Abnormal spatial selection and tracking in children with amblyopia

Ho, Cindy; Paul, Pooja; Asirvatham, A.; Cavanagh, Patrick; Cline, Roy A.; Giaschi, Deborah

doi:10.1016/j.visres.2006.03.029

Cited by 81 publications

(76 citation statements)

References 39 publications

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“…Evidence for this comes from the tendency in amblyopia to undercount pop-out stimuli (Sharma, Levi, & Klein, 2000) and from the poor localization of such stimuli in amblyopic eyes (Popple & Levi, 2005). Additional evidence comes from the finding that observers with amblyopia show small but significant abnormalities in attentionally tracking multiple suprathreshold objects (Ho et al, 2006;Tripathy & Levi, 2008). Perhaps the altered time course of attention in amblyopia reflects genuine changes in the process of attention when viewing through amblyopic eyes.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The attentional blink in amblyopia

Popple

Levi

2008

Journal of Vision

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Amblyopia is a disorder of visual acuity in one eye, thought to arise from suppression by the other eye during development of the visual cortex. In the attentional blink, the second of two targets (T2) in a Rapid Serial Visual Presentation (RSVP) stream is difficult to detect and identify when it appears shortly but not immediately after the first target (T1). We investigated the attentional blink seen through amblyopic eyes and found that it was less finely tuned in time than when the 12 amblyopic observers viewed the stimuli with their preferred eyes. T2 performance was slightly better through amblyopic eyes two frames after T1 but worse one frame after T1. Previously (A. V. Popple & D. M. Levi, 2007), we showed that when the targets were red letters in a stream of gray letters (or vice versa), normal observers frequently confused T2 with the letters before and after it (neighbor errors). Observers viewing through their amblyopic eyes made significantly fewer neighbor errors and more T2 responses consisting of letters that were never presented. In normal observers, T1 (on the rare occasions when it was reported incorrectly) was often confused with the letter immediately after it. Viewing through their amblyopic eyes, observers with amblyopia made more responses to the letter immediately before T1. These results suggest that childhood suppression of the input from amblyopic eyes disrupts attentive processing. We hypothesize reduced connectivity between monocularly tuned lower visual areas, subcortical structures that drive foveal attention, and more frontal regions of the brain responsible for letter recognition and working memory. Perhaps when viewing through their amblyopic eyes, the observers were still processing the letter identity of a prior distractor when the color flash associated with the target was detected. After T1, unfocused temporal attention may have bound together erroneously the features of succeeding letters, resulting in the appearance of letters that were not actually presented. These findings highlight the role of early (monocular) visual processes in modulating the attentional blink, as well as the role of attention in amblyopic visual deficits.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The attentional blink in amblyopia

Popple

Levi

2008

Journal of Vision

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“…The reduction in neuroretinal rim areas of both eyes is consistent with reports of visual deficits in the fellow non-amblyopic eyes. 12,13,14 The scotomata which Johnson found in treated and untreated eyes are additional manifestations 15 of bilateral deficits. The consistent bilateral diminution of optic disc rim area with concomitant increase in retinal receptor areas also supports Leguire et al's admonition that, "In future studies of amblyopia, whether in children or in adults, caution is advised in assuming that the non-amblyopic eye is normal because acuity is normal."…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Optic Disc Area and Retinal Area in Amblyopia

Lempert

2008

Seminars in Ophthalmology

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“…These deficits include enhanced crowding as well as problems with stimulus localization, contour integration, texture and second-order pattern perception, shape discrimination, motion sensitivity, stereopsis, eye movements, and oculomotor coordination. Although typically characterized as a foveal visual disorder, amblyopia-related deficits and their neural markers are present across the visual field, including the perifovea (Bankó, Körtvélyes, Németh, & Vidnyánszky, 2014; Ho et al, 2006; Hou, Kim, Lai, & Verghese, 2016; Katz, Levi, & Bedell, 1984). …”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Covert spatial attention is functionally intact in amblyopic human adults

et al. 2016

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Certain abnormalities in behavioral performance and neural signaling have been attributed to a deficit of visual attention in amblyopia, a neurodevelopmental disorder characterized by a diverse array of visual deficits following abnormal binocular childhood experience. Critically, most have inferred attention's role in their task without explicitly manipulating and measuring its effects against a baseline condition. Here, we directly investigate whether human amblyopic adults benefit from covert spatial attention—the selective processing of visual information in the absence of eye movements—to the same degree as neurotypical observers. We manipulated both involuntary (Experiment 1) and voluntary (Experiment 2) attention during an orientation discrimination task for which the effects of covert spatial attention have been well established in neurotypical and special populations. In both experiments, attention significantly improved accuracy and decreased reaction times to a similar extent (a) between the eyes of the amblyopic adults and (b) between the amblyopes and their age- and gender-matched controls. Moreover, deployment of voluntary attention away from the target location significantly impaired task performance (Experiment 2). The magnitudes of the involuntary and voluntary attention benefits did not correlate with amblyopic depth or severity. Both groups of observers showed canonical performance fields (better performance along the horizontal than vertical meridian and at the lower than upper vertical meridian) and similar effects of attention across locations. Despite their characteristic low-level vision impairments, covert spatial attention remains functionally intact in human amblyopic adults.

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Abnormal spatial selection and tracking in children with amblyopia

Cited by 81 publications

References 39 publications

The attentional blink in amblyopia

The attentional blink in amblyopia

Optic Disc Area and Retinal Area in Amblyopia

Covert spatial attention is functionally intact in amblyopic human adults

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