All posts tagged: Visual

New neuroscience study links visual brain network hyperactivity to social anxiety

Young adults experiencing high levels of social anxiety show distinct patterns of heightened activity and altered communication in the visual centers of their brains. Recognizing these early neurological changes could eventually help doctors detect and treat severe social anxiety before it fully develops. These findings were recently published in the journal Psychiatry Research: Neuroimaging. Social anxiety disorder involves an intense and persistent fear of social situations where a person might be judged by others. This condition often begins in childhood or early adulthood and can severely impact a person’s relationships, education, and quality of life. Many young people experience a similar condition known as subclinical social anxiety. While many people feel shy in new environments, subclinical social anxiety goes beyond standard nervousness. It involves a deep-seated fear of scrutiny that leads to physical stress responses and an urge to avoid social gatherings entirely. Identifying the physical roots of this condition could provide validation for those struggling with these overwhelming feelings. People with subclinical social anxiety face severe distress in social settings but do not meet …

Aphantasia study reveals the brain network responsible for visual imagination

Published by José Betancourt

People who lose their ability to conjure visual memories after a brain injury share damage that connects to a single, highly specific brain region. A recent analysis of these rare medical cases reveals that a structure called the fusiform imagery node acts as an essential hub for the human imagination. These results, published in the journal Cortex, help explain the physical origins of our mind’s eye. Most people can easily close their eyes and picture a childhood bedroom or the face of a loved one. This ability is known as visual mental imagery. It allows human beings to relive past events, solve spatial problems, and envision future scenarios without any external sensory input. However, a small fraction of the population lacks this internal visual experience entirely. This absence of a mind’s eye is called aphantasia. It occurs from birth in an estimated one to three percent of people across the globe. Individuals with congenital aphantasia live entirely normal lives, often realizing only in adulthood that other people can actually see pictures in their heads. In …

The brain after blindness: How newly-sighted people build a visual world

Published by Jenni Sidey

MIT researcher Sharon Gilad-Gutnick has witnessed many children see for the first time. After having their cataracts surgically removed, the children can see the world but don’t recognize faces well. Even among those who can recognize the faces of their parents or others they know well, most don’t look at the faces of the people they speak with. “If we told them to look at the face, they could usually manage it,” Gilad-Gutnick told Big Think. “But they were mostly looking at the hands.” Gilad-Gutnick works with these children as part of Project Prakash, an initiative that provides care to children and adults with congenital blindness in India and investigates the neuroscience of sight restoration. Congenital cataracts are a preventable cause of blindness and are often treatable within two months of birth. However, due to a lack of access to cataract screening and surgery, many children in developing countries are often treated too late, if at all. The Prakash children eventually learn to look at faces when spoken to — usually a few months after …

Visual Effects Society Reveals 2026 VES Awards Winners

Published by Daniella Wilson

The Visual Effects Society (VES) has announced the winners for the 2026 VES Awards, recognizing excellence in the craft across 25 categories, including film, television, special venue projects, technological innovation, student projects and more. Avatar: Fire and Ash led the winners with seven including the top prize of outstanding visual effects in a photoreal feature. KPop Demon Hunters led the animation category wins with three trophies, including the top prize of outstanding animation in an animated feature. Sinners won the award for outstanding supporting visual effects in a photoreal feature, while Prehistoric Planet: Ice Age won the award for outstanding visual effects in a photoreal episode. Heading into the evening, Avatar: Fire and Ash led nominations with 10 overall. Other nominees in the society’s top award category were F1: The Movie, Jurassic World Rebirth, The Lost Bus and How To Train Your Dragon. The 2026 VES Awards were held at the Beverly Hilton in Los Angeles. Jerry Bruckheimer received the VES Lifetime Achievement Award, and Weta Workshop co-founder and chief creative officer Sir Richard Taylor was honored with the VES Visionary Award. Comedy duo …

Visual imitation learning: Guidde trains AI agents on human ‘expert video’ instead of documentation

Published by skeptic

For years, the “last mile” of digital transformation has been littered with forgotten PDFs and ignored training manuals. Organizations spend millions on sophisticated software like SAP or Salesforce, only for employees to struggle with basic navigation. Now, as the era of agentic AI arrives, companies face a double-edged sword: they must teach human employees to collaborate with AI, while simultaneously teaching AI agents to navigate the labyrinthine interfaces of the modern enterprise. One idea that seems to be gaining momentum among AI-forward businesses: using screen recordings and tutorials/walkthroughs of someone performing an enterprise task — be it creating a new ticket or processing an invoice — and training AI to replicate the flow based on the screen capture. Just this week, a startup called Standard Intelligence went viral on X showing an early demo of open-ended version of this for the physical and digital world. But the truth is, there are already players tackling this problem for the enterprise itself square-on: case-in-point, Guidde, an Israel startup born during the video-centric years of the COVID-19 pandemic, …

I suddenly went blind 2,000 miles from home – alone, penniless and confused | Blindness and visual impairment

Published by Sam Flores

The first sign that something was wrong was the blurred text in the book Gary Williamson was reading. The problem with his vision had come on suddenly – the day before, it had been normal. Williamson thought perhaps he was tired, or run down. He was 18 and had arrived in Gibraltar after travelling through Europe for two weeks, sleeping rough and not eating or drinking properly. “I’ll go and get some water and something to eat. I thought: maybe it’s nothing. I’ll see how I am tomorrow. The next day, I woke up and it was bad again.” He remembers cautiously getting out his book to test his eyesight: “It’s actually getting worse. I can’t read it now. The lines were starting to blur.” He had relied on a map to get him that far. “I remember thinking: that’s going to become useless very soon. I need to work out what I’m doing.” He needed to get home. It was 1990, and Williamson didn’t think to call home to ask for help. With no …

Your LG TV is getting a big visual upgrade for free – these OLED models included

Published by skeptic

Adam Breeden/ZDNET Follow ZDNET: Add us as a preferred source on Google. ZDNET’s key takeaways A recent update improves picture quality on LG C5 and G5 TVs. The update makes Dolby Vision content brighter and more vivid. All picture modes except Filmmaker Mode are affected. Just days after giving some users a free audio upgrade, LG is providing a free visual upgrade — and some people are noticing a big difference. A recent update makes changes to how Dolby Vision content appears on the C5 and G5 TVs. Specifically, it makes images significantly brighter and lessens shadows. Dolby Vision being too dark has been a common complaint from LG users, especially those watching in bright rooms where sunlight or other bright lights are shining on the screen. In before-and-after images, the difference is striking. Given that the C5 has a fairly impressive brightness compared to its counterparts, it makes sense that the upgrade would be most noticeable on that set. Also: LG G5 vs. LG G4: I spent hours testing both OLED TVs, and this model was …

Study finds mindfulness creates lasting improvements in visual memory

Published by José Betancourt

An experimental study conducted in China found that a 5-week emotion-targeted mindfulness training improved participants’ working memory accuracy for faces displaying emotions, with the exception of faces displaying fear. The improvements continued to be present one month after the training was completed. The research was published in npj Science of Learning. Mindfulness is the practice of intentionally paying attention to the present moment with openness and without judgment. It involves noticing thoughts, emotions, bodily sensations, and external experiences as they arise. Mindfulness has roots in Buddhist meditation traditions but is widely used today in secular psychological and health contexts. It is commonly cultivated through practices such as meditation, breathing exercises, and mindful movement. Research shows that mindfulness can reduce stress, anxiety, and depressive symptoms. It can also improve emotional regulation and increase awareness of habitual reactions. Mindfulness helps people relate differently to difficult thoughts and feelings rather than trying to suppress or avoid them. In everyday life, it can be practiced during routine activities such as eating, walking, or listening. Study author Hui Kou and …

LACP exhibit ‘Reservoir’ explores the visual language of loneliness

Published by Sam Flores

The photograph is so intimate, so vulnerable, it’s painful to look at. It depicts a woman in her early 20s lying on a hospital bed twisted to the side, her wrists and ankles restrained. The black-and-white image — nearly five feet wide — is so crisp that bits of the woman’s toenail polish glimmer and the hair on her thigh appears to spark. Most pronounced: the loneliness and resignation on her face. “I was 20 or 21 then. I’d had a psychotic episode and was taken to a public hospital in Massachusetts,” says Palm Springs-based artist Lisa McCord of the self-portrait she later staged. “I’m very transparent and I wanted to share my experience afterward. It was the ‘70s. I’d tell people, in school, I’d been in a psychiatric hospital and no one wanted to hang out with me — it was a very lonely time.” McCord’s work is part of an exhibition at the Los Angeles Center of Photography addressing the idea of loneliness, now considered an epidemic in America. The exhibition, “Reservoir: Photography, …

Infant brains begin visual awareness as early as 2 months of age

Published by Jenni Sidey

Recent neuroscience research shows that our brain’s organization of the visual world occurs much earlier than previously thought by scientists. As early as 2 months of age, babies exhibit clear evidence of distinguishing and grouping the objects they see within their environment. These results are documented in a study published this week in Nature Neuroscience. The study, led by Cliona O’Doherty at Trinity College Dublin, Ireland, examined an international team of researchers who utilized advanced neuroimaging techniques to investigate how infants recognize differences in the images they see and sort them into various collections. The researchers found that babies of two months old can identify and distinguish between both groups of living versus inanimate objects several weeks sooner than had been reported from other behavior-based studies. This research provides additional insight into how humans develop perceptions of the world and may ultimately assist researchers in gaining a greater understanding of atypical cognitive development. According to O’Doherty, “It shows that infants are interacting with the world in a way that is much more sophisticated than we …

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