The Incomplete Tyranny of Dynamic Stimuli: Gaze Similarity Predicts Response Similarity in Screen-Captured Instructional Videos

Although eye tracking has been used extensively to assess cognitions for static stimuli, recent research suggests that the link between gaze and cognition may be more tenuous for dynamic stimuli such as videos. Part of the difficulty in convincingly linking gaze with cognition is that in dynamic stimuli, gaze position is strongly influenced by exogenous cues such as object motion. However, tests of the gaze-cognition link in dynamic stimuli have been done on only a limited range of stimuli often characterized by highly organized motion. Also, analyses of cognitive contrasts between participants have been mostly been limited to categorical contrasts among small numbers of participants that may have limited the power to observe more subtle influences. We, therefore, tested for cognitive influences on gaze for screen-captured instructional videos, the contents of which participants were tested on. Between-participant scanpath similarity predicted between-participant similarity in responses on test questions, but with imperfect consistency across videos. We also observed that basic gaze parameters and measures of attention to centers of interest only inconsistently predicted learning, and that correlations between gaze and centers of interest defined by other-participant gaze and cursor movement did not predict learning. It, therefore, appears that the search for eye movement indices of cognition during dynamic naturalistic stimuli may be fruitful, but we also agree that the tyranny of dynamic stimuli is real, and that links between eye movements and cognition are highly dependent on task and stimulus properties.     

Cognitive deficits, schizophrenia, and the anterior cingulate cortex

Cognitive deficits are thought to be responsible for some of the symptoms and dysfunction in schizophrenia. Recent research on the anterior cingulate cortex supports this assumption. More detailed and definitive evidence for this association will require identification of specific neural networks whose abnormal structure, connections or activity create the cognitive deficits in question.     

Leaps of faith: the role of religious development in recovering integrity among Jewish alcoholics and drug addicts

In the present study we investigated the association between religiosity and schizotypy in teenagers. The Francis Scale of Attitude towards Christianity (Francis &; Stubbs, 1987) and the Multidimensional Schizotypal Traits Questionnaire (Rawlings &; MacFarlane 1994) were completed by 492 school pupils ranging in age from 13 to 18. It was found that higher scores on the Francis scale were associated with higher scores on the perceptual aberration subscale and lower scores on the impulsive nonconformity and magical ideation subscales. However, when the analysis was repeated for girls and boys separately we found that the association with magical ideation was unique to boys and the association with impulsive nonconformity was unique to girls. Certain associations seem to be sex specific. Also, although our data suggest that in some respects religiosity might be an index of psychosis proneness, in other respects it would seem that religiosity is associated with psychological well-being.     

Tinnitus und das Leiden am Tinnitus

Psychosomatic findings from 287 patients with tinnitus are presented in this article, who were seen by medical psychotherapists specialized in ENT for a period of 15 months. They were assigned to all of the therapeutic methods being offered. As relevant proved to be the neurootological professional competence, especially for recognizing and treating auditory limitations (in 41% of the patients) as well as noticing and treating the psychological comorbidity (in 45.3% of the patients). While neurophysiological and psychophysiological models interpret the subjective tinnitus stress as the failing of habituation, dysfunctional attention processes and assessments, from a psychodynamic view a symptom having pathological significance, such as the suffering from tinnitus (not the tinnitus itself) may develop if the defensive mechanisms are exhausted, a conflict cannot be resolved on the conscious level or traumatic experiences were made. It is recommended that an approach specifically matched with the disturbance is made taking into account both possible psychodynamic causes and sustaining factors in the cognitive behavioral sense, all on an audiologic background.     

Self-motion impairs multiple-object tracking

Investigations of multiple-object tracking aim to further our understanding of how people perform common activities such as driving in traffic. However, tracking tasks in the laboratory have overlooked a crucial component of much real-world object tracking: self-motion. We investigated the hypothesis that keeping track of one’s own movement impairs the ability to keep track of other moving objects. Participants attempted to track multiple targets while either moving around the tracking area or remaining in a fixed location. Participants’ tracking performance was impaired when they moved to a new location during tracking, even when they were passively moved and when they did not see a shift in viewpoint. Self-motion impaired multiple-object tracking in both an immersive virtual environment and a real-world analog, but did not interfere with a difficult non-spatial tracking task. These results suggest that people use a common mechanism to track changes both to the location of moving objects around them and to keep track of their own location.