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How does vision affect active touch in judgments of surface roughness? We contrasted direct (combination of visual with tactile sensory information) and indirect (vision alters the processes of active touch) effects of vision on touch. Participants judged which of 2 surfaces was rougher using their index finger to make static contact with gratings of spatial period 1580 and 1620 μm. Simultaneously, they viewed the stimulus under one of five visual conditions: No vision, Filtered vision + touch, Veridical vision + touch (where vision alone yielded roughness discrimination at chance), Congruent vision + touch, Incongruent vision + touch. Results from 32 participants showed roughness discrimination for touch with vision was better than touch alone. The visual benefit for touch was strongest in a filtered (spatially non-informative) vision condition, thus results are interpreted in terms of indirect integration. An indirect effect of vision was further indicated by a finding of visual benefit in some but not all visuo-tactile congruency conditions.

Studies using simple low-level stimuli show that multisensory stimuli lead to greater improvements in processing speed for older adults than young adults. However, there is insufficient evidence to explain how these benefits influence performance for more complex processes such as judgement and memory tasks. This study examined how presenting stimuli in multiple sensory modalities (audio–visual) instead of one (audio-only or visual-only) may help older adults to improve their memory and cognitive processing compared to young adults. Young and older adults completed lexical decision (real word vs. pseudoword judgement) and word recall tasks, either independently, or in combination (dual-task), with and without perceptual noise. Older adults were better able to remember words when encoding independently. In contrast, young adults were better able to remember words when encoding in combination with lexical decisions. Both young and older adults had better word recall in the audio–visual condition compared with the audio-only condition. The findings indicate significant age differences when dealing with multiple tasks during encoding. Crucially, there is no greater multisensory benefit for older adults compared to young adults in more complex processes, rather multisensory stimuli can be useful in enhancing cognitive performance for both young and older adults.

We examined the contributions of the human pulvinar to goal directed selection of visual targets in 3 patients with chronic, unilateral lesions involving topographic maps in the ventral pulvinar. Observers completed 2 psychophysical tasks in which they discriminated the orientation of a lateralized target grating in the presence of vertically-aligned distracters. In experiment 1, where distracter contrast was varied while target contrast remained constant, the patients' contralesional contrast thresholds for discriminating the orientation of grating stimuli were elevated only when the task required selection of a visual target in the face of competition from a salient distracter. Attentional selectivity was restored in the patients in experiment 2 where target contrast was varied while distracter contrast remained constant. These observations provide the first evidence that the human pulvinar plays a necessary role in modulating physical saliency in attentional selection, and supports a homology in global pulvinar structure between humans and monkey.

Motorcyclists are involved in an exceptionally high number of crashes for the distance they travel, with one of the most common incidents being where another road user pulls out into the path of an oncoming motorcycle frequently resulting in a fatal collision. These instances have previously been interpreted as failures of visual attention, sometimes termed 'Look but Fail to See' (LBFTS) crashes, and interventions have focused on improving drivers' visual scanning and motorcycles' visibility. Here we show from a series of three experiments in a high-fidelity driving simulator, that when drivers' visual attention towards and memory for approaching vehicles is experimentally tested, drivers fail to report approaching motorcycles on between 13% and 18% of occasions. This happens even when the driver is pulling out into a safety-critical gap in front of the motorcycle, and often happens despite the driver having directly fixated on the oncoming vehicle. These failures in reporting a critical vehicle were not associated with how long the driver looked at the vehicle for, but were associated with drivers' subsequent visual search and the time that elapsed between fixating on the oncoming vehicle and pulling out of the junction. Here, we raise the possibility that interference in short-term memory might prevent drivers holding important visual information during these complex manoeuvres. This explanation suggests that some junction crashes on real roads that have been attributed to LBFTS errors may have been misclassified and might instead be the result of 'Saw but Forgot' (SBF) errors. We provide a framework for understanding the role of short-term memory in such situations, the Perceive Retain Choose (PRC) model, as well as novel predictions and proposals for practical interventions that may prevent this type of crash in the future.

Psychophysical studies suggest texture perception is mediated by spatial and vibration codes (duplex theory). Vibration coding, driven by relative motion between digit and stimulus, is involved in the perception of very fine gratings whereas coarse texture perception depends more on spatial coding, which does not require relative motion. We examined cortical activation, using functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging associated with fine and coarse tactile spatial gratings applied by sliding or touching (sliding vs. static contact) on the index finger pad. We found regions, contralateral to the stimulated digit, in BA1 in S1, OP1, OP3, and OP4 in S2, and in auditory cortex, which were significantly more activated by sliding gratings but did not find this pattern in visual cortex. Regions in brain areas activated by vibrotactile stimuli (including auditory cortex) were also modulated by whether or not the gratings moved. In a control study we showed that this contrast persisted when the salience of the static condition was increased by using a double touch. These findings suggest that vibration from sliding touch invokes multisensory cortical mechanisms in tactile processing of roughness. However, we did not find evidence of a separate visual region activated by static touch nor was there a dissociation between cortical response to fine vs. coarse gratings as might have been expected from duplex theory.

Social context, specifically within the family, influences adolescent eating behaviours and thus their health. Little is known about the specific mechanisms underlying the effects of parental feeding practices on eating. We explored relationships between parental feeding practices and adolescent eating habits and brain activity in response to viewing food images. Fifty- seven adolescents (15 with type 2 diabetes mellitus, 21 obese and 21 healthy weight controls) underwent fMRI scanning whilst viewing images of food or matched control images. Participants completed the Kids Child Feeding Questionnaire, the Childrens' Dutch Eating Behaviour Questionnaire (DEBQ) and took part in an observed meal. Parents completed the Comprehensive Feeding Practices Questionniare and the DEBQ. We were particularly interested in brain activity in response to food cues that was modulated by different feeding and eating styles. Healthy-weight participants increased activation (compared to the other groups) to food in proportion to the level of parental restriction in visual areas of the brain such as right lateral occipital cortex (LOC), right temporal occipital cortex, left occipital fusiform gyrus, left lateral and superior LOC. Adolescents with type 2 diabetes mellitus had higher activation (compared to the other groups) with increased parental restrictive feeding in areas relating to emotional control, attention and decision-making, such as posterior cingulate, precuneus, frontal operculum and right middle frontal gyrus. Participants with type 2 diabetes mellitus also showed higher activation (compared to the other groups) in the left anterior intraparietal sulcus and angular gyrus when they also reported higher self restraint. Parental restriction did not modulate food responses in obese participants, but there was increased activity in visual (visual cortex, left LOC, left occipital fusiform gyrus) and reward related brain areas (thalamus and parietal operculum) in response to parental teaching and modelling of behaviour. Parental restrictive feeding and parental teaching and modelling affected neural responses to food cues in different ways, depending on motivations and diagnoses, illustrating a social influence on neural responses to food cues.

IntroductionMaking health-related decisions can be difficult due to the amount and complexity of information available. Audio-visual information may improve memory for health information but whether audio-visual information can enhance health-related decisions has not been explored using quantitative methods. The objective of this systematic review is to understand how effective audio-visual information is for informing health-related decision-making compared with audio-only or visual-only information.Methods and analysisRandomised controlled trials (RCTs) will be included if they include audio-visual and either audio-only or visual-only information provision and decision-making in a health setting. Studies will be excluded if they are not reported in English. Twelve databases will be searched including: Ovid MEDLINE, PubMed and PsychINFO. The Cochrane Risk of Bias tool (V.7) will be used to assess risk of bias in included RCTs. Results will be synthesised primarily using a meta-analysis; where quantitative data are not reported, a narrative synthesis will be used.Ethics and disseminationNo ethical issues are foreseen. Data will be disseminated via academic publication and conference presentations. Findings may also be published in scientific newsletters and magazines. This review is funded by the Economic and Social Research Council.PROSPERO registration numberCRD42021255725.

Background Experimental and longitudinal evidence suggests that motor proficiency plays an important role in the development of social skills. However, stereopsis, or depth perception, may also play a fundamental role in social skill development either indirectly through its impact on motor skills or through a more direct route. To date, no systematic study has investigated the relationship between social skills and motor ability in the general adult population, and whether poor stereopsis may contribute to this association. This has implications for clinical populations since research has shown associations between motor abnormalities and social skills, as well as reduced depth perception in autism spectrum disorder and developmental coordination disorder. Methods Six hundred fifty adults completed three validated questionnaires, the stereopsis screening inventory, the Adult Developmental Coordination Disorder Checklist, and the Autism Spectrum Quotient. Results An exploratory factor analysis on pooled items across all measures revealed 10 factors that were largely composed of items from a single scale, indicating that any co-occurrence of poor stereopsis, reduced motor proficiency, and difficulties with social interaction cannot be attributed to a single underlying mechanism. Correlations between extracted factor scores found associations between motor skill and social skill. Conclusions Mediation analyses suggested that whilst fine motor skill and coordination explained the relationship between stereopsis and social skill to some extent, stereopsis nonetheless exerted a substantial direct effect upon social skill. This is the first study to demonstrate that the functional significance of stereopsis is not limited to motor ability and may directly impact upon social functioning.

Ageing is associated with declines in both perception and cognition. We review evidence for an interaction between perceptual and cognitive decline in old age. Impoverished perceptual input can increase the cognitive difficulty of tasks, while changes to cognitive strategies can compensate, to some extent, for impaired perception. While there is strong evidence from cross-sectional studies for a link between sensory acuity and cognitive performance in old age, there is not yet compelling evidence from longitudinal studies to suggest that poor perception causes cognitive decline, nor to demonstrate that correcting sensory impairment can improve cognition in the longer term. Most studies have focused on relatively simple measures of sensory (visual and auditory) acuity, but more complex measures of suprathreshold perceptual processes, such as temporal processing, can show a stronger link with cognition. The reviewed evidence underlines the importance of fully accounting for perceptual deficits when investigating cognitive decline in old age.

Hypothesis-driven research rests on clearly articulated scientific theories. The building blocks for communicating these theories are scientific terms. Obviously, communication – and thus, scientific progress – is hampered if the meaning of these terms varies idiosyncratically across (sub)fields and even across individual researchers within the same subfield. We have formed an international group of experts representing various theoretical stances with the goal to homogenize the use of the terms that are most relevant to fundamental research on visual distraction in visual search. Our discussions revealed striking heterogeneity and we had to invest much time and effort to increase our mutual understanding of each other’s use of central terms, which turned out to be strongly related to our respective theoretical positions. We present the outcomes of these discussions in a glossary and provide some context in several essays. Specifically, we explicate how central terms are used in the distraction literature and consensually sharpen their definitions in order to enable communication across theoretical standpoints. Where applicable, we also explain how the respective constructs can be measured. We believe that this novel type of adversarial collaboration can serve as a model for other fields of psychological research that strive to build a solid groundwork for theorizing and communicating by establishing a common language. For the field of visual distraction, the present paper should facilitate communication across theoretical standpoints and may serve as an introduction and reference text for newcomers.