Equipment: Acquisition of an EEG/eye tracking co-registration system to identify neurocognitive mechanisms of reading

该主要研究仪器奖支持获得脑电图（EEG）和眼动追踪设备，这些设备将被用作位于圣地亚哥州立大学（SDSU）的单一神经认知“共同注册”仪器。共同注册允许同时测量从头皮记录的大脑活动和阅读（以及其他视觉任务）时的眼球运动，时间分辨率为毫秒。同时记录眼睛和大脑测量数据的能力是一项相对较新的创新，它增强了对由眼睛行为和神经活动索引的认知过程之间联系的理解。脑电图和眼动追踪的联合注册在方法和概念上都具有挑战性，SDSU研究人员对该设备的利用有助于通过应用不同的范式（例如阅读，视觉搜索）和包括不同人群（例如聋人读者，失语患者）来推进这项技术。此外，这项研究有助于制定共同注册研究的最佳实践，并促进这项新技术在其他实验室的使用。通过SDSU教师领导的ERP新兵训练营，SDSU学生以及来自其他机构的学生和教师有机会学习如何使用这些设备的基础知识。利用这一工具开展的研究项目也扩大了代表性不足的群体在科学和工程领域的参与，因为研究和培训包括聋人和听力困难的学生。此外，圣地亚哥州立大学是一所西班牙裔服务机构，许多接受这项新技术培训的学生是拉丁裔、墨西哥裔或西班牙裔。熟练的阅读看似复杂——它涉及一系列重叠的难以置信的复杂、精确的时间、快速展开的神经过程。理解这些过程有助于我们进一步了解对熟练阅读理解的最终目标至关重要的潜在机制。共同注册系统解决的一个关键问题是聋人读者的旁中央凹字处理如何受到对视觉外围的增强注意的影响，这已经被记录为聋人成人。共同配准系统允许使用自然句子阅读范式来识别聋哑人视觉空间注意分布的变化如何影响从旁中央提取语义和句法信息，以及阅读理解能力是否调节了这些影响。本研究结果为提高聋人和正常人阅读能力的教学和补救方法提供了翻译基础。其他研究项目包括研究语言处理的时间延迟（如词汇获取）如何影响失语症患者的句子理解障碍，以及研究影响情绪刺激如何在现实世界中导致精神病理患者（如焦虑、抑郁和精神分裂症）分心的隐性和显性注意机制。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

This Major Research Instrument award supports the acquisition of electroencephalography (EEG) and eye tracking equipment to be used as a single neurocognitive “co-registration” instrument located at San Diego State University (SDSU). Co-registration permits the simultaneous measurement of brain activity recorded from the scalp and eye movements made during reading (and other visual tasks) with millisecond temporal resolution. The ability to co-register eye and brain measures recorded simultaneously is a relatively recent innovation that enhances understanding of the link between cognitive processes indexed by both eye behaviors and neural activity. Co-registration of EEG and eye-tracking is methodologically and conceptually challenging, and utilization of this equipment by SDSU researchers helps advance this technology by applying different paradigms (e.g., reading, visual search) and including diverse populations (e.g., deaf readers; aphasic patients). In addition, the research helps develop best practices for co-registration studies and promotes the use of this new technology in other labs. Through ERP Boot Camps led by SDSU faculty, SDSU students as well as students and faculty from other institutions whave the opportunity to learn the basics of how to use this equipment. The research projects conducted using this instrument also broaden the participation of under-represented groups in science and engineering by including deaf and hard-of-hearing students in the research and training. In addition, SDSU is a Hispanic-Serving Institution, and many of the students trained in this new technology are LatinX, ChicanX, or Hispanic.Skilled reading is deceptively complex – it involves an overlapping series of incredibly intricate, precisely timed, neural processes that unfold at a rapid rate. Understanding these processes advance our knowledge of the underlying mechanisms that are critical to the ultimate goal of skilled reading comprehension. A key question addressed with the co-registration system is how parafoveal word processing in deaf readers is impacted by the enhanced attention to the visual periphery that has been documented for deaf adults. The co-registration system enables the use of natural sentence reading paradigms to identify how changes in the distribution of visual spatial attention in deaf readers effects the extraction of semantic and syntactic information from the parafovea and whether reading comprehension ability modulates these effects. The results of this research provide a translational foundation for pedagogical and remediation approaches to improve reading abilities in both deaf and hearing individuals. Other research projects include the investigation of how temporal delays in language processing (e.g., lexical access) impact sentence comprehension impairments in individuals with aphasia and investigations of covert and overt attentional mechanisms that impact how emotional stimuli drive distraction in real world contexts for people with psychopathology (e.g., anxiety, depression, and schizophrenia).This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.