Our eyes and brain work together to create a `pipeline' of meaning - new
study

Date:
September 21, 2021
Source:
University of Birmingham
Summary:
Humans read by 'pre-processing' written words to create a pipeline
of meaning, according to new research.



FULL STORY ========================================================================== Humans read by 'pre-processing' written words to create a pipeline of
meaning, according to new research at the University of Birmingham.


==========================================================================
A study, published in Nature Communications, shows that each
pre-processing judgement can take place extremely rapidly -- within just
100ms after the eye lands on the previous word. The neuronal activity
required to scan the next word in a sentence also increases according
to the complexity of the word, the researchers found.

The insights gained by the research team, based in the University's
Centre for Human Brain Health, could help support diagnosis and
training programmes for people with certain types of dyslexia where the pre-processing of words is impaired.

The team has also used the principles highlighted in their study to
propose a new theory for how humans perceive other, more general scenes
as they observe and navigate the world around them.

In a second, theoretical paper, published in Trends in Cognitive
Neuroscience, the team suggests that humans do not necessarily perceive
objects simply one after another (in series), and nor do they perceive
items simultaneously (in parallel). Instead, they establish a pipeline
of observations, in which meaning from one object is established while
another region of the brain is simultaneously deciding which next item
is important.

These processes are co-ordinated by alpha waves in the brain and they
happen extremely rapidly, with the eye moving around 3-4 times every
second.

Yali Pan, a co-author on both studies, said: "The speed at which the participants in our experiment were able to recognise the complexity
of the next word in the sequence was really remarkable, and much
faster than we predicted." In the experimental study, the team used
a combination of eye tracking technology and measurements of magnetic
fields in the brain to assess this activity. While eye tracking can be
used to pinpoint how the eye moves and what object or word it fixates
on, magnetoencephalography, or MEG, reveals what is going on 'behind
the scenes' as the brain processes this information..

The researchers asked 39 participants aged between 18 and 35 to read a
series of sentences on a screen. In each sentence, one word was 'tagged'
-- it was programmed to flicker at a high frequency (60Hz). Although
the participants could not detect this consciously, it was picked up by
a specific region of their brain and detected by the MEG sensors.

By monitoring both MEG signals and eye tracking, the researchers were
able to get a detailed picture of what the participants were fixating on different words in a text, and then how different regions of the brain processed that information.

Professor Ole Jensen, also a co-author, said: "Understanding how
the brain decodes written information can help us develop more
sophisticated diagnostic tools for conditions such as dyslexia. Our
research has clearly shown that eye tracking and brain scanning must
be studied together to get meaningful insights into these processes."
Co-author Dr Steven Frisson added: "It's fascinating to see how
different brain regions are responsible for different types of visual processing, and how these observations can give us entirely new insights
into the links between visual perception and meaning in the brain." ========================================================================== Story Source: Materials provided by University_of_Birmingham. Note:
Content may be edited for style and length.


========================================================================== Journal Reference:
1. Ole Jensen, Yali Pan, Steven Frisson, Lin Wang. An oscillatory
pipelining
mechanism supporting previewing during visual exploration and
reading.

Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 2021; DOI: 10.1016/j.tics.2021.08.008 ==========================================================================

Link to news story: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/09/210921140122.htm

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