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

这项主要研究仪器奖支持购买脑电图（EEG）和眼动跟踪设备，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。配准允许同时测量从头皮记录的大脑活动和在阅读（和其他视觉任务）期间以毫秒时间分辨率进行的眼睛运动。同时记录眼睛和大脑测量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。EEG和眼动跟踪的共配准在方法上和概念上都具有挑战性，SDSU研究人员利用这种设备有助于通过应用不同的范例（例如，阅读、视觉搜索）和包括不同的群体（例如，聋哑读者;失语症患者）。此外，该研究有助于开发共同注册研究的最佳实践，并促进这种新技术在其他实验室的使用。通过由SDSU教师领导的ERP靴子营地，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种设备的基础知识。利用这一工具开展的研究项目还扩大了代表性不足的群体对科学和工程的参与，将聋人和听力有困难的学生纳入研究和培训。此外，SDSU是一个为西班牙裔服务的机构，许多接受这项新技术培训的学生都是拉丁裔、芝加哥裔或西班牙裔。熟练的阅读看似复杂--它涉及一系列重叠的、令人难以置信的复杂、精确定时的神经过程，这些过程以快速的速度展开。理解这些过程可以促进我们对潜在机制的了解，这些机制对于熟练的阅读理解的最终目标至关重要。一个关键的问题与共同注册系统是如何在聋人读者的旁视文字处理的影响，已记录的聋人成年人的视觉周边的增强注意力。共注册系统，使使用自然句子阅读范例，以确定如何在聋人读者的视觉空间注意力的分布的变化影响提取的语义和句法信息的paraftera和是否阅读理解能力调制这些效果。本研究的结果提供了一个翻译的基础，教学和补救方法，以提高阅读能力，在聋人和听力个人。其他研究项目包括调查语言处理中的时间延迟（例如，词汇通达）影响失语症患者的句子理解障碍以及对精神病理学患者在真实的世界环境中影响情绪刺激如何驱动注意力分散的内隐和外显注意力机制的研究（例如，该奖项反映了NSF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.