The study aimed to find out whether the imagery ability within the two subcomponents of motor imagery (visual and kinesthetic) allows predicting the results in simple response time task and eye–hand coordination task in a group of young male soccer players (9–15 years old). Non-specific simple response time and eye–hand coordination play a key role in predicting specific sports performance level. Participants performed Reaction Time Task, Eye–Hand Coordination Task, and completed Motor Imagery Questionnaire–Revised. Data were submitted to the structural equations analysis based on the maximum likelihood method in order to estimate a structural model of relationship between variables. Results indicate visual rather than kinesthetic motor imagery is associated with non-specific motor skills. Higher scores on the visual motor imagery scale were observed to correlate with faster reaction times and better coordination in the study group. This supports the idea that during learning a new perceptual-motor-task the visual control is required. Results provide the evidence for the specific role of the third-person perspective imagery in young athletes playing soccer.

This study aimed to describe the percentage of tasks involving language functions that were completed by patients diagnosed with disorders of consciousness, as observed during neurorehabilitation conducted for different periods of time using an alternative communication tool. The project involved six participants, who were observed for 1 month, 6 months, and 1 year. The patients were asked to solve tasks involving language functions with the use of an eye-controlled device. The language functions were evaluated on the basis of the average number of tasks performed by the patients, which was 70.45% for the whole subject group. It is not entirely clear what determined the changes in language functions during the research. It is crucial that patients performed the presented tasks even though their state of consciousness, as confirmed through medical documentation (unresponsive wakefulness syndrome), did not suggest the possibility of establishing any contact with them.

Modern eye tracking technology provides a means for communication with patients suffering from disorders of consciousness (DoC) or remaining in locked-in-state. However, being able to use an eye tracker for controlling text-based contents by such patients requires preserved reading ability in the first place. To our knowledge, this aspect, although of great social importance, so far has seemed to be neglected. In the paper, we presented the possibility of using an eye-tracking technology for assessing reading comprehension skills in post-comatose patients with minimal consciousness. We prepared various syllable-, word- and sentence-based tasks, controlled by gaze, used for assessing the reading comprehension skills. The obtained results showed that people with minimal consciousness preserved the reading comprehension skills, in most cases to a high extent, but had difficulties with recognizing errors in the written text. The ability to maintain attention during performing the tasks was in statistically significant correlation with motivation, and that one was in a statistically significant correlation with the reading ability. The results indicate that post-comatose patients with minimal consciousness can read words and sentences, hence some useful hints may be provided for the development of gaze tracking-based human-computer interfaces for these people.

Application of eye-gaze tracking system to awareness evaluation is demonstrated. Hitherto awareness evaluation methods are presented. The assumptions of proposed method based on analysis of visual activity of patients in vegetative state are demonstrated. The eye-gaze tracking system "Cyber-Eye" developed at the Multimedia Systems Department employed to conducted experiments is presented. Research described in the paper indicates that awareness level of 13 of 15 tested patients was misdiagnosed before the new method of awareness evaluation is introduced.

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