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"visual ability"
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An empirical study of the effect that a computer graphics course has on visual-spatial abilities
Visual-spatial abilities are relevant for performing diverse everyday tasks as well as being successful in multiple fields. This work provides empirical evidence supporting the claim that studying a computer graphics course, as commonly offered in computer science or engineering programs, can help develop stronger visual-spatial abilities. This benefit was estimated with the assessment of students’ performances in a standardized test of visual-spatial abilities. This empirical pre-test/post-test study ran for three consecutive semesters and involved six computer graphics groups where students were evaluated with the Purdue Spatial Visualization Test to measure whether the full-semester working on contents heavily related to 2D/3D geometric transformations had a positive effect on students’ visual-spatial intelligence. Results show a statistically significant increase in the average score in the test, which in turn suggests that these cognitive abilities could be reinforced or trained through the normal course workload. Additional findings in this study suggest that a retest gaining factor is present just by taking the test twice, and that there is a weak correlation between students’ level of visual-spatial abilities at the beginning of the course and the final grades obtained at the end of the semester.
Journal Article
Development of Visual-Spatial Ability Test (VSAT) for Primary School Children: Its Reliability and Validity
The purpose of the present research is to develop a visual-spatial ability test (VSAT) for primary school children. Visual-spatial abilities allow processing of information about an object in terms of shape, colour, texture, perspective, and rotation. The visual-spatial test includes items-tasks for the participants to process information about texture, colour, shape and perspective. A total of 196 primary school children participated in the research. The data were analysed through Rasch analysis and item-response theory. Findings proved that VSAT yields reliable and valid results for assessing the visual-spatial ability of primary school children.
Journal Article
Visuo‐spatial learning and memory impairments in the 5xFAD mouse model of Alzheimer's disease: Effects of age, sex, albinism, and motor impairments
The 5xFAD mouse model of Alzheimer's disease (AD) rapidly develops AD‐related neuro‐behavioral pathology. Learning and memory impairments in 5xFAD mice, however, are not always replicated and the size of impairments varies considerably across studies. To examine possible sources of this variability, we analyzed the effects of age, sex, albinism due to background genes (Tyrc, Oca2p) and motor impairment on learning and memory performance of wild type and 5xFAD mice on the Morris water maze, from 3 to 15 months of age. The 5xFAD mice showed impaired learning at 6–9 months of age, but memory impairments were not detected with the test procedure used in this study. Performance of 5xFAD mice was profoundly impaired at 12–15 months of age, but was accompanied by slower swim speeds than wild‐type mice and a frequent failure to locate the escape platform. Overall female mice performed worse than males, and reversal learning impairments in 5xFAD mice were more pronounced in females than males. Albino mice performed worse than pigmented mice, confirming that albinism can impair performance of 5xFAD mice independently of AD‐related transgenes. Overall, these results show that 5xFAD mice have impaired learning performance at 6–9 months of age, but learning and memory performance at 12–15 months is confounded with motor impairments. Furthermore, sex and albinism should be controlled to provide an accurate assessment of AD‐related transgenes on learning and memory. These results will help reduce variability across pre‐clinical experiments with 5xFAD mice, and thus enhance the reliability of studies developing new therapeutics for AD. The 5xFAD mouse model of Alzheimer's disease shows impaired visual‐spatial learning on the Morris water maze (MWM). These learning impairments are influenced by the age of mice, sex, motor dysfunction, and albinism. Controlling for these factors will help improve the quality of pre‐clinical research with the 5xFAD mouse.
Journal Article
Differential contributions of phonological processing and visual-spatial abilities to four basic arithmetic operations in primary school children
This study was to investigate how phonological processing and visual-spatial abilities contributed differently to arithmetic operations including addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. Eighty-eight Chinese fifth graders completed a rapid digit naming task, a character rhyming task, a figure matching task, a 3D mental rotation task, and arithmetic calculation tasks. Results showed that when controlling for age, visual acuity, and nonverbal intelligence, phonological processing accounted for unique variance in both addition and multiplication, whereas visual-spatial processing explained unique variance in subtraction and division. In particular, rapid automatized naming (hereafter, RAN) explained more of the variance in addition than mental rotation did, although both were significantly associated with addition. Mental rotation explained more of the variance in subtraction than phonological awareness and RAN did, although the three skills were all related to subtraction. Importantly, RAN was a unique correlate of multiplication, while mental rotation was a unique correlate of division. These findings highlight different contribution of the phonological processing and visual-spatial skills underlying four arithmetic operations.
Journal Article
Domain-Specific and Domain-General Individual Differences in Visual Object Recognition
Research in visual object recognition has largely focused on mechanisms common to most people, but there is increased interest in whether and how people differ in the ability to recognize objects and faces. New tests with a variety of familiar categories are being created and validated to measure domain-specific abilities. Because variability in experience with familiar objects contributes to performance, tests with novel objects were designed; these tests provided evidence for a domain-general visual ability that is relatively independent from general intelligence. These advances have led to improvements in linking activity in some visual areas of the brain with domain-specific experience. Much remains to be done to uncover the neural correlates of domain-general visual ability and assess the predictive ability of visual abilities in real-world settings.
Journal Article
Visual processing speed in hemianopia patients secondary to acquired brain injury: a new assessment methodology
Background
There is a clinical need to identify diagnostic parameters that objectively quantify and monitor the effective visual ability of patients with homonymous visual field defects (HVFDs). Visual processing speed (VPS) is an objective measure of visual ability. It is the reaction time (RT) needed to correctly search and/or reach for a visual stimulus. VPS depends on six main brain processing systems: auditory-cognitive, attentional, working memory, visuocognitive, visuomotor, and executive. We designed a new assessment methodology capable of activating these six systems and measuring RTs to determine the VPS of patients with HVFDs.
Methods
New software was designed for assessing subject visual stimulus search and reach times (S-RT and R-RT respectively), measured in seconds. Thirty-two different everyday visual stimuli were divided in four complexity groups that were presented along 8 radial visual field positions at three different eccentricities (10
o
, 20
o
, and 30
o
). Thus, for each HVFD and control subject, 96 S- and R-RT measures related to VPS were registered. Three additional variables were measured to gather objective data on the validity of the test: eye-hand coordination mistakes (ehcM), eye-hand coordination accuracy (ehcA), and degrees of head movement (dHM, measured by a head-tracker system). HVFD patients and healthy controls (30 each) matched by age and gender were included. Each subject was assessed in a single visit. VPS measurements for HFVD patients and control subjects were compared for the complete test, for each stimulus complexity group, and for each eccentricity.
Results
VPS was significantly slower (
p
< 0.0001) in the HVFD group for the complete test, each stimulus complexity group, and each eccentricity. For the complete test, the VPS of the HVFD patients was 73.0% slower than controls. They also had 335.6% more ehcMs, 41.3% worse ehcA, and 189.0% more dHMs than the controls.
Conclusions
Measurement of VPS by this new assessment methodology could be an effective tool for objectively quantifying the visual ability of HVFD patients. Future research should evaluate the effectiveness of this novel method for measuring the impact that any specific neurovisual rehabilitation program has for these patients.
Journal Article
Risk factors associated with self-rated health among elderly females with different visual abilities in Chinese urban areas: a population-based study
Objective
Self-rated health (SRH) has been documented as an important predictor of quality of life among the elderly and its risk factors are vision-specific among elderly males. The aim of this study was to clarify vision-specific risk factors to SRH among elderly females without dementia in Chinese urban areas.
Methods
From March to November 2012, 2147 elderly women in Liaoning Province of China were selected using a stratified sampling method. After cognitive screening, 1956 participants without dementia were finally enrolled. A questionnaire including SRH, visual ability and factors including demographic characteristics, physical conditions, lifestyle factors, social psychological status and social activities were analyzed. Multivariate logistic regression was used to clarify the association of SRH with risk factors, while stepwise multivariate logistic regression was used to examine the vision-specific associations with SRH.
Results
The mean age was 73.6 ± 5.82 (mean ± SD). The percentages of good SRH in good and impaired visual ability groups were 36.2% and 24.4%, respectively. Most characteristics between elderly females with different visual abilities were significantly different. Visual ability had interactions with physical conditions, lifestyle factors and social activities to affect SRH. Among elderly females with good visual ability, depressive symptoms, rather than chronic disease had the strongest association with good SRH followed by marital status, regular diet, going out alone to distant places, taking a walk, smoking and alcohol consumption. In the impaired visual ability group, going out alone to distant places had the strongest association with good SRH followed by chronic disease, filial piety, taking a walk, participating in entertainment, ethnicity, quality of sleep, worrying about falling and alcohol consumption.
Conclusions
Good SRH status was at a low level especially among elderly females with impaired visual ability and the risk factors differed between elderly females with different visual abilities. Social psychological status was crucial for SRH among elderly females with good visual ability whereas physical conditions were prominent for impaired visual ability group.
Journal Article
Clinical manifestations and vision-related quality of life in pediatric uveitis
Purpose:
To analyze clinical manifestations, visual ability, and quality of life in pediatric uveitis and to explore factors affecting visual ability and quality of life.
Methods:
This cross-sectional study included 40 patients with pediatric uveitis in the database of Ophthalmology of Peking University First Hospital. All patients completed the Cardiff visual ability questionnaire for children (CVAQC) and pediatric quality of life inventory measurement models (PedsQL4.0).
Results:
A total of 40 cases (68 eyes) with pediatric uveitis were included in this study. Better visual acuity in the better eye was predictive of lower CVAQC, education, and distance vision scores. Better visual acuity in the worse eye was predictive of a lower CVAQC score and distance vision. Better CVAQC scores were predictive of lower PedsQL4.0, physical health, psychosocial health, and school functioning scores.
Conclusion:
Patients with pediatric uveitis tend to be seriously affected by ocular complications. The visual ability of patients with pediatric uveitis decreases significantly. Better visual acuity in the better eye is associated with better total visual ability, education, and distance vision. Better visual acuity in the worse eye is associated with better total visual ability and distance vision. Health-related quality of life is related to vision ability in pediatric uveitis.
Journal Article
Visual Behavior Impairments as an Aberrant Sensory Processing in the Mouse Model of Fragile X Syndrome
Fragile X Syndrome (FXS), the most common inherited form of human intellectual disability (ID) associated to autistic-like behaviors, is characterized by dys-sensitivity to sensory stimuli, especially on the visual part. In absence of FMRP, both retinal and cerebral structures of the visual pathway are impaired, suggesting that perception and integration of visual stimulus are altered. However, the behavioral consequences of such defects remain unknown. In this study, carried out with male Fmr1-/y mice, we aimed to further define visual disturbances from a behavioral point of view by focusing on three traits characterizing visual modality: perception of depth, contrasts and movements. We performed specific tests (Optomotor Drum, Visual Cliff) to evaluate these visual modalities, their evolution from youth to adulthood, and to assess their involvement in a cognitive task. We show that Fmr1-/y mice exhibit alteration in their visual skills, displaying an impaired perception of perspective, a drop in their ability to understand a moving contrasted pattern, and a defect in their contrasts discrimination. Interestingly, these Fmr1-/y phenotypes remain stable over time from adolescence to late adulthood. Besides, we show that color and shape are meaningful for the achievement of a cognitive test involving object recognition. All together, these results underline the significance of visual behavior alterations in FXS conditions and how relevant it is to assess visual skills in neuropsychiatric models before performing behavioral tasks, such as cognitive assessments, that involve visual discrimination.
Journal Article