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The majority of a football referee's time is spent assessing open-play situations, yet little is known about how referees search for information during this uninterrupted play. The aim of the current study was to examine the exploratory gaze behaviour of elite and sub-elite football referees in open-play game situations. Four elite (i.e. national) and eight sub-elite (i.e. regional) referees officiated an in-situ football match while wearing a mobile eye-tracker to assess their gaze behaviour. Both referential head and eye movements (i.e. moving gaze away from and then back to the ball) were measured. Results showed gaze behaviour was characterised overall by more referential head than eye movements (~75 vs 25%), which were of longer duration (~950 vs 460 ms). Moreover, elite referees employed faster referential movements (~640 vs 730 ms), spending less time with their gaze away from the ball (carrier) than the sub-elite referees. Crucially, both the referential head and eye movements were coordinated relative to key events in the match, in this case passes, showing that referees anticipate the passes to ensure that the referential movements did not occur during passes, rather before or after. The results further our understanding of the coordinative gaze behaviours that underpin expertise in officiating. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The use of multi-modal approaches, particularly in conjunction with multivariate analytic techniques, can enrich models of cognition, brain function, and how they change with age. Recently, multivariate approaches have been applied to the study of eye movements in a manner akin to that of neural activity (i.e., pattern similarity). Here, we review the literature regarding multi-modal and/or multivariate approaches, with specific reference to the use of eyetracking to characterize age-related changes in memory. By applying multi-modal and multivariate approaches to the study of aging, research has shown that aging is characterized by moment-to-moment alterations in the amount and pattern of visual exploration, and by extension, alterations in the activity and function of the hippocampus and broader medial temporal lobe (MTL). These methodological advances suggest that age-related declines in the integrity of the memory system has consequences for oculomotor behavior in the moment, in a reciprocal fashion. Age-related changes in hippocampal and MTL structure and function may lead to an increase in, and change in the patterns of, visual exploration in an effort to upregulate the encoding of information. However, such visual exploration patterns may be non-optimal and actually reduce the amount and/or type of incoming information that is bound into a lasting memory representation. This research indicates that age-related cognitive impairments are considerably broader in scope than previously realized. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present study examined the validity and reliability of two new soccer tests: the Passing Accuracy Test (PAT), which assesses ball passing accuracy in combination with visual stimulus recognition and the Passing and Visual Recognition test (PVR), which assesses player's space detection skill in a 360 degrees range along with the frequency and the accuracy of ball passing technique. Participants were allocated in four (4) groups based on their age: the Under 11 (U11) group consisted of 101 players, the Under 14 (U14) group consisted of 100 players, the Under 17 (U17) group consisted of 118 players and the Adults (AD) group consisted of 43 players. The typical error, the limits of agreement and the ICC of PAT and PVR test were examined. The results of the study showed high validity and reliability for both tests with the exception in PAT for adult group (ICC = 0.33–0.83; P < 0.05). Therefore, both tests could be valuable tools to assess the accuracy of ball passing technique and the space detection skill in players of different ages. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The analysis of traffic movements in urban populations is important for safety measures to control speed when the presence of pedestrians is high. Most of the studies in the traffic domain are directed towards statistical analyses of speed, also to measure the physical parameters of bumps on roads, and effect of speed-calming measures. However, less is known about the effectiveness of varying intervals between speed-calming measures and their influence on the driving behaviour of vehicles from a spatio-temporal perspective. To fill this gap and understand these aspects, in this research we propose visual analytics techniques. To explore the influence of the distance between bumps on speed change behaviour of vehicles in relation to the permitted speed limit, several use case studies were selected with the close cooperation of a traffic expert. The aim was first to study the influence of the speed bumps on speeding, and then establish any connection between speed bump intervals and vehicle speeding in the selected use cases. The results of our investigation did reveal minor differences and influence of a time aspect on traffic volume and speed development. Also, differences in actual speed of the vehicles in relation to the distance of installed bumps were detected. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The choropleth map is a device used for the display of socioeconomic data associated with an areal partition of geographic space. Cartographers emphasize the need to standardize any raw count data by an area-based total before displaying the data in a choropleth map. The standardization process converts the raw data from an absolute measure into a relative measure. However, there is recognition that the standardizing process does not enable the map reader to distinguish between low–low and high–high numerator/denominator differences. This research uses concentration-based classification schemes using Lorenz curves to address some of these issues. A test data set of nonwhite birth rate by county in North Carolina is used to demonstrate how this approach differs from traditional mean–variance-based systems such as the Jenks’ optimal classification scheme. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Three-dimensional data arrays (collections of individual data matrices) are increasingly prevalent in modern data and pose unique challenges to pattern extraction and visualization. This article introduces a biclustering technique for exploration and pattern detection in such complex structured data. The proposed framework couples the popular plaid model together with tools from functional data analysis to guide the estimation of bicluster responses over the array. We present an efficient algorithm that first detects biclusters that exhibit strong deviations for some data matrices, and then estimates their responses over the entire data array. Altogether, the framework is useful to home in on and display underlying structure and its evolution over conditions/time. The methods are scalable to large datasets, and can accommodate a variety of dynamic patterns. The proposed techniques are illustrated on gene expression data and bilateral trade networks. Supplementary materials are available online. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Introduction. Abnormalities in visual exploration and action processing are widely reported in schizophrenia. The aim of this study was to investigate whether object exploration (in order to recognise an action or the object) modulates visuomotor behaviour differently in schizophrenic patients and controls. Methods. Visual scan paths were monitored in 36 patients and 36 controls. Participants performed three tasks, in which they were asked to either (1) name the object (the object-naming task), (2) picture themselves interacting with the object and then name the action (the action-naming task), or (3) explore the object (the free-viewing task). Results. Patients explored objects less than controls did. Controls explored the part needed to identify an object in the object-naming task and the whole object in the action-naming and free-viewing tasks. In contrast, the patients maintained their gaze on the “identity” part of the object in all three tasks. Conclusion. Our results were consistent with the literature findings on impaired action processing in schizophrenia but also extend the known impairment to implicit action processing when the subject is visually exploring an object. We discuss our results in terms of motivation, the effect of dopamine on eye movement, attentional capture, and frontal lobe dysfunction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Visual data mining of spatial data is a challenging task. As exploratory analysis is fundamental, it is beneficial to explore the data using different potential visualisations. In this article, we propose and analyse network graphs as a useful visualisation tool to mine spatial data. Due to their ability to represent complex systems of relationships in a visually insightful and intuitive way, network graphs offer a rich structure that has been recognised in many fields as a powerful visual representation. However, they have not been sufficiently exploited in spatial data mining, where they have principally been used on data that come with an explicit pre-specified network graph structure. This research presents a methodology with which to infer relationship network graphs for large collections of boolean spatial features. The methodology consists of four principal stages: (1) define a co-location model, (2) select the type of co-association of interest, (3) compute statistical diagnostics for these co-associations and (4) construct and visualise a network graph of the statistic from step (3). We illustrate the potential usefulness of the methodology using an example taken from an ecological setting. Specifically, we use network graphs to understand and analyse the potential interactions between potential vector and reservoir species that enable the propagation of leishmaniasis, a disease transmitted by the bite of sandflies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Primary objective: The aim was to assess the visual exploration of a person suffering from traumatic brain injury (TBI). It was hypothesized that visual exploration could be modified as a result of attentional or executive function deficits that are often observed following brain injury. Research design: This study compared an analysis of eyes movements while driving with data from neuropsychological tests. Methods and procedures: Five participants suffering from TBI and six control participants took part in this study. All had good driving experience. They were invited to drive on a fixed-base driving simulator. Eye fixations were recorded using an eye tracker. Neuropsychological tests were used to assess attention, working memory, rapidity of information processing and executive functions. Main outcomes and results: Participants with TBI showed a reduction in the variety of the visual zones explored and a reduction of the distance of exploration. Moreover, neuropsychological evaluation indicates that there were difficulties in terms of divided attention, anticipation and planning. Conclusions: There is a complementarity of the information obtained. Tests give information about cognitive deficiencies but not about their translation into a dynamic situation. Conversely, visual exploration provides information about the dynamic with which information is picked up in the environment but not about the cognitive processes involved. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The use of new representation forms and interactive means to visualize geospatial data requires an understanding of the impact of the visual tools used for data exploration and knowledge construction. Use and usability assessment of implemented methods and tools is an important part of our efforts to build this understanding. Based on an approach to combine visual and computational methods for knowledge discovery in large geospatial data, an integrated visualization‐geocomputation environment has been developed based on the Self‐Organizing Map (SOM), the map and the parallel coordinate plot. This environment allows patterns and attribute relationships to be explored. A use and usability assessment is conducted to evaluate the ability of each of these visual representations to meet user performance and satisfaction goals. In the test, different representations are compared while exploring a socio‐demographic dataset. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]