballs, possibly reflecting voluntary attention. Here, we investigated whether the "passive" OMI response to auditory deviants can provide a quantitative measure of deviance strength (pitch difference) and studied its dependence on the inter-trial interval (ITI).

Fixation-related saccadic inhibition in free viewing in response to stimulus saliency.

Microsaccades that occur during fixation were studied extensively in response to transient stimuli, showing a typical inhibition (Oculomotor Inhibition, OMI), and a later release with a latency that depends on stimulus saliency, attention, and expectations. Here, we investigated the hypothesis that in free viewing every saccade provides a new transient stimulation that should result in a stimulus-dependent OMI like a flashed presentation during fixation. Participants (N = 16) freely inspected static displays of randomly oriented Gabor texture images, with varied contrast and spatial frequency (SF) for periods of 10 s each.

What Makes an Image Interesting and How Can We Explain It.

Here, we explore the question: What makes a photograph interesting? Answering this question deepens our understanding of human visual cognition and knowledge gained can be leveraged to reliably and widely disseminate information. Observers viewed images belonging to different categories, which covered a wide, representative spectrum of real-world scenes, in a self-paced manner and, at trial's end, rated each image's interestingness. Our studies revealed the following: landscapes were the most interesting of all categories tested, followed by scenes with people and cityscapes, followed still by aerial scenes, with indoor scenes of homes and offices being least interesting.

Visual Detection and Decoding Skills of Aerial Photography by Adults with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD).

Despite challenges in social communication skills people with ASD often display strengths in visual processing. Aerial photography analysis is an occupation reliant on strong visual processing skills that matches this unique profile. We investigated basic-vision and "real-life" visual tasks in 20 cognitively-able young adults with ASD and 20 typically-developed (TD) "gamers".

Oculomotor inhibition during smooth pursuit and its dependence on contrast sensitivity.

Our eyes are never still, but tend to "freeze" in response to stimulus onset. This effect is termed "oculomotor inhibition" (OMI); its magnitude and time course depend on the stimulus parameters, attention, and expectation. We previously showed that the time course and duration of microsaccade and spontaneous eye-blink inhibition provide an involuntary measure of low-level visual properties such as contrast sensitivity during fixation.

Concealed information revealed by involuntary eye movements on the fringe of awareness in a mock terror experiment.

Involuntary eye movements during fixation are typically inhibited following stimulus onset (Oculomotor Inhibition, OMI), depending on the stimulus saliency and attention, with an earlier and longer OMI for barely visible familiar faces. However, it is still unclear whether OMI regarding familiarities and perceptual saliencies differ enough to allow a reliable OMI-based concealed information test (CIT). In a "mock terror" experiment with 25 volunteers, 13 made a concealed choice of a "terror-target" (one of eight), associated with 3 probes (face, name, and residence), which they learned watching text and videos, whereas 12 "innocents" pre-learned nothing.

Investigating face and house discrimination at foveal to parafoveal locations reveals category-specific characteristics.

Since perceptual and neural face sensitivity is associated with a foveal bias, and neural place sensitivity is associated with a peripheral bias (integration over space), we hypothesized that face perception ability will decline more with eccentricity than place perception ability. We also wanted to examine whether face perception ability would show a left visual field (LeVF) bias due to earlier reports suggesting right hemisphere dominance for faces, or would show an upper or lower visual field bias. Participants performed foveal and parafoveal face and house discrimination tasks for upright or inverted stimuli (≤4°) while their eye movements were monitored.

Perceived Sensitivity to Pain and Responsiveness to Non-noxious Sensation in Substance Use Disorder.

Objective: This comparative cross-sectional study aimed to characterize individuals with substance use disorder (SUD) in self-perception of pain sensitivity, experimental auditory aversiveness, and non-noxious sensory responsiveness, as well as examine the associations with SUD.

Methods: Therapeutic community (TC) individuals with SUD (N = 63, male 88.9%) and healthy controls (N = 60, male 86.

Sequence Learning in Minimally Verbal Children With ASD and the Beneficial Effect of Vestibular Stimulation.

People with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and especially the minimally verbal, often fail to learn basic perceptual and motor skills. This deficit has been demonstrated in several studies, but the findings could have been due to the nonoptimal adaptation of the paradigms. In the current study, we sought to characterize the skill learning deficit in young minimally verbal children with ASD and explore ways for improvement.

Familiarity revealed by involuntary eye movements on the fringe of awareness.

Involuntary eye movements during fixation of gaze are typically transiently inhibited following stimulus onset. This oculomotor inhibition (OMI), which includes microsaccades and spontaneous eye blinks, is modulated by stimulus saliency and anticipation, but it is currently unknown whether it is sensitive to familiarity. To investigate this, we measured the OMI while observers passively viewed a slideshow of one familiar and 7 unfamiliar facial images presented briefly at 1 Hz in random order.

Perception of Aversive Auditory Stimuli Is Different in Sensory Modulation Disorder and Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder.

This study examined whether sensory modulation disorder-sensory overresponsivity (SMD-SOR) and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) have a significant effect on the perception of aversive auditory stimuli. Participants were 66 young adult women. The diagnosis of SOR was made using the Sensory Responsiveness Questionnaire, and ADHD was diagnosed by a qualified psychiatrist or neurologist using criteria from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (4th ed.

Comparing set summary statistics and outlier pop out in vision.

Visual scenes are too complex to perceive immediately in all their details. Two strategies (among others) have been suggested as providing shortcuts for evaluating scene gist before its details: (a) Scene summary statistics provide average values that often suffice for judging sets of objects and acting in their environment. Set summary perception spans simple/complex dimensions (circle size, face emotion), various statistics (mean, variance, range), and separate statistics for discernible sets.

Microsaccades are sensitive to word structure: A novel approach to study language processing.

Microsaccades are miniature eye movements that occur involuntarily during fixation. They are typically inhibited following stimulus onset and are released from inhibition about 300 ms post-stimulus. Microsaccade-inhibition is modulated by low level features of visual stimuli, but it is currently unknown whether they are sensitive to higher level, abstract linguistic properties.

Asymmetric visual interactions across the boundary of awareness.

A salient visual object can disappear from conscious perception when surrounded by a moving texture, a phenomenon known as MIB, Motion-Induced Blindness (Bonneh, Cooperman, & Sagi, 2001). Here we tested the information available in the brain from such stimuli that do not access awareness by examining interactions across the boundary of awareness between stimuli that reach awareness and those that do not. Observers performed the MIB task in which a "Cue" was presented next to the "Target" after observers reported the perceptual disappearance of the target (Kawabe, Yamada, & Miura, 2007).

Contrast sensitivity revealed by spontaneous eyeblinks: Evidence for a common mechanism of oculomotor inhibition.

Spontaneous eyeblinks are known to serve important physiological functions, and recent evidence shows that they are also linked to cognitive processes. It is yet unclear whether this link reflects a crude rate modulation or, alternatively, an automatic and precise process, tightly linked to the low-level properties of sensory stimuli. We have recently reported (Y.

Perceptual learning in autism: over-specificity and possible remedies.

Inflexible behavior is a core characteristic of autism spectrum disorder (ASD), but its underlying cause is unknown. Using a perceptual learning protocol, we observed initially efficient learning in ASD that was followed by anomalously poor learning when the location of the target was changed (over-specificity). Reducing stimulus repetition eliminated over-specificity.