A motion-induced position shift that depends on motion both before and after the test probe.

Two versions of the flash grab illusion were used to examine the relative contributions of motion before and motion after the test flash to the illusory position shift. The stimulus in the first two experiments was a square pattern that expanded and contracted with an outline square flashed each time the motion reversed producing a dramatic difference in perceived size between the two reversals. Experiment 1 showed a strong illusion when motion was present before and after the flashed tests or just after the flashes, but no significant effect when only the pre-flash motion was present. In Experiment 2, motion always followed the flash, and the duration of the pre-flash motion was varied. The results showed a significant increase in illusion strength with the duration of pre-flash motion and the effect of the pre-flash motion was almost 50% that of the post-flash motion. Finally, Experiment 3 tested the position shifts when the linear motion of a disk before the flash was orthogonal to its motion after the flash. Here, the results again showed that the pre-flash motion made a significant contribution, about 32% that of the post-flash motion. Several models are considered and even though all fail to some degree, they do offer insights into the nature of the illusion. Finally, we show that the empirical measure of the relative contribution of motion before and after the flash can be used to distinguish the mechanisms underlying different illusions.

Dynamic presentation boosts the Ebbinghaus illusion but reduces the Müller-Lyer and orientation contrast illusions.

Mruczek et al. (2015) showed that a moving version of the Ebbinghaus illusion almost doubles in strength compared to the standard version. In their stimulus, the size of the surrounding inducers was modulated between large and small and the whole stimulus was made to drift during the surround modulation. We first replicated the original dynamic Ebbinghaus illusion and then explored dynamic presentations for other simultaneous contrast and geometric illusions. We found no increase in illusion strength in any that we sampled. Here we report the results for the Müller-Lyer illusion and the orientation contrast illusion. Surprisingly, when these two illusions were presented dynamically, their effects were greatly reduced for the Müller-Lyer illusion and eliminated for the orientation contrast illusion.

Combined inhibition/silencing of diacylglycerol kinase α and ζ simultaneously and synergistically enhances interleukin-2 production in T cells and induces cell death of melanoma cells.

The α-isozyme of diacylglycerol kinase (DGK) enhances cancer cell proliferation and, conversely, it promotes the nonresponsive immune state known as T-cell anergy. Moreover, a DGKα-selective inhibitor, CU-3, induced cell death in cancer-derived cells and simultaneously enhanced T-cell interleukin-2 production. In addition to DGKα, DGKζ is also known to induce T-cell anergy. In the present study, we examined whether combined inhibition/silencing of DGKα and DGKζ synergistically enhanced T-cell activity. Combined treatment with CU-3 or DGKα-small interfering RNA (siRNA) and DGKζ-siRNA more potently enhanced T-cell receptor-crosslink-dependent interleukin-2 production in Jurkat T cells than treatment with either alone. Intriguingly, in addition to activating T cells, dual inhibition/silencing of DGKα and DGKζ synergistically reduced viability and increased caspase 3/7 activity in AKI melanoma cells. Taken together, these results indicate that combined inhibition/silencing of DGKα and DGKζ simultaneously and synergistically enhances interleukin-2 production in T cells and induces cell death in melanoma. Therefore, dual inhibition/silencing of these DGK isozymes represents an ideal therapy that potently attenuates cancer cell proliferation and simultaneously enhances immune responses that impact anticancer immunity.

Angular tuning of tilt illusion depends on stimulus duration.

In the tilt illusion, the orientation of a central stimulus appears tilted away from a surrounding stimulus when angular difference is between 0 deg and 50 deg. Studies have repeatedly shown that the tilt illusion exhibits the strongest effect with the angular difference around 15 deg and this angular tuning is robust to various changes in stimulus parameters. We revisited the well-reported angular tuning of the tilt illusion, in relation to the recently-reported modulation of illusion magnitude by stimulus duration. We examined the tilt illusion with a wide range of stimulus duration (10-640 ms) and angular difference (7.5-75.0 deg). The results confirmed that the peak magnitude of the tilt illusion increased with shorter durations. However, we also found that the position of the peak shifted to larger angular differences with shorter durations. Evidently, the angular tuning profile of the tilt illusion is not fixed but can change with stimulus duration. The peak shift may be explained if orientation-selective lateral inhibition responsible for the tilt illusion sharpens its tuning over time.

Ebbinghaus illusion depends more on the retinal than perceived size of surrounding stimuli.

A stimulus surrounded by smaller/larger stimuli appears larger/smaller (Ebbinghaus illusion). We examined whether the Ebbinghaus illusion would depend on the retinal or perceived size of the surrounding stimuli. The flash-lag effect, where a flashed stimulus perceptually lags moving stimuli, was used to dissociate the retinal from perceived size of the surrounding stimuli. Two sets of four surrounding disks changed their size smoothly: one with larger disks shrinking, the other with smaller disks expanding. Two identical central disks were presented briefly at various timings relative to the moment when the surrounding disks were physically identical in their size (coincidence time). A significant flash-lag effect was observed for size change (Experiment 1). Participants reported the two central disks being in equal size when they appeared only slightly before the coincidence time. However, this asynchrony was not significantly different from zero and was significantly smaller than the perceptual delay expected from the flash-lag effect (Experiment 2). These results suggest that the Ebbinghaus illusion depends more on the retinal than perceived size of the surrounding stimuli.

Diacylglycerol kinase α-selective inhibitors induce apoptosis and reduce viability of melanoma and several other cancer cell lines.

Diacylglycerol (DG) kinase (DGK), which phosphorylates DG to generate phosphatidic acid (PA), consists of ten isozymes (α-к). Recently, we identified a novel small molecule inhibitor, CU-3, that selectively inhibits the activity of the α isozyme. In addition, we newly obtained Compound A, which selectively and strongly inhibits type I DGKs (α, ß, and γ). In the present study, we demonstrated that both CU-3 and Compound A induced apoptosis (caspase 3/7 activity and DNA fragmentation) and viability reduction of AKI melanoma cells. Liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry revealed that the production of 32:0- and 34:0-PA species was commonly attenuated by CU-3 and Compound A, suggesting that lower levels of these PA molecular species are involved in the apoptosis induction and viability reduction of AKI cells. We determined the effects of the DGKα inhibitors on several other cancer cell lines derived from refractory cancers. In addition to melanoma, the DGKα inhibitors enhanced caspase 3/7 activity and reduced the viability of hepatocellular carcinoma, glioblastoma, and pancreatic cancer cells, but not breast adenocarcinoma cells. Interestingly, Western blot analysis indicated that the DGKα expression levels were positively correlated with the sensitivity to the DGK inhibitors. Because both CU-3 and Compound A induced interleukin-2 production by T cells, it is believed that these two compounds can enhance cancer immunity. Taken together, our results suggest that DGKα inhibitors are promising anticancer drugs.

Diacylglycerol kinase ß induces filopodium formation via its C1, catalytic and carboxy-terminal domains and interacts with the Rac1-GTPase-activating protein, ß2-chimaerin.

The ß-isoform of diacylglycerol kinase (DGK) localizes predominantly to neurons and induces neurite outgrowth and spine formation. However, the detailed molecular mechanisms underlying the functions of DGKß remain elusive. During the course of studies on other DGK isozymes, we unexpectedly found that the overexpression of wild-type DGKß in COS-7 cells markedly induced filopodium formation. Because filopodium formation is closely related to neurite outgrowth and spine formation, we constructed various DGKß mutants and compared their abilities to induce filopodium formation in order to elucidate the structure-function relationships of DGKß. We found that the C-terminal, C1 and catalytic domains and catalytic activity were indispensable for filopodium formation, but the recoverin homology domain and EF-hand motifs were not. Moreover, the extent of plasma membrane localization and F-actin colocalization were positively correlated with filopodium formation. Intriguingly, DGKß selectively interacted and colocalized at the plasma membrane with a Rac1-GTPase-activating protein, ß2-chimaerin, which is an inducer of filopodia; it also interacted, to lesser extent, with α2-chimaerin, but not with α1- or ß1-chimaerin. Moreover, DGKß enhanced the plasma membrane localization of ß2-chimaerin. These results suggest that DGKß plays an important role in neurite outgrowth and spine formation in neurons via its ability to induce filopodium formation.

Gaze-Cueing With Crossed Eyes: Asymmetry Between Nasal and Temporal Shifts.

A person's direction of gaze (and visual attention) can be inferred from the direction of the parallel shift of the eyes. However, the direction of gaze is ambiguous when there is a misalignment between the eyes. The use of schematic drawings of faces in a previous study demonstrated that gaze-cueing was equally effective, even when one eye looked straight and the other eye was averted. In the current study, we used more realistic computer-generated face models to re-examine if the diverging direction of the eyes affected gaze-cueing. The condition where one eye was averted nasally while the other looked straight produced a significantly smaller gaze-cueing effect in comparison with when both eyes were averted in parallel or one eye was averted temporally. The difference in the gaze-cueing effect disappeared when the position of one eye was occluded with a rectangular surface or an eye-patch. These results highlight the possibility that the gaze-cueing effect might be weakened when a direct gaze exists between the cueing eye (i.e., nasally oriented eye) and the target and the effect magnitude might depend on which type of face stimulus are used as a cue.

The Gaze-Cueing Effect in the United States and Japan: Influence of Cultural Differences in Cognitive Strategies on Control of Attention.

The direction of gaze automatically and exogenously guides visual spatial attention, a phenomenon termed as the gaze-cueing effect. Although this effect arises when the duration of stimulus onset asynchrony (SOA) between a non-predictive gaze cue and the target is relatively long, no empirical research has examined the factors underlying this extended cueing effect. Two experiments compared the gaze-cueing effect at longer SOAs (700 ms) in Japanese and American participants. Cross-cultural studies on cognition suggest that Westerners tend to use a context-independent analytical strategy to process visual environments, whereas Asians use a context-dependent holistic approach. We hypothesized that Japanese participants would not demonstrate the gaze-cueing effect at longer SOAs because they are more sensitive to contextual information, such as the knowledge that the direction of a gaze is not predictive. Furthermore, we hypothesized that American participants would demonstrate the gaze-cueing effect at the long SOAs because they tend to follow gaze direction whether it is predictive or not. In Experiment 1, American participants demonstrated the gaze-cueing effect at the long SOA, indicating that their attention was driven by the central non-predictive gaze direction regardless of the SOAs. In Experiment 2, Japanese participants demonstrated no gaze-cueing effect at the long SOA, suggesting that the Japanese participants exercised voluntary control of their attention, which inhibited the gaze-cueing effect with the long SOA. Our findings suggest that the control of visual spatial attention elicited by social stimuli systematically differs between American and Japanese individuals.