Weak correlations between visual abilities in healthy older adults, despite long-term performance stability.

Using batteries of visual tests, most studies have found that there are only weak correlations between the performance levels of the tests. Factor analysis has confirmed these results. This means that a participant excelling in one test may rank low in another test.

No Common Factor Underlying Decline of Visual Abilities in Mild Cognitive Impairment.

Introduction: Recent work has shown an association between cognitive and visual impairments and two main theories were advanced, namely the sensory deprivation and the common cause theories. Most studies considered only basic visual functions such as visual acuity or visual field size and evaluated the association with dementia.

Objectives: To reconcile between these theories and to test the link between visual and cognitive decline in mildly cognitive impaired people.

Individual differences in the perception of visual illusions are stable across eyes, time, and measurement methods.

Vision scientists have tried to classify illusions for more than a century. For example, some studies suggested that there is a unique common factor for all visual illusions. Other studies proposed that there are several subclasses of illusions, such as illusions of linear extent or distortions.

Portable bioluminescent platform for in vivo monitoring of biological processes in non-transgenic animals.

Bioluminescent imaging (BLI) is one of the most powerful and widely used preclinical imaging modalities. However, the current technology relies on the use of transgenic luciferase-expressing cells and animals and therefore can only be applied to a limited number of existing animal models of human disease. Here, we report the development of a "portable bioluminescent" (PBL) technology that overcomes most of the major limitations of traditional BLI.

How does positive mood modulate time-based event expectancy?

In the present study, we investigated how positive mood affects the formation of time-based event expectancies. After positive or neutral mood inductions, participants performed a binary choice response task in which two target stimuli (circle and square) and two pre-target intervals (800 and 1600 ms) appeared equally often. One of the targets was paired with the short interval and the other target with the long interval in 90% of the trials.

How stable is perception in #TheDress and #TheShoe?

#TheDress is perceived by some people as black and blue while others perceive it as white and gold. We have previously shown that the first encounter with #TheDress strongly biases its perception. This percept remained stable during the experiment, suggesting a role of one-shot learning.

Associations between genetic variations and global motion perception.

The cholinergic system is known to strongly modulate perceptual and cognitive processes, and the alpha7 subunit of the cholinergic nicotinic receptor (CHRNA7) is broadly expressed within the visual system. Here, we assessed whether genetic variations of CHRNA7 affect coherent motion perception. Motion perception has been shown to decline with age, and it has previously been suggested that the effects of genetic variations are magnified by age.

No evidence for a common factor underlying visual abilities in healthy older people.

The world's population is aging at an increasing rate. Even in the absence of neurodegenerative disorders, healthy aging affects perception and cognition. In the context of cognition, common factors are well established.

Children with autism spectrum disorder show increased sensitivity to time-based predictability.

We studied timed-based expectancy as well as general perceptual-motor speed in children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). In Experiment 1, 11 children with ASD and 11 typically developing children (TD) (6-13 years) completed a binary choice response task in which foreperiod duration predicted the response target's location with a probability of 0.8.

Sex-related differences in vision are heterogeneous.

Despite well-established sex differences for cognition, audition, and somatosensation, few studies have investigated whether there are also sex differences in visual perception. We report the results of fifteen perceptual measures (such as visual acuity, visual backward masking, contrast detection threshold or motion detection) for a cohort of over 800 participants. On six of the fifteen tests, males significantly outperformed females.

Time-based event expectancies in children with Autism spectrum disorder.

Here, we studied the time-based event expectancies in children with Autism spectrum disorder. Nine children with Autism spectrum disorders and ten (6-11 years) typically developing children participated. In a choice-response task with two different pre-target intervals, participants had to indicate the left or right direction of a target stimulus.

The role of one-shot learning in #TheDress.

#TheDress is remarkable in two aspects. First, there is a bimodal split of the population in the perception of the dress's colors (white/gold vs. black/blue).

Spatial and temporal aspects of visual backward masking in children and young adolescents.

The development of visual functions is very diverse. Some visual functions mature within the first year of life, whereas maturation for other functions extends into adolescence. The reasons for these developmental differences are largely unknown.

Effects of alcohol intake on time-based event expectations.

Previous evidence suggests that alcohol affects various forms of temporal cognition. However, there are presently no studies investigating whether and how alcohol affects on time-based event expectations. Here, we investigated the effects of alcohol on time-based event expectations.

Ageing and visual spatiotemporal processing.

Ageing affects many visual functions. Here, we investigated the effects of ageing on vernier acuity and backward masking using the shine-through paradigm. We divided healthy older adults (>60 years) into two groups depending on whether vernier duration was comparable to younger adults (Older Adults 1) or not (Older Adults 2).

Small effects of smoking on visual spatiotemporal processing.

Nicotine is an important stimulant that is involved in modulating many neuronal processes, including those related to vision. Nicotine is also thought to play a key role in schizophrenia: A genetic variation of the cholinergic nicotine receptor gene, alpha-7 subunit (CHRNA7) has been shown to be associated with stronger backward masking deficits in schizophrenic patients. In this study, we tested visual backward masking in healthy smokers and non-smokers to further understand the effects of nicotine on spatiotemporal vision.

Time-based event expectations employ relative, not absolute, representations of time.

When the timing of an event is predictable, humans automatically form implicit time-based event expectations. We investigated whether these expectations rely on absolute (e.g.

How alcohol intake affects visual temporal processing.

Alcohol affects vision. However, the influence of alcohol on visual processing is largely unknown. Here, we investigated the effects of alcohol on visual spatiotemporal processing.

Age-related changes in visually evoked electrical brain activity.

Whereas much is known about the degenerative effects of aging on cortical tissue, less is known about how aging affects visually evoked electrical activity, and at what latencies. We compared visual processing in elderly and young controls using a visual masking paradigm, which is particularly sensitive to detect temporal processing deficits, while recording EEG. The results show that, on average, elderly have weaker visual evoked potentials than controls, and that elderly show a distinct scalp potential topography (microstate) at around 150 ms after stimulus onset.