#visualattention — Public Fediverse posts
Live and recent posts from across the Fediverse tagged #visualattention, aggregated by home.social.
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DATE: August 8, 2026 at 11:00AM
SOURCE: PSYPOST.ORG** Research quality varies widely from fantastic to small exploratory studies. Please check research methods when conclusions are very important to you. **
-------------------------------------------------TITLE: Six months of action gaming alters brain networks and improves visual attention
Playing fast-paced video games over several months may lead to measurable improvements in attention and changes in resting brain activity. A small study published in the International Journal of Psychophysiology suggests that action video games alter both local brain wave power and large-scale communication between brain regions. These neural shifts can even predict how much a person’s attention will improve after extended gaming practice.
Action video games require players to constantly scan a cluttered visual environment for sudden threats while maintaining focus on specific targets. Because of these intense mental demands, cognitive scientists frequently use first-person shooter games to explore how the human brain adapts to new challenges. Playing these games repeatedly forces the brain to process spatial and temporal information at high speeds.
Past research indicates that this type of gaming enhances selective attention, which is the ability to focus on relevant information while ignoring visual distractions. It also improves distributed attention, which involves spreading mental focus across a wide spatial area to monitor multiple events at once. Both types of attention depend on isolated brain regions as well as synchronized communication across the entire brain.
Previous neuroimaging studies examining video games have often been limited to short training periods lasting only a few weeks or hours. These brief interventions are useful for capturing immediate reactions, but they miss the slow, cumulative physical changes that occur in the brain over long periods. Older studies mostly focused on local brain activity rather than the complex networks connecting different lobes. Many studies also relied on functional magnetic resonance imaging, which is expensive and physically restricts participants during training tasks.
To understand how extended video game play reshapes the brain over time, lead author Jihan Wang of the University of Electronic Science and Technology of China designed a long-term experiment. Wang and a team of researchers tracked changes in localized brain waves and whole-brain connectivity over a half-year period. The team included Yan Peng, Bin Lv, and Dezhong Yao.
The researchers recruited university students with little to no prior gaming experience. Forty-three participants completed the entire six-month protocol, making this a small study. The participants were instructed to play the game Counter-Strike: Global Offensive for one hour a day, five days a week, accumulating roughly 120 hours of play.
The researchers assessed the participants at the beginning of the study, at the three-month mark, and at the end of the six months. At each assessment point, the participants completed two distinct behavioral tasks. The first task evaluated selective attention by requiring participants to quickly scan lines of letters on a computer screen. They had to press a key only when they spotted a specific target letter, such as a “d” with two dashes, while ignoring other letters or similar characters.
The second task evaluated distributed attention by presenting six distinct shapes in the peripheral visual field around a central focal point. Participants had to identify whether a specific target shape was present among the other objects. Both tasks recorded the speed of correct responses, filtering out completely implausible reaction times to ensure accuracy.
Reaction times on the selective attention task improved steadily between the baseline assessment and the six-month mark. Reaction times on the distributed attention task improved sharply between the baseline and the three-month mark. This metric showed continued improvement by the end of the study.
Alongside the behavioral tasks, the researchers recorded the electrical activity of each participant’s brain using electroencephalography, or EEG. These recordings were taken while the participants rested quietly with their eyes closed. Resting-state recordings provide a measure of the brain’s intrinsic, default organization rather than its reaction to an immediate stimulus. The fast response time of an EEG machine makes it an ideal tool for longitudinally tracking these gradual electrical shifts.
The team first analyzed local brain activity by breaking down the electrical signals into specific frequency bands. They focused on alpha waves, which are electrical pulses occurring eight to thirteen times per second. High alpha wave activity is generally associated with a resting state and the suppression of irrelevant visual information.
As the training progressed, alpha wave power steadily decreased, primarily in the parietal and occipital regions at the back of the brain. A reduction in resting alpha power generally reflects a state of higher brain excitability and mental readiness. The researchers noted that participants who showed the greatest reduction in alpha power also demonstrated the fastest reaction times on the selective attention task.
Next, the researchers analyzed the EEG data to map functional networks across the entire brain. They used a mathematical technique to measure how closely different brain regions synchronized the peaks and valleys of their electrical waves. Highly synchronized regions are thought to communicate more efficiently with one another.
The analysis revealed a progressive increase in synchronization between spatially separated brain regions. During the first three months, connectivity increased moderately across central areas of the brain. By six months, this synchronization became more focused and intense, particularly bridging the frontal, parietal, and occipital lobes.
The team calculated specific network properties to describe how efficiently information traveled through these newly synchronized pathways. They measured factors like the clustering coefficient, which tracks how well neighboring brain regions connect, and path length, which tracks the minimum number of steps needed for a signal to cross the network. These metrics provide a mathematical snapshot of how well the brain integrates information.
The researchers found that the overall efficiency and clustering of the brain networks improved from the baseline to the six-month mark. These structural upgrades hinted at a more integrated electrical environment. However, these network changes weakly correlated with improved performance on the behavioral tasks, and the findings were not statistically significant after adjusting for multiple comparisons.
Finally, the research team built statistical models to see if the physiological data could predict individual behavioral outcomes. They trained a program to look for associations between the electrical brain data and the reaction time improvements. To prevent the model from simply memorizing the data, they tested it by hiding one participant’s results, asking the model to predict that participant’s score, and repeating the process for everyone.
They found that both the local alpha wave changes and the global network changes accurately predicted how much a participant’s reaction time would drop over the six months. Local alpha wave features successfully predicted improvements in both the selective and distributed attention tasks. Features based on whole-brain network properties also predicted selective attention improvements.
The study relies on a single-group design without an inactive control group. Because of this, it is not possible to state with certainty that the video game training directly caused the observed neural and behavioral changes. The improvements could stem from a practice effect, where participants get naturally faster at the assessment tasks after taking them multiple times. Maturation over the six-month period might also account for some cognitive changes.
Outside factors were not strictly monitored during the half-year timeframe. Changes in daily routines, stress levels, or overall lifestyle might have influenced the physiological results. The research also only examined resting brain activity, meaning it remains unknown exactly how these neural networks operate while the participants are actively engaged in demanding cognitive tasks.
The study, “Multi-scale EEG evidence for attention enhancement following long-term action video game training,” was authored by Jihan Wang, Yan Peng, Bin Lv, and Dezhong Yao.
-------------------------------------------------
Private, vetted email list for mental health professionals: https://www.clinicians-exchange.org
Unofficial Psychology Today Xitter to toot feed at Psych Today Unofficial Bot @PTUnofficialBot
-------------------------------------------------
#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #ActionVideoGames #AttentionEnhancement #EEGBrainNetworks #LongTermGaming #CognitiveTraining #VisualAttention #Neuroscience #CounterStrikeTraining #RestingStateEEG #Neuroplasticity
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DATE: August 8, 2026 at 11:00AM
SOURCE: PSYPOST.ORG** Research quality varies widely from fantastic to small exploratory studies. Please check research methods when conclusions are very important to you. **
-------------------------------------------------TITLE: Six months of action gaming alters brain networks and improves visual attention
Playing fast-paced video games over several months may lead to measurable improvements in attention and changes in resting brain activity. A small study published in the International Journal of Psychophysiology suggests that action video games alter both local brain wave power and large-scale communication between brain regions. These neural shifts can even predict how much a person’s attention will improve after extended gaming practice.
Action video games require players to constantly scan a cluttered visual environment for sudden threats while maintaining focus on specific targets. Because of these intense mental demands, cognitive scientists frequently use first-person shooter games to explore how the human brain adapts to new challenges. Playing these games repeatedly forces the brain to process spatial and temporal information at high speeds.
Past research indicates that this type of gaming enhances selective attention, which is the ability to focus on relevant information while ignoring visual distractions. It also improves distributed attention, which involves spreading mental focus across a wide spatial area to monitor multiple events at once. Both types of attention depend on isolated brain regions as well as synchronized communication across the entire brain.
Previous neuroimaging studies examining video games have often been limited to short training periods lasting only a few weeks or hours. These brief interventions are useful for capturing immediate reactions, but they miss the slow, cumulative physical changes that occur in the brain over long periods. Older studies mostly focused on local brain activity rather than the complex networks connecting different lobes. Many studies also relied on functional magnetic resonance imaging, which is expensive and physically restricts participants during training tasks.
To understand how extended video game play reshapes the brain over time, lead author Jihan Wang of the University of Electronic Science and Technology of China designed a long-term experiment. Wang and a team of researchers tracked changes in localized brain waves and whole-brain connectivity over a half-year period. The team included Yan Peng, Bin Lv, and Dezhong Yao.
The researchers recruited university students with little to no prior gaming experience. Forty-three participants completed the entire six-month protocol, making this a small study. The participants were instructed to play the game Counter-Strike: Global Offensive for one hour a day, five days a week, accumulating roughly 120 hours of play.
The researchers assessed the participants at the beginning of the study, at the three-month mark, and at the end of the six months. At each assessment point, the participants completed two distinct behavioral tasks. The first task evaluated selective attention by requiring participants to quickly scan lines of letters on a computer screen. They had to press a key only when they spotted a specific target letter, such as a “d” with two dashes, while ignoring other letters or similar characters.
The second task evaluated distributed attention by presenting six distinct shapes in the peripheral visual field around a central focal point. Participants had to identify whether a specific target shape was present among the other objects. Both tasks recorded the speed of correct responses, filtering out completely implausible reaction times to ensure accuracy.
Reaction times on the selective attention task improved steadily between the baseline assessment and the six-month mark. Reaction times on the distributed attention task improved sharply between the baseline and the three-month mark. This metric showed continued improvement by the end of the study.
Alongside the behavioral tasks, the researchers recorded the electrical activity of each participant’s brain using electroencephalography, or EEG. These recordings were taken while the participants rested quietly with their eyes closed. Resting-state recordings provide a measure of the brain’s intrinsic, default organization rather than its reaction to an immediate stimulus. The fast response time of an EEG machine makes it an ideal tool for longitudinally tracking these gradual electrical shifts.
The team first analyzed local brain activity by breaking down the electrical signals into specific frequency bands. They focused on alpha waves, which are electrical pulses occurring eight to thirteen times per second. High alpha wave activity is generally associated with a resting state and the suppression of irrelevant visual information.
As the training progressed, alpha wave power steadily decreased, primarily in the parietal and occipital regions at the back of the brain. A reduction in resting alpha power generally reflects a state of higher brain excitability and mental readiness. The researchers noted that participants who showed the greatest reduction in alpha power also demonstrated the fastest reaction times on the selective attention task.
Next, the researchers analyzed the EEG data to map functional networks across the entire brain. They used a mathematical technique to measure how closely different brain regions synchronized the peaks and valleys of their electrical waves. Highly synchronized regions are thought to communicate more efficiently with one another.
The analysis revealed a progressive increase in synchronization between spatially separated brain regions. During the first three months, connectivity increased moderately across central areas of the brain. By six months, this synchronization became more focused and intense, particularly bridging the frontal, parietal, and occipital lobes.
The team calculated specific network properties to describe how efficiently information traveled through these newly synchronized pathways. They measured factors like the clustering coefficient, which tracks how well neighboring brain regions connect, and path length, which tracks the minimum number of steps needed for a signal to cross the network. These metrics provide a mathematical snapshot of how well the brain integrates information.
The researchers found that the overall efficiency and clustering of the brain networks improved from the baseline to the six-month mark. These structural upgrades hinted at a more integrated electrical environment. However, these network changes weakly correlated with improved performance on the behavioral tasks, and the findings were not statistically significant after adjusting for multiple comparisons.
Finally, the research team built statistical models to see if the physiological data could predict individual behavioral outcomes. They trained a program to look for associations between the electrical brain data and the reaction time improvements. To prevent the model from simply memorizing the data, they tested it by hiding one participant’s results, asking the model to predict that participant’s score, and repeating the process for everyone.
They found that both the local alpha wave changes and the global network changes accurately predicted how much a participant’s reaction time would drop over the six months. Local alpha wave features successfully predicted improvements in both the selective and distributed attention tasks. Features based on whole-brain network properties also predicted selective attention improvements.
The study relies on a single-group design without an inactive control group. Because of this, it is not possible to state with certainty that the video game training directly caused the observed neural and behavioral changes. The improvements could stem from a practice effect, where participants get naturally faster at the assessment tasks after taking them multiple times. Maturation over the six-month period might also account for some cognitive changes.
Outside factors were not strictly monitored during the half-year timeframe. Changes in daily routines, stress levels, or overall lifestyle might have influenced the physiological results. The research also only examined resting brain activity, meaning it remains unknown exactly how these neural networks operate while the participants are actively engaged in demanding cognitive tasks.
The study, “Multi-scale EEG evidence for attention enhancement following long-term action video game training,” was authored by Jihan Wang, Yan Peng, Bin Lv, and Dezhong Yao.
-------------------------------------------------
Private, vetted email list for mental health professionals: https://www.clinicians-exchange.org
Unofficial Psychology Today Xitter to toot feed at Psych Today Unofficial Bot @PTUnofficialBot
-------------------------------------------------
#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #ActionVideoGames #AttentionEnhancement #EEGBrainNetworks #LongTermGaming #CognitiveTraining #VisualAttention #Neuroscience #CounterStrikeTraining #RestingStateEEG #Neuroplasticity
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DATE: July 26, 2026 at 06:00PM
SOURCE: PSYPOST.ORG** Research quality varies widely from fantastic to small exploratory studies. Please check research methods when conclusions are very important to you. **
-------------------------------------------------TITLE: Scientists reveal what is actually happening to your body when you let out a random sigh
A recent study published in the journal Psychophysiology suggests that spontaneous sighs act as a physical reset button for our breathing patterns during prolonged tasks. The research provides evidence that sighing helps regulate both breathing variability and physiological alertness when people are engaged in monotonous activities. These findings suggest that an occasional deep breath plays a basic role in maintaining physical balance during sustained attention.
The research team, consisting of Ralph W. G. Andrews, Michael C. Melnychuk, and Paul M. Dockree, sought to understand how spontaneous deep breaths relate to human attention. Everyday breathing is rarely perfectly steady or completely uniform. It contains natural variations in speed and depth, which scientists refer to as respiratory variability.
This variability is thought to keep the respiratory system flexible. A flexible system is better equipped to adapt to sudden changes in physical effort or emotional states. Over time, however, this variability can build up and become too chaotic or disorganized. Previous work suggests that a spontaneous sigh acts to reset this system, bringing chaotic breathing patterns back into a healthy and balanced range.
The scientists also wanted to test if sighs help reset mental alertness during tedious tasks. A specific brain network, known as the noradrenaline system, regulates general alertness and arousal in mammals. It acts as a chemical messenger network originating deep in the brain, sending signals to the rest of the nervous system to wake up or pay attention.
Activity in this system causes the pupil of the eye to expand or contract. The authors suspected that sighing might be intimately linked to this alertness network. They predicted that during boring tasks, a sigh might trigger a physical shift in brain arousal to help a person stay focused. When the body becomes too relaxed or disengaged, a deep breath could act as an internal alarm clock.
To test these predictions, the researchers analyzed data from two separate experiments. The first dataset included seventy-two adults who completed a visual attention test. Participants watched a computer screen for eight blocks of eight minutes each. They were instructed to click a mouse whenever a circular visual pattern slightly faded in contrast.
Throughout this visual test, the software randomly interrupted the task with thought probes. A probe would temporarily pause the experiment and ask participants to rate whether they were actively thinking about the visual task or if they were distracted by unrelated daydreams. This allowed the research team to track subjective engagement.
The second dataset involved fifty-seven participants engaging in a rhythmic listening task for twenty-one minutes. These individuals clicked a mouse in time with a continuous cycle of high and low audio tones. This group was split into two separate conditions. Thirty-two participants breathed normally without any specific instructions. Twenty-five participants were instructed to match their breathing to the changing audio tones, resulting in a slow and controlled breathing pattern.
In both experiments, the scientists measured breathing dynamics using a specialized effort belt worn around the participant’s lower chest. A sigh was specifically defined as any breath that was at least twice as deep as the participant’s average breath volume. The team also used high-speed tracking cameras to record the exact diameter of the participants’ pupils throughout the sessions.
The scientists found that people who breathed normally tended to sigh more frequently as the tasks wore on. As the minutes ticked by, their regular breathing patterns showed an increase in total variability. This means their breathing speed and depth became increasingly irregular over time. Immediately after a sigh occurred, this accumulated variability decreased.
The researchers distinguished between random breathing variability and structured breathing variability. Structured variability means that consecutive breaths are similar to one another, following a predictable sequence. The authors noted that sighs tended to occur when breathing lacked this predictable structure. Following a sigh, the variability in breathing depth became more structured and predictable again.
In the listening task, the group instructed to breathe slowly and steadily showed a completely different pattern. Their sighing dropped dramatically compared to the normal breathing group. Because they were intentionally controlling their breath, their respiratory variability was severely restricted. This suggests that intentional, controlled breathing overrides the body’s natural need to generate a deep sigh.
The visual test dataset revealed an interesting phenomenon known as phase-locking. Phase-locking is a behavior where the brain subconsciously matches biological rhythms to external events. In this context, participants subconsciously synchronized their natural breathing rhythms to the random timing of the fading visual targets on the screen.
The researchers found that the stronger a participant synchronized their breath to the screen, the more chaotic their general breathing became. Forcing the body to match an unpredictable external event seems to disrupt the natural respiratory rhythm. This high degree of synchronization was associated with a significantly higher number of sighs.
The research also revealed a direct connection between sighs and eye pupil size. During a sigh, participants’ pupils consistently dilated in a specific pattern. The pupil size began to increase at the start of the deep inhalation, peaked in size shortly after the breath reached its maximum depth, and then steadily contracted during the exhalation.
Because pupil dilation is a widely accepted proxy for the brain’s alertness system, this precise timing provides evidence that a sigh involves a rapid, coordinated change in physiological arousal. The scientists propose that sighs might help regulate arousal during prolonged tasks.
Interestingly, these physical resets did not translate into immediate behavioral improvements. Reaction times to the visual and auditory targets remained completely unchanged immediately after a sigh. Additionally, the participants’ self-reported focus on the task did not improve after a deep breath. The authors noted that this lack of behavioral change highlights a disconnect between bodily states and cognitive output in this specific context. The tasks were designed to be monotonous, which might explain why cognitive performance remained flat regardless of breathing changes.
It is necessary to acknowledge a few limitations regarding how the study was conducted. The method used to detect sighs relied entirely on breath volume. The respiratory equipment could not tell the difference between a natural sigh and a yawn. Because people tend to yawn when they are subjected to a monotonous task, yawning could have inflated the total number of deep breaths recorded in the datasets.
The attention tasks used in these experiments were relatively easy and undemanding. More difficult mental tasks might draw out different results, perhaps showing a stronger link between sighing and actual cognitive performance. In a high-stress scenario, a sigh might produce a measurable improvement in reaction time that was mostly invisible in a low-stress setting.
The single breathing belt only measured movement in the lower chest and abdomen. This setup might miss subtle changes in how the upper chest expands during respiratory shifts. The study also acknowledges that individual differences in emotional baseline states or daily stress levels were not entirely controlled, which might introduce slight variations in the data. Future studies could explore how different types of guided breathing exercises affect the natural urge to sigh. Additional research should also test whether the physical resets provided by sighing can be directly manipulated to help people stay focused in demanding environments.
The study, “Sighs Shape Respiratory Variability and Pupil Dynamics and Adapt to Sustained Attention Demands,” was authored by Ralph W. G. Andrews, Michael C. Melnychuk, and Paul M. Dockree.
-------------------------------------------------
Private, vetted email list for mental health professionals: https://www.clinicians-exchange.org
Unofficial Psychology Today Xitter to toot feed at Psych Today Unofficial Bot @PTUnofficialBot
-------------------------------------------------
#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #SighsInBreathing #RespiratoryVariability #PupilDynamics #SustainedAttention #BrainArousal #NoradrenergicSystem #PhaseLocking #BreathingReset #VisualAttention #CognitivePerformance
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DATE: July 26, 2026 at 06:00PM
SOURCE: PSYPOST.ORG** Research quality varies widely from fantastic to small exploratory studies. Please check research methods when conclusions are very important to you. **
-------------------------------------------------TITLE: Scientists reveal what is actually happening to your body when you let out a random sigh
A recent study published in the journal Psychophysiology suggests that spontaneous sighs act as a physical reset button for our breathing patterns during prolonged tasks. The research provides evidence that sighing helps regulate both breathing variability and physiological alertness when people are engaged in monotonous activities. These findings suggest that an occasional deep breath plays a basic role in maintaining physical balance during sustained attention.
The research team, consisting of Ralph W. G. Andrews, Michael C. Melnychuk, and Paul M. Dockree, sought to understand how spontaneous deep breaths relate to human attention. Everyday breathing is rarely perfectly steady or completely uniform. It contains natural variations in speed and depth, which scientists refer to as respiratory variability.
This variability is thought to keep the respiratory system flexible. A flexible system is better equipped to adapt to sudden changes in physical effort or emotional states. Over time, however, this variability can build up and become too chaotic or disorganized. Previous work suggests that a spontaneous sigh acts to reset this system, bringing chaotic breathing patterns back into a healthy and balanced range.
The scientists also wanted to test if sighs help reset mental alertness during tedious tasks. A specific brain network, known as the noradrenaline system, regulates general alertness and arousal in mammals. It acts as a chemical messenger network originating deep in the brain, sending signals to the rest of the nervous system to wake up or pay attention.
Activity in this system causes the pupil of the eye to expand or contract. The authors suspected that sighing might be intimately linked to this alertness network. They predicted that during boring tasks, a sigh might trigger a physical shift in brain arousal to help a person stay focused. When the body becomes too relaxed or disengaged, a deep breath could act as an internal alarm clock.
To test these predictions, the researchers analyzed data from two separate experiments. The first dataset included seventy-two adults who completed a visual attention test. Participants watched a computer screen for eight blocks of eight minutes each. They were instructed to click a mouse whenever a circular visual pattern slightly faded in contrast.
Throughout this visual test, the software randomly interrupted the task with thought probes. A probe would temporarily pause the experiment and ask participants to rate whether they were actively thinking about the visual task or if they were distracted by unrelated daydreams. This allowed the research team to track subjective engagement.
The second dataset involved fifty-seven participants engaging in a rhythmic listening task for twenty-one minutes. These individuals clicked a mouse in time with a continuous cycle of high and low audio tones. This group was split into two separate conditions. Thirty-two participants breathed normally without any specific instructions. Twenty-five participants were instructed to match their breathing to the changing audio tones, resulting in a slow and controlled breathing pattern.
In both experiments, the scientists measured breathing dynamics using a specialized effort belt worn around the participant’s lower chest. A sigh was specifically defined as any breath that was at least twice as deep as the participant’s average breath volume. The team also used high-speed tracking cameras to record the exact diameter of the participants’ pupils throughout the sessions.
The scientists found that people who breathed normally tended to sigh more frequently as the tasks wore on. As the minutes ticked by, their regular breathing patterns showed an increase in total variability. This means their breathing speed and depth became increasingly irregular over time. Immediately after a sigh occurred, this accumulated variability decreased.
The researchers distinguished between random breathing variability and structured breathing variability. Structured variability means that consecutive breaths are similar to one another, following a predictable sequence. The authors noted that sighs tended to occur when breathing lacked this predictable structure. Following a sigh, the variability in breathing depth became more structured and predictable again.
In the listening task, the group instructed to breathe slowly and steadily showed a completely different pattern. Their sighing dropped dramatically compared to the normal breathing group. Because they were intentionally controlling their breath, their respiratory variability was severely restricted. This suggests that intentional, controlled breathing overrides the body’s natural need to generate a deep sigh.
The visual test dataset revealed an interesting phenomenon known as phase-locking. Phase-locking is a behavior where the brain subconsciously matches biological rhythms to external events. In this context, participants subconsciously synchronized their natural breathing rhythms to the random timing of the fading visual targets on the screen.
The researchers found that the stronger a participant synchronized their breath to the screen, the more chaotic their general breathing became. Forcing the body to match an unpredictable external event seems to disrupt the natural respiratory rhythm. This high degree of synchronization was associated with a significantly higher number of sighs.
The research also revealed a direct connection between sighs and eye pupil size. During a sigh, participants’ pupils consistently dilated in a specific pattern. The pupil size began to increase at the start of the deep inhalation, peaked in size shortly after the breath reached its maximum depth, and then steadily contracted during the exhalation.
Because pupil dilation is a widely accepted proxy for the brain’s alertness system, this precise timing provides evidence that a sigh involves a rapid, coordinated change in physiological arousal. The scientists propose that sighs might help regulate arousal during prolonged tasks.
Interestingly, these physical resets did not translate into immediate behavioral improvements. Reaction times to the visual and auditory targets remained completely unchanged immediately after a sigh. Additionally, the participants’ self-reported focus on the task did not improve after a deep breath. The authors noted that this lack of behavioral change highlights a disconnect between bodily states and cognitive output in this specific context. The tasks were designed to be monotonous, which might explain why cognitive performance remained flat regardless of breathing changes.
It is necessary to acknowledge a few limitations regarding how the study was conducted. The method used to detect sighs relied entirely on breath volume. The respiratory equipment could not tell the difference between a natural sigh and a yawn. Because people tend to yawn when they are subjected to a monotonous task, yawning could have inflated the total number of deep breaths recorded in the datasets.
The attention tasks used in these experiments were relatively easy and undemanding. More difficult mental tasks might draw out different results, perhaps showing a stronger link between sighing and actual cognitive performance. In a high-stress scenario, a sigh might produce a measurable improvement in reaction time that was mostly invisible in a low-stress setting.
The single breathing belt only measured movement in the lower chest and abdomen. This setup might miss subtle changes in how the upper chest expands during respiratory shifts. The study also acknowledges that individual differences in emotional baseline states or daily stress levels were not entirely controlled, which might introduce slight variations in the data. Future studies could explore how different types of guided breathing exercises affect the natural urge to sigh. Additional research should also test whether the physical resets provided by sighing can be directly manipulated to help people stay focused in demanding environments.
The study, “Sighs Shape Respiratory Variability and Pupil Dynamics and Adapt to Sustained Attention Demands,” was authored by Ralph W. G. Andrews, Michael C. Melnychuk, and Paul M. Dockree.
-------------------------------------------------
Private, vetted email list for mental health professionals: https://www.clinicians-exchange.org
Unofficial Psychology Today Xitter to toot feed at Psych Today Unofficial Bot @PTUnofficialBot
-------------------------------------------------
#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #SighsInBreathing #RespiratoryVariability #PupilDynamics #SustainedAttention #BrainArousal #NoradrenergicSystem #PhaseLocking #BreathingReset #VisualAttention #CognitivePerformance
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Ultra-Processed Foods Erodes Visual Attention
Summary: A new international study identified a direct link between the consumption of ultra-processed foods (UPFs) and a measurable de…
#dining #cooking #diet #food #MediterraneanDiet #brainresearch #Cognitivedecline #dementia #Dementiarisk #Mediterranean #MonashUniversity #neurobiology #neuroscience #ultraprocessedfoods #upf #visualattention #visualneuroscience
https://www.diningandcooking.com/2615286/ultra-processed-foods-erodes-visual-attention/ -
Ultra-Processed Foods Erodes Visual Attention
Summary: A new international study identified a direct link between the consumption of ultra-processe…
#dining #cooking #diet #food #mediterranean #MediterraneanDiet #MediterraneanFood #brainresearch #Cognitivedecline #dementia #Dementiarisk #Mediterranean #MonashUniversity #neurobiology #neuroscience #ultraprocessedfoods #upf #visualattention #visualneuroscience
https://www.diningandcooking.com/2615286/ultra-processed-foods-erodes-visual-attention/ -
Ultra-Processed Foods Erodes Visual Attention
Summary: A new international study identified a direct link between the consumption of ultra-processed foods (UPFs) and a measurable de…
#dining #cooking #diet #food #MediterraneanDiet #brainresearch #Cognitivedecline #dementia #Dementiarisk #Mediterranean #MonashUniversity #neurobiology #neuroscience #ultraprocessedfoods #upf #visualattention #visualneuroscience
https://www.diningandcooking.com/2615286/ultra-processed-foods-erodes-visual-attention/ -
Ultra-Processed Foods Erodes Visual Attention
Summary: A new international study identified a direct link between the consumption of ultra-processe…
#dining #cooking #diet #food #mediterranean #MediterraneanDiet #MediterraneanFood #brainresearch #Cognitivedecline #dementia #Dementiarisk #Mediterranean #MonashUniversity #neurobiology #neuroscience #ultraprocessedfoods #upf #visualattention #visualneuroscience
https://www.diningandcooking.com/2615286/ultra-processed-foods-erodes-visual-attention/ -
Our paper, "Stimulus representations in visual cortex shaped by spatial attention and microsaccades" was just published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).
https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2420704122
#Attention #VisualAttention #SpatialAttention #VisualCortex #Microsaccades #Saccades #EyeMovements #Representation #Dynamics #ActiveCognition #ActiveSensing #Decoding #V4cortex #ITcortex #Pulvinar #Neuroscience #PNAS
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Our paper, "Stimulus representations in visual cortex shaped by spatial attention and microsaccades" was just published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).
https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2420704122
#Attention #VisualAttention #SpatialAttention #VisualCortex #Microsaccades #Saccades #EyeMovements #Representation #Dynamics #ActiveCognition #ActiveSensing #Decoding #V4cortex #ITcortex #Pulvinar #Neuroscience #PNAS
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Eye-tracking study reveals where women and men look when viewing a female butt https://www.psypost.org/eye-tracking-study-reveals-where-women-and-men-look-when-viewing-a-female-butt/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=mastodon #EyeTracking #GenderDifferences #ResearchStudy #HumanBehavior #VisualAttention
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Are you a researcher working on visual cognition or some related field? Please drop your Mastodon handle here and we will follow you. Also feel free to point us to other accounts.
#VisualAttention #EyeMovements #ObjectPerception #FacePerception #VisualMemory #VisualStatistics #VisualPlasticity #VisualPerception #VisionScience #CognitivePsychology #CognitiveScience #CognitiveNeuroscience -
Are you a researcher working on visual cognition or some related field? Please drop your Mastodon handle here and we will follow you. Also feel free to point us to other accounts.
#VisualAttention #EyeMovements #ObjectPerception #FacePerception #VisualMemory #VisualStatistics #VisualPlasticity #VisualPerception #VisionScience #CognitivePsychology #CognitiveScience #CognitiveNeuroscience -
Wow. In 24 hours, we have gone from zero to 4.4K followers, that‘s crazy. Thank you for a warm welcome and excellent tips. I gave up on replying to all of you after someone pointed out that I was spamming thousands of people – sorry! Also, please do not read too much into it if we do not respond or take a long time responding, we are a busy bunch and may simply sometimes miss your post or messages. Mastodon allows long posts so I am taking advantage of that, so here are a few things that you may – or may not – want to know.
—Who are we?—
Research in the Icelandic Vision Lab (https://visionlab.is) focuses on all things visual, with a major emphasis on higher-level or “cognitive” aspects of visual perception. It is co-run by five Principal Investigators: Árni Gunnar Ásgeirsson, Sabrina Hansmann-Roth, Árni Kristjánsson, Inga María Ólafsdóttir, and Heida Maria Sigurdardottir. Here on Mastodon, you will most likely be interacting with me – Heida – but other PIs and potentially other lab members (https://visionlab.is/people) may occasionally also post here as this is a joint account. If our posts are stupid and/or annoying, I will however almost surely be responsible!
—What do we do?—
Current and/or past research at IVL has looked at several visual processes, including #VisualAttention , #EyeMovements , #ObjectPerception , #FacePerception , #VisualMemory , #VisualStatistics , and the role of #Experience / #Learning effects in #VisualPerception . Some of our work concerns the basic properties of the workings of the typical adult #VisualSystem . We have also studied the perceptual capabilities of several unique populations, including children, synesthetes, professional athletes, people with anxiety disorders, blind people, and dyslexic readers. We focus on #BehavioralMethods but also make use of other techniques including #Electrophysiology , #EyeTracking , and #DeepNeuralNetworks
—Why are we here?—
We are mostly here to interact with other researchers in our field, including graduate students, postdoctoral researchers, and principal investigators. This means that our activity on Mastodon may sometimes be quite niche. This can include boosting posts from others on research papers, conferences, or work opportunities in specialized fields, partaking in discussions on debates in our field, data analysis, or the scientific review process. Science communication and outreach are hugely important, but this account is not about that as such. So we take no offence if that means that you will unfollow us, that is perfectly alright :)
—But will there still sometimes be stupid memes as promised?—
Yes. They may or may not be funny, but they will be stupid.
#VisionScience #CognitivePsychology #CognitiveScience #CognitiveNeuroscience #StupidMemes
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Wow. In 24 hours, we have gone from zero to 4.4K followers, that‘s crazy. Thank you for a warm welcome and excellent tips. I gave up on replying to all of you after someone pointed out that I was spamming thousands of people – sorry! Also, please do not read too much into it if we do not respond or take a long time responding, we are a busy bunch and may simply sometimes miss your post or messages. Mastodon allows long posts so I am taking advantage of that, so here are a few things that you may – or may not – want to know.
—Who are we?—
Research in the Icelandic Vision Lab (https://visionlab.is) focuses on all things visual, with a major emphasis on higher-level or “cognitive” aspects of visual perception. It is co-run by five Principal Investigators: Árni Gunnar Ásgeirsson, Sabrina Hansmann-Roth, Árni Kristjánsson, Inga María Ólafsdóttir, and Heida Maria Sigurdardottir. Here on Mastodon, you will most likely be interacting with me – Heida – but other PIs and potentially other lab members (https://visionlab.is/people) may occasionally also post here as this is a joint account. If our posts are stupid and/or annoying, I will however almost surely be responsible!
—What do we do?—
Current and/or past research at IVL has looked at several visual processes, including #VisualAttention , #EyeMovements , #ObjectPerception , #FacePerception , #VisualMemory , #VisualStatistics , and the role of #Experience / #Learning effects in #VisualPerception . Some of our work concerns the basic properties of the workings of the typical adult #VisualSystem . We have also studied the perceptual capabilities of several unique populations, including children, synesthetes, professional athletes, people with anxiety disorders, blind people, and dyslexic readers. We focus on #BehavioralMethods but also make use of other techniques including #Electrophysiology , #EyeTracking , and #DeepNeuralNetworks
—Why are we here?—
We are mostly here to interact with other researchers in our field, including graduate students, postdoctoral researchers, and principal investigators. This means that our activity on Mastodon may sometimes be quite niche. This can include boosting posts from others on research papers, conferences, or work opportunities in specialized fields, partaking in discussions on debates in our field, data analysis, or the scientific review process. Science communication and outreach are hugely important, but this account is not about that as such. So we take no offence if that means that you will unfollow us, that is perfectly alright :)
—But will there still sometimes be stupid memes as promised?—
Yes. They may or may not be funny, but they will be stupid.
#VisionScience #CognitivePsychology #CognitiveScience #CognitiveNeuroscience #StupidMemes
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@kaitclark You made it easy for me - your keywords are almost identical to mine! #openscience and #metaresearch #visualattention #psychophysics #metascience . Thank you for adding me!
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@kaitclark Sorry, posted these keywords in a different reply😬 #cognitiveneuroscience #visualperception #visualattention #openscience #eeg #statisticallearning
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@kwcooper done! Please check your info is as you’d like it to appear and also let me know a couple keywords, e.g., #cognitiveneuroscience #visualattention #openscience. (Keywords will not appear on the main page but will be embedded in the source code)
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@gerald done! Please check your info is as you’d like it to appear (I can add a surname if you like) and also let me know a couple keywords, e.g., #cognitiveneuroscience #visualattention #openscience. (Keywords will not appear on the main page but will be embedded in the source code)
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@DrLambchop done! Please check your info is as you’d like it to appear (I have your name as DrLambchop but can change that) and also let me know a couple keywords, e.g., #cognitiveneuroscience #visualattention #openscience. (Keywords will not appear on the main page but will be embedded in the source code)
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@paolo_papale done! Please check your info is as you’d like it to appear and also let me know a couple keywords, e.g., #cognitiveneuroscience #visualattention #openscience. (Keywords will not appear on the main page but will be embedded in the source code)
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@will_ngiam done! Please check your info is as you’d like it to appear and also let me know a couple keywords, e.g., #cognitiveneuroscience #visualattention #openscience. (Keywords will not appear on the main page but will be embedded in the source code)
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@saraincera done! Please check your info is as you’d like it to appear and also let me know a couple keywords, e.g., #cognitiveneuroscience #visualattention #openscience. (Keywords will not appear on the main page but will be embedded in the source code)
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@dionhenare done! Please check your info is as you’d like it to appear and also let me know a couple keywords, e.g., #cognitiveneuroscience #visualattention #openscience. (Keywords will not appear on the main page but will be embedded in the source code)
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@hugospiers done! Please check your info is as you’d like it to appear and also let me know a couple keywords, e.g., #cognitiveneuroscience #visualattention #openscience. (Keywords will not appear on the main page but will be embedded in the source code)
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@jnfrltackett done! Please check your info is as you’d like it to appear and also let me know a couple keywords, e.g., #cognitiveneuroscience #visualattention #openscience. (Keywords will not appear on the main page but will be embedded in the source code)
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@FrederikAust done! Please check your info is as you’d like it to appear and also let me know a couple keywords, e.g., #cognitiveneuroscience #visualattention #openscience. (Keywords will not appear on the main page but will be embedded in the source code)
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@manlius done! Please check your info is as you’d like it to appear and also let me know a couple keywords, e.g., #cognitiveneuroscience #visualattention #openscience. (Keywords will not appear on the main page but will be embedded in the source code)
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@SRHAstraea done! Please check your info is as you’d like it to appear and also let me know a couple keywords, e.g., #cognitiveneuroscience #visualattention #openscience. (Keywords will not appear on the main page but will be embedded in the source code)
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@erinnacland done! Please check your info is as you’d like it to appear and also let me know a couple keywords, e.g., #cognitiveneuroscience #visualattention #openscience. (Keywords will not appear on the main page but will be embedded in the source code)
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@artbox_hill done! Please check your info is as you’d like it to appear and also let me know a couple keywords, e.g., #cognitiveneuroscience #visualattention #openscience. (Keywords will not appear on the main page but will be embedded in the source code)
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@bianhaan done! Please check your info is as you’d like it to appear and also let me know a couple keywords, e.g., #cognitiveneuroscience #visualattention #openscience. (Keywords will not appear on the main page but will be embedded in the source code)
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@TimVantilborgh done! Please check your info is as you’d like it to appear and also let me know a couple keywords, e.g., #cognitiveneuroscience #visualattention #openscience. (Keywords will not appear on the main page but will be embedded in the source code)
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@KouMurayama done! Please check your info is as you’d like it to appear and also let me know a couple keywords, e.g., #cognitiveneuroscience #visualattention #openscience. (Keywords will not appear on the main page but will be embedded in the source code)
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@pratikb done! Please check your info is as you’d like it to appear and also let me know a couple keywords, e.g., #cognitiveneuroscience #visualattention #openscience. (Keywords will not appear on the main page but will be embedded in the source code)
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@sam done! Please check your info is as you’d like it to appear and also let me know a couple keywords, e.g., #cognitiveneuroscience #visualattention #openscience. (Keywords will not appear on the main page but will be embedded in the source code)
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@OmidVEbrahimi I have also added you per your email request. Please check your info is as you’d like it to appear and also let me know a couple keywords, e.g., #cognitiveneuroscience #visualattention #openscience. (Keywords will not appear on the main page but will be embedded in the source code)