Peripheral vision and preferential emotion processing
This study investigated the preferential processing of emotional scenes, which were presented in the periphery of the visual field. Building on well-established affective modulations of event-related potentials, which were observed for foveal stimuli, emotional and neutral images were presented at several locations in the visual field, while participants either viewed the pictures or were engaged by a distractor task. The findings clearly show that emotional processing varied with picture eccentricity, with emotional effects being maximal in the center and absent in the far periphery. Moreover, near-peripheral emotional stimuli modulated event-related potentials only when participants were passively viewing them. These results suggest that perceptual processing resources are needed for identification and emotional processing of peripheral stimuli.
Abstract : The Mitsubishi Electric Corporation Central Research Laboratory is involved in the development of optical neuro devices for pattern recognition. The basic idea of the optical neuro device is to perform a vector multiplication in parallel. It uses the neural network concept to acquire the knowledge (in this case the desired pattern) from the real world through learning. It uses an array of GaAs photodetectors. They are exploring a novel concept. It has a significant impact on image recognition and identification of enemy planes, tanks, etc., during reconnaissance missions.