Interference with gesture production by theta burst stimulation over left inferior frontal cortex

The traditional view of a predominant inferior parietal representation of gestures has been recently challenged by neuroimaging studies demonstrating that gesture production and discrimination may critically depend on inferior frontal lobe function. The aim of the present work was therefore to investigate the effect of transient disruption of these brain sites by continuous theta burst stimulation (cTBS) on gesture production and recognition.

Package Patterns for Visual Architecture Recovery

Recovering the architecture is the first step towards reengineering a software system. Many reverse engineering tools use top-down exploration as a way of providing a visual and interactive process for architecture recovery. During the exploration process, the user navigates through various views on the system by choosing from several exploration operations. Although some sequences of these operations lead to views which, from the architectural point of view, are mode relevant than others, current tools do not provide a way of predicting which exploration paths are worth taking and which are not. In this article we propose a set of package patterns which are used for augmenting the exploration process with in formation about the worthiness of the various exploration paths. The patterns are defined based on the internal package structure and on the relationships between the package and the other packages in the system. To validate our approach, we verify the relevance of the proposed patterns for real-world systems by analyzing their frequency of occurrence in six open-source software projects.

"Army of One" to "Army Strong" : visual media and U.S. Army recruitment during Bush"s "War on Terror"

From Bush’s September 20, 2001 “War on Terror” speech to Congress to President-Elect Barack Obama’s acceptance speech on November 4, 2008, the U.S. Army produced visual recruitment material that addressed the concerns of falling enlistment numbers—due to the prolonged and difficult war in Iraq—with quickly-evolving and compelling rhetorical appeals: from the introduction of an “Army of One” (2001) to “Army Strong” (2006); from messages focused on education and individual identity to high-energy adventure and simulated combat scenarios, distributed through everything from printed posters and music videos to first-person tactical-shooter video games. These highly polished, professional visual appeals introduced to the American public during a time of an unpopular war fought by volunteers provide rich subject matter for research and analysis. This dissertation takes a multidisciplinary approach to the visual media utilized as part of the Army’s recruitment efforts during the War on Terror, focusing on American myths—as defined by Barthes—and how these myths are both revealed and reinforced through design across media platforms. Placing each selection in its historical context, this dissertation analyzes how printed materials changed as the War on Terror continued. It examines the television ad that introduced “Army Strong” to the American public, considering how the combination of moving image, text, and music structure the message and the way we receive it. This dissertation also analyzes the video game America’s Army, focusing on how the interaction of the human player and the computer-generated player combine to enhance the persuasive qualities of the recruitment message. Each chapter discusses how the design of the particular medium facilitates engagement/interactivity of the viewer. The conclusion considers what recruitment material produced during this time period suggests about the persuasive strategies of different media and how they create distinct relationships with their spectators. It also addresses how theoretical frameworks and critical concepts used by a variety of disciplines can be combined to analyze recruitment media utilizing a Selber inspired three literacy framework (functional, critical, rhetorical) and how this framework can contribute to the multimodal classroom by allowing instructors and students to do a comparative analysis of multiple forms of visual media with similar content.

Taking an Object-Centric View on Dynamic Information with Object Flow Analysis

A large body of research analyzes the runtime execution of a system to extract abstract behavioral views. Those approaches primarily analyze control flow by tracing method execution events or they analyze object graphs of heap snapshots. However, they do not capture how objects are passed through the system at runtime. We refer to the exchange of objects as the object flow, and we claim that object flow is necessary to analyze if we are to understand the runtime of an object-oriented application. We propose and detail Object Flow Analysis, a novel dynamic analysis technique that takes this new information into account. To evaluate its usefulness, we present a visual approach that allows a developer to study classes and components in terms of how they exchange objects at runtime. We illustrate our approach on three case studies.

Combined effect of heterogeneity, anisotropy and saturation on steady state flow and transport: Structure recognition and numerical simulation

1 Natural soil profiles may be interpreted as an arrangement of parts which are characterized by properties like hydraulic conductivity and water retention function. These parts form a complicated structure. Characterizing the soil structure is fundamental in subsurface hydrology because it has a crucial influence on flow and transport and defines the patterns of many ecological processes. We applied an image analysis method for recognition and classification of visual soil attributes in order to model flow and transport through a man-made soil profile. Modeled and measured saturation-dependent effective parameters were compared. We found that characterizing and describing conductivity patterns in soils with sharp conductivity contrasts is feasible. Differently, solving flow and transport on the basis of these conductivity maps is difficult and, in general, requires special care for representation of small-scale processes.

Development and evaluation of a new instrument to measure visual exploration behavior

Effective visual exploration is required for many activities of daily living and instruments to assess visual exploration are important for the evaluation of the visual and the oculomotor system. In this article, the development of a new instrument to measure central and peripheral target recognition is described. The measurement setup consists of a hemispherical projection which allows presenting images over a large area of ±90° horizontal and vertical angle. In a feasibility study with 14 younger (21–49 years) and 12 older (50–78 years) test persons, 132 targets and 24 distractors were presented within naturalistic color photographs of everyday scenes at 10°, 30°, and 50° eccentricity. After the experiment, both younger and older participants reported in a questionnaire that the task is easy to understand, fun and that it measures a competence that is relevant for activities of daily living. A main result of the pilot study was that younger participants recognized more targets with smaller reaction times than older participants. The group differences were most pronounced for peripheral target detection. This test is feasible and appropriate to assess the functional field of view in younger and older adults.

The Frontal Eye Field Is Involved in Visual Vector Inversion in Humans – A Theta Burst Stimulation Study

In the antisaccade task, subjects are requested to suppress a reflexive saccade towards a visual target and to perform a saccade towards the opposite side. In addition, in order to reproduce an accurate saccadic amplitude, the visual saccade vector (i.e., the distance between a central fixation point and the peripheral target) must be exactly inverted from one visual hemifield to the other. Results from recent studies using a correlational approach (i.e., fMRI, MEG) suggest that not only the posterior parietal cortex (PPC) but also the frontal eye field (FEF) might play an important role in such a visual vector inversion process. In order to assess whether the FEF contributes to visual vector inversion, we applied an interference approach with continuous theta burst stimulation (cTBS) during a memory-guided antisaccade task. In 10 healthy subjects, one train of cTBS was applied over the right FEF prior to a memory-guided antisaccade task. In comparison to the performance without stimulation or with sham stimulation, cTBS over the right FEF induced a hypometric gain for rightward but not leftward antisaccades. These results obtained with an interference approach confirm that the FEF is also involved in the process of visual vector inversion.

Visual hallucinations in the psychosis spectrum and comparative information from neurodegenerative disorders and eye disease

Much of the research on visual hallucinations (VHs) has been conducted in the context of eye disease and neurodegenerative conditions, but little is known about these phenomena in psychiatric and nonclinical populations. The purpose of this article is to bring together current knowledge regarding VHs in the psychosis phenotype and contrast this data with the literature drawn from neurodegenerative disorders and eye disease. The evidence challenges the traditional views that VHs are atypical or uncommon in psychosis. The weighted mean for VHs is 27% in schizophrenia, 15% in affective psychosis, and 7.3% in the general community. VHs are linked to a more severe psychopathological profile and less favorable outcome in psychosis and neurodegenerative conditions. VHs typically co-occur with auditory hallucinations, suggesting a common etiological cause. VHs in psychosis are also remarkably complex, negative in content, and are interpreted to have personal relevance. The cognitive mechanisms of VHs in psychosis have rarely been investigated, but existing studies point to source-monitoring deficits and distortions in top-down mechanisms, although evidence for visual processing deficits, which feature strongly in the organic literature, is lacking. Brain imaging studies point to the activation of visual cortex during hallucinations on a background of structural and connectivity changes within wider brain networks. The relationship between VHs in psychosis, eye disease, and neurodegeneration remains unclear, although the pattern of similarities and differences described in this review suggests that comparative studies may have potentially important clinical and theoretical implications.

Perception of co-speech gestures in aphasic patients: A visual exploration study during the observation of dyadic conversations.

BACKGROUND Co-speech gestures are part of nonverbal communication during conversations. They either support the verbal message or provide the interlocutor with additional information. Furthermore, they prompt as nonverbal cues the cooperative process of turn taking. In the present study, we investigated the influence of co-speech gestures on the perception of dyadic dialogue in aphasic patients. In particular, we analysed the impact of co-speech gestures on gaze direction (towards speaker or listener) and fixation of body parts. We hypothesized that aphasic patients, who are restricted in verbal comprehension, adapt their visual exploration strategies. METHODS Sixteen aphasic patients and 23 healthy control subjects participated in the study. Visual exploration behaviour was measured by means of a contact-free infrared eye-tracker while subjects were watching videos depicting spontaneous dialogues between two individuals. Cumulative fixation duration and mean fixation duration were calculated for the factors co-speech gesture (present and absent), gaze direction (to the speaker or to the listener), and region of interest (ROI), including hands, face, and body. RESULTS Both aphasic patients and healthy controls mainly fixated the speaker's face. We found a significant co-speech gesture × ROI interaction, indicating that the presence of a co-speech gesture encouraged subjects to look at the speaker. Further, there was a significant gaze direction × ROI × group interaction revealing that aphasic patients showed reduced cumulative fixation duration on the speaker's face compared to healthy controls. CONCLUSION Co-speech gestures guide the observer's attention towards the speaker, the source of semantic input. It is discussed whether an underlying semantic processing deficit or a deficit to integrate audio-visual information may cause aphasic patients to explore less the speaker's face.