TY - JOUR A1 - Dimigen, Olaf A1 - Valsecchie, Matteo A1 - Sommer, Werner A1 - Kliegl, Reinhold T1 - Human microsaccade-related visual brain responses Y1 - 2009 UR - http://www.jneurosci.org/rapidcomm.dtl U6 - https://doi.org/10.1523/JNEUROSCI.0911-09.2009 SN - 0270-6474 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Valsecchi, Matteo A1 - Dimigen, Olaf A1 - Kliegl, Reinhold A1 - Sommer, Werner A1 - Turatto, Massimo T1 - Microsaccadic inhibition and P300 enhancement in a visual oddball task N2 - It has recently been demonstrated that the presentation of visual oddballs induces a prolonged inhibition of microsaccades. The amplitude of the P300 component in event-related potentials (ERPs) has been shown to be sensitive to the category (target vs. nontarget) of the eliciting stimulus, its overall probability, and the preceding stimulus sequence. In the present study we further specify the functional underpinnings of the prolonged microsaccadic inhibition in the visual oddball task, showing that the stimulus category, the frequency of a stimulus, and the preceding stimulus sequence influence microsaccade rate. Furthermore, by co-recording ERPs and eye movements, we were able to demonstrate that, despite being largely sensitive to the same experimental manipulation, the amplitude of P300 and the microsaccadic inhibition predict each other only weakly. Y1 - 2009 UR - http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/118485671/home U6 - https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1469-8986.2009.00791.x SN - 0048-5772 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Kliegl, Reinhold A1 - Dambacher, Michael A1 - Dimigen, Olaf A1 - Jacobs, Arthur M. A1 - Sommer, Werner T1 - Eye movements and brain electric potentials during reading JF - Psychological research : an international journal of perception, attention, memory, and action N2 - The development of theories and computational models of reading requires an understanding of processing constraints, in particular of timelines related to word recognition and oculomotor control. Timelines of word recognition are usually determined with event-related potentials (ERPs) recorded under conditions of serial visual presentation (SVP) of words; timelines of oculomotor control are derived from parameters of eye movements (EMs) during natural reading. We describe two strategies to integrate these approaches. One is to collect ERPs and EMs in separate SVP and natural reading experiments for the same experimental material (but different subjects). The other strategy is to co-register EMs and ERPs during natural reading from the same subjects. Both strategies yield data that allow us to determine how lexical properties influence ERPs (e.g., the N400 component) and EMs (e.g., fixation durations) across neighboring words. We review our recent research on the effects of frequency and predictability of words on both EM and ERP measures with reference to current models of eye-movement control during reading. Results are in support of the proposition that lexical access is distributed across several fixations and across brain-electric potentials measured on neighboring words. Y1 - 2012 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1007/s00426-011-0376-x SN - 0340-0727 VL - 76 IS - 2 SP - 145 EP - 158 PB - Springer CY - Heidelberg ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Yan, Ming A1 - Sommer, Werner T1 - Parafoveal-on-Foveal Effects of Emotional Word Semantics in Reading Chinese Sentences: Evidence From Eye Movements JF - Journal of experimental psychology : Learning, memory, and cognition N2 - Despite the well-known influence of emotional meaning on cognition, relatively less is known about its effects on reading behavior. We investigated whether fixation behavior during the reading of Chinese sentences is influenced by emotional word meaning in the parafovea. Two-character target words embedded into the same sentence frames provided emotionally positive, negative, or neutral contents. Fixation durations on neutral pretarget words were prolonged for positive parafoveal words and for highly frequent negative parafoveal words. In addition, fixation durations on foveal emotional words were shorter than those on neutral words. We also found that the role of emotional words varied as a function of their valence during foveal and parafoveal processing. These findings suggest a processing advantage for emotional words relative to emotionally neutral stimuli in foveal and parafoveal vision. We discuss implications for the notion of attention attraction due to emotional content. KW - parafoveal vision KW - emotion KW - reading KW - Chinese Y1 - 2015 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1037/xlm0000095 SN - 0278-7393 SN - 1939-1285 VL - 41 IS - 4 SP - 1237 EP - 1243 PB - American Psychological Association CY - Washington ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Dimigen, Olaf A1 - Kliegl, Reinhold A1 - Sommer, Werner T1 - Trans-saccadic parafoveal preview benefits in fluent reading: A study with fixation-related brain potentials JF - NeuroImage : a journal of brain function N2 - During natural reading, a parafoveal preview of the upcoming word facilitates its subsequent recognition (e.g., shorter fixation durations compared to masked preview) but nothing is known about the neural correlates of this so-called preview benefit. Furthermore, while the evidence is strong that readers preprocess orthographic features of upcoming words, it is controversial whether word meaning can also be accessed parafoveally. We investigated the timing, scope, and electrophysiological correlates of parafoveal information use in reading by simultaneously recording eye movements and fixation-related brain potentials (FRPs) while participants read word lists fluently from left to right. For one word the target (e.g., "blade") parafoveal information was manipulated by showing an identical ("blade"), semantically related ("knife"), or unrelated ("sugar") word as preview. In boundary trials, the preview was shown parafoveally but changed to the correct target word during the incoming saccade. Replicating classic findings, target words were fixated shorter after identical previews. In the EEG, this benefit was reflected in an occipitotemporal preview positivity between 200 and 280 ms. In contrast, there was no facilitation from related previews. In parafoveal-on-foveal trials, preview and target were embedded at neighboring list positions without a display change. Consecutive fixation of two related words produced N400 priming effects, but only shortly (160 ms) after the second word was directly fixated. Results demonstrate that neural responses to words are substantially altered by parafoveal preprocessing under normal reading conditions. We found no evidence that word meaning contributes to these effects. Saccade-contingent display manipulations can be combined with EEG recordings to study extrafoveal perception in vision. KW - EEG KW - Eye tracking KW - Active vision KW - Eye-fixation-related potentials (EFRP) KW - Parafoveal vision KW - Boundary technique Y1 - 2012 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuroimage.2012.04.006 SN - 1053-8119 SN - 1095-9572 VL - 62 IS - 1 SP - 381 EP - 393 PB - Elsevier CY - San Diego ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Dimigen, Olaf A1 - Sommer, Werner A1 - Hohlfeld, Annette A1 - Jacobs, Arthur M. A1 - Kliegl, Reinhold T1 - Coregistration of eye movements and EEG in natural reading analyses and review JF - Journal of experimental psychology : General N2 - Brain-electric correlates of reading have traditionally been studied with word-by-word presentation, a condition that eliminates important aspects of the normal reading process and precludes direct comparisons between neural activity and oculomotor behavior. In the present study, we investigated effects of word predictability on eye movements (EM) and fixation-related brain potentials (FRPs) during natural sentence reading. Electroencephalogram (EEG) and EM (via video-based eye tracking) were recorded simultaneously while subjects read heterogeneous German sentences, moving their eyes freely over the text. FRPs were time-locked to first-pass reading fixations and analyzed according to the cloze probability of the currently fixated word. We replicated robust effects of word predictability on EMs and the N400 component in FRPs. The data were then used to model the relation among fixation duration, gaze duration, and N400 amplitude, and to trace the time course of EEG effects relative to effects in EM behavior. In an extended Methodological Discussion section, we review 4 technical and data-analytical problems that need to be addressed when FRPs are recorded in free-viewing situations (such as reading, visual search, or scene perception) and propose solutions. Results suggest that EEG recordings during normal vision are feasible and useful to consolidate findings from EEG and eye-tracking studies. KW - EEG KW - eye tracking KW - fixation-related potentials KW - artifact correction KW - natural viewing Y1 - 2011 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1037/a0023885 SN - 0096-3445 VL - 140 IS - 4 SP - 552 EP - 572 PB - American Psychological Association CY - Washington ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Frömer, Romy A1 - Dimigen, Olaf A1 - Niefind, Florian A1 - Krause, Niels A1 - Kliegl, Reinhold A1 - Sommer, Werner T1 - Are Individual Differences in Reading Speed Related to Extrafoveal Visual Acuity and Crowding? JF - PLoS one N2 - Readers differ considerably in their speed of self-paced reading. One factor known to influence fixation durations in reading is the preprocessing of words in parafoveal vision. Here we investigated whether individual differences in reading speed or the amount of information extracted from upcoming words (the preview benefit) can be explained by basic differences in extrafoveal vision-i.e., the ability to recognize peripheral letters with or without the presence of flanking letters. Forty participants were given an adaptive test to determine their eccentricity thresholds for the identification of letters presented either in isolation (extrafoveal acuity) or flanked by other letters (crowded letter recognition). In a separate eye-tracking experiment, the same participants read lists of words from left to right, while the preview of the upcoming words was manipulated with the gaze-contingent moving window technique. Relationships between dependent measures were analyzed on the observational level and with linear mixed models. We obtained highly reliable estimates both for extrafoveal letter identification (acuity and crowding) and measures of reading speed (overall reading speed, size of preview benefit). Reading speed was higher in participants with larger uncrowded windows. However, the strength of this relationship was moderate and it was only observed if other sources of variance in reading speed (e.g., the occurrence of regressive saccades) were eliminated. Moreover, the size of the preview benefit-an important factor in normal reading-was larger in participants with better extrafoveal acuity. Together, these results indicate a significant albeit moderate contribution of extrafoveal vision to individual differences in reading speed. Y1 - 2015 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0121986 SN - 1932-6203 VL - 10 IS - 3 PB - PLoS CY - San Fransisco ER - TY - GEN A1 - Frömer, Romy A1 - Dimigen, Olaf A1 - Niefind, Florian A1 - Kliegl, Reinhold A1 - Sommer, Werner T1 - Are individual differences in reading speed related to extrafoveal visual acuity and crowding? T2 - Postprints der Universität Potsdam : Humanwissenschaftliche Reihe N2 - Readers differ considerably in their speed of self-paced reading. One factor known to influence fixation durations in reading is the preprocessing of words in parafoveal vision. Here we investigated whether individual differences in reading speed or the amount of information extracted from upcoming words (the preview benefit) can be explained by basic differences in extrafoveal vision-i.e., the ability to recognize peripheral letters with or without the presence of flanking letters. Forty participants were given an adaptive test to determine their eccentricity thresholds for the identification of letters presented either in isolation (extrafoveal acuity) or flanked by other letters (crowded letter recognition). In a separate eye-tracking experiment, the same participants read lists of words from left to right, while the preview of the upcoming words was manipulated with the gaze-contingent moving window technique. Relationships between dependent measures were analyzed on the observational level and with linear mixed models. We obtained highly reliable estimates both for extrafoveal letter identification (acuity and crowding) and measures of reading speed (overall reading speed, size of preview benefit). Reading speed was higher in participants with larger uncrowded windows. However, the strength of this relationship was moderate and it was only observed if other sources of variance in reading speed (e.g., the occurrence of regressive saccades) were eliminated. Moreover, the size of the preview benefit-an important factor in normal reading-was larger in participants with better extrafoveal acuity. Together, these results indicate a significant albeit moderate contribution of extrafoveal vision to individual differences in reading speed. T3 - Zweitveröffentlichungen der Universität Potsdam : Humanwissenschaftliche Reihe - 494 KW - eye-movement control KW - object recognition KW - perceptual span KW - preview benefit KW - syntactic ambiguity KW - attention KW - fixation KW - readers KW - repetition KW - resolution Y1 - 2018 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-408003 SN - 1866-8364 IS - 494 ER - TY - GEN A1 - Dimigen, Olaf A1 - Valsecchi, Matteo A1 - Sommer, Werner A1 - Kliegl, Reinhold T1 - Human Microsaccade-Related Visual Brain Responses N2 - Microsaccades are very small, involuntary flicks in eye position that occur on average once or twice per second during attempted visual fixation. Microsaccades give rise to EMG eye muscle spikes that can distort the spectrum of the scalp EEG and mimic increases in gamma band power. Here we demonstrate that microsaccades are also accompanied by genuine and sizeable cortical activity, manifested in the EEG. In three experiments, high-resolution eye movements were corecorded with the EEG: during sustained fixation of checkerboard and face stimuli and in a standard visual oddball task that required the counting of target stimuli. Results show that microsaccades as small as 0.15° generate a field potential over occipital cortex and midcentral scalp sites 100 –140 ms after movement onset, which resembles the visual lambda response evoked by larger voluntary saccades. This challenges the standard assumption of human brain imaging studies that saccade-related brain activity is precluded by fixation, even when fully complied with. Instead, additional cortical potentials from microsaccades were present in 86% of the oddball task trials and of similar amplitude as the visual response to stimulus onset. Furthermore, microsaccade probability varied systematically according to the proportion of target stimuli in the oddball task, causing modulations of late stimulus-locked event-related potential (ERP) components. Microsaccades present an unrecognized source of visual brain signal that is of interest for vision research and may have influenced the data of many ERP and neuroimaging studies. T3 - Zweitveröffentlichungen der Universität Potsdam : Humanwissenschaftliche Reihe - paper 240 Y1 - 2009 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus-56923 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Meyberg, Susann A1 - Sinn, Petra A1 - Engbert, Ralf A1 - Sommer, Werner T1 - Revising the link between microsaccades and the spatial cueing of voluntary attention JF - Vision research : an international journal for functional aspects of vision. N2 - Microsaccades - i.e., small fixational saccades generated in the superior colliculus (SC) - have been linked to spatial attention. While maintaining fixation, voluntary shifts of covert attention toward peripheral targets result in a sequence of attention-aligned and attention-opposing microsaccades. In most previous studies the direction of the voluntary shift is signaled by a spatial cue (e.g., a leftwards pointing arrow) that presents the most informative part of the cue (e.g., the arrowhead) in the to-be attended visual field. Here we directly investigated the influence of cue position and tested the hypothesis that microsaccades align with cue position rather than with the attention shift. In a spatial cueing task, we presented the task-relevant part of a symmetric cue either in the to-be attended visual field or in the opposite field. As a result, microsaccades were still weakly related to the covert attention shift; however, they were strongly related to the position of the cue even if that required a movement opposite to the cued attention shift. Moreover, if microsaccades aligned with cue position, we observed stronger cueing effects on manual response times. Our interpretation of the data is supported by numerical simulations of a computational model of microsaccade generation that is based on SC properties, where we explain our findings by separate attentional mechanisms for cue localization and the cued attention shift. We conclude that during cueing of voluntary attention, microsaccades are related to both - the overt attentional selection of the task-relevant part of the cue stimulus and the subsequent covert attention shift.(C) 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. KW - Endogenous attention KW - Visual search KW - Fixational eye movements KW - Posner cueing KW - Superior colliculus KW - Computational modelling Y1 - 2017 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.visres.2017.01.001 SN - 0042-6989 SN - 1878-5646 VL - 133 SP - 47 EP - 60 PB - Elsevier CY - Oxford ER - TY - GEN A1 - Valsecchi, Matteo A1 - Dimigen, Olaf A1 - Kliegl, Reinhold A1 - Sommer, Werner A1 - Turatto, Massimo T1 - Microsaccadic Inhibition and P300 Enhancement in a Visual Oddball Task N2 - It has recently been demonstrated that the presentation of a rare target in a visual oddball paradigm induces a prolonged inhibition of microsaccades. In the field of electrophysiology, the amplitude of the P300 component in event-related potentials (ERP) has been shown to be sensitive to the stimulus category (target vs. non target) of the eliciting stimulus, its overall probability, and the preceding stimulus sequence. In the present study we further specify the functional underpinnings of the prolonged microsaccadic inhibition in the visual oddball task, showing that the stimulus category, the frequency of a stimulus and the preceding stimulus sequence influence microsaccade rate. Furthermore, by co-recording ERPs and eye-movements, we were able to demonstrate that, despite being largely sensitive to the same experimental manipulation, the amplitude of P300 and the microsaccadic inhibition predict each other very weakly, and thus constitute two independent measures of the brain’s response to rare targets in the visual oddball paradigm. T3 - Zweitveröffentlichungen der Universität Potsdam : Humanwissenschaftliche Reihe - paper 256 KW - Visual Oddball Paradigm KW - Microsaccades KW - Microsaccadic Inhibition KW - ERPs KW - P300Psychophysiology KW - 46 (3) 2009 KW - S. 635-644 Y1 - 2009 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus-57170 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Lorenz, Robert C. A1 - Gleich, Tobias A1 - Beck, Anne A1 - Poehland, Lydia A1 - Raufelder, Diana A1 - Sommer, Werner A1 - Rapp, Michael Armin A1 - Kuehn, Simone A1 - Gallinat, Jürgen T1 - Reward anticipation in the adolescent and aging brain JF - Human brain mapping : a journal devoted to functional neuroanatomy and neuroimaging N2 - Processing of reward is the basis of adaptive behavior of the human being. Neural correlates of reward processing seem to be influenced by developmental changes from adolescence to late adulthood. The aim of this study is to uncover these neural correlates during a slot machine gambling task across the lifespan. Therefore, we used functional magnetic resonance imaging to investigate 102 volunteers in three different age groups: 34 adolescents, 34 younger adults, and 34 older adults. We focused on the core reward areas ventral striatum (VS) and ventromedial prefrontal cortex (VMPFC), the valence processing associated areas, anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) and insula, as well as information integration associated areas, dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC), and inferior parietal lobule (IPL). Results showed that VS and VMPFC were characterized by a hyperactivation in adolescents compared with younger adults. Furthermore, the ACC and insula were characterized by a U-shape pattern (hypoactivation in younger adults compared with adolescents and older adults), whereas the DLPFC and IPL were characterized by a J-shaped form (hyperactivation in older adults compared with younger groups). Furthermore, a functional connectivity analysis revealed an elevated negative functional coupling between the inhibition-related area rIFG and VS in younger adults compared with adolescents. Results indicate that lifespan-related changes during reward anticipation are characterized by different trajectories in different reward network modules and support the hypothesis of an imbalance in maturation of striatal and prefrontal cortex in adolescents. Furthermore, these results suggest compensatory age-specific effects in fronto-parietal regions. Hum Brain Mapp 35:5153-5165, 2014. (c) 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. KW - reward anticipation KW - lifespan KW - aging KW - adolescence KW - fMRI KW - connectivity Y1 - 2014 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1002/hbm.22540 SN - 1065-9471 SN - 1097-0193 VL - 35 IS - 10 SP - 5153 EP - 5165 PB - Wiley-Blackwell CY - Hoboken ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Zahedi, Anoushiravan A1 - Öznur Akalin, Renin A1 - Lawrence, Johanna E. A1 - Baumann, Annika A1 - Sommer, Werner T1 - The nature and persistence of the effects of posthypnotic suggestions on food preferences BT - the final report of an online study JF - Frontiers in psychology N2 - The persistence of food preferences, which are crucial for diet-related decisions, is a significant obstacle to changing unhealthy eating behavior. To overcome this obstacle, the current study investigates whether posthypnotic suggestions (PHSs) can enhance food-related decisions by measuring food choices and subjective ratings. After assessing hypnotic susceptibility in Session 1, at the beginning of Session 2, a PHS was delivered aiming to increase the desirability of healthy food items (e.g., vegetables and fruit). After the termination of hypnosis, a set of two tasks was administrated twice, once when the PHS was activated and once deactivated in counterbalanced order. The task set consisted of rating 170 pictures of food items, followed by an online supermarket where participants were instructed to select enough food from the same item pool for a fictitious week of quarantine. After 1 week, Session 3 mimicked Session 2 without renewed hypnosis induction to assess the persistence of the PHS effects. The Bayesian hierarchical modeling results indicate that the PHS increased preferences and choices of healthy food items without altering the influence of preferences in choices. In contrast, for unhealthy food items, not only both preferences and choices were decreased due to the PHS, but also their relationship was modified. That is, although choices became negatively biased against unhealthy items, preferences played a more dominant role in unhealthy choices when the PHS was activated. Importantly, all effects persisted over 1 week, qualitatively and quantitatively. Our results indicate that although the PHS affected healthy choices through resolve, i.e., preferred more and chosen more, unhealthy items were probably chosen less impulsively through effortful suppression. Together, besides the translational importance of the current results for helping the obesity epidemic in modern societies, our results contribute theoretically to the understanding of hypnosis and food choices. KW - hypnosis KW - online supermarket KW - posthypnotic suggestions (PHSs) KW - food choice KW - eating behavior KW - food preferences KW - Bayesian analysis KW - Bayesian generalized linear mixed model Y1 - 2023 U6 - https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1123907 SN - 1664-1078 VL - 14 PB - Frontiers Research Foundation CY - Lausanne ER -