About

James L. Dannemiller is a researcher whose laboratory focuses on understanding the development of visual attention during infancy and how visual attention functions in adults. His work employs behavioral methods to explore the processes responsible for visual selection, aiming to understand how these processes develop over time. By comparing studies involving infants and adults, he seeks to gain insights into the changes that occur in these vital cognitive functions. His research is supported by a grant from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development.

Research topics

• Psychology
• Developmental psychology
• Cognitive psychology
• Mathematics
• Audiology

Selected publications

• Mutual information reveals a homonucleotide bias at 6 bp distance in promoters

  bioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory) · 2019-09-30

  preprintOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  Motivation Statistical dependencies between nucleotides at different positions within a DNA sequence have been used for several purposes including distinguishing coding from noncoding regions of a genome. Coding sequences show correlations within and between codon positions. This study asked whether such correlations between positions separated by short distances might also exist in noncoding DNA. To this end, positional nucleotide dependencies were examined in the promoter regions of four eukaryotic species: Homo sapiens ( Hs ), Mus musculus ( Mm ), Drosophila melanogaster ( Dm ), and Saccharomyces cerevisiae ( Sc ). The degree of dependency between pairwise positions across a set of aligned sequences was quantified by Mutual Information (MI) and visualized using a novel heatmap method. Results MI in promoter sequences aligned at their putative Transcription Start Site (TSS) generally decreased with increasing distance between two positions, but also showed a prominent increase at a distance of 6 base pairs (bp) (i.e., between nucleotides at x and x + 6 in a sequence) in the three multicellular species, but much less so in Sc . This dependency at a distance of 6 bp appears to reflect an N 1 … N 7 homonucleotide bias in promoters. Availability R code and data files available at github/dannemil/promoters. Contact dannemil@rice.edu Supplementary information Dannemiller-supplementary-documents . zip

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Genetic contributions to attentional response time slopes across repeated trials

  BMC Neuroscience · 2015-10-15 · 4 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  BACKGROUND: Attention provides vital contribution to everyday functioning, and deficits in attention feature in many psychological disorders. Improved understanding of attention may eventually be critical to early identification and treatment of attentional deficits. One step in that direction is to acquire a better understanding of genetic associations with performance on a task measuring reflexive (exogenous) visual attention. Reflexive attention is an important component of overall attention because (along with voluntary selective attention) it participates in determining where attention is allocated and how susceptible to distractors the subject might be. The task that we used involves the presentation of a target that is preceded by one of several different types of cues (none, double, or single, either ipsilateral or contralateral to where the target subsequently appears). We used several different outcome measures depending on the cue presented. We have previously studied the relationship between selected genes and mean response time (RT). Here we report on the contributions of genetic markers to RT increases or decreases over the course of the task (linear trend in RT slope). RESULTS: Specifically, we find that RT slope for a variety of reflexive attention outcome measures is dependent on DAT1 genotype. DRD4 was near significant for one outcome measure in the final (best) model. APOE, COMT, and DBH were not significant in any models. CONCLUSIONS: It is especially interesting that genotype predicts linear changes in RT across trials (and not just mean differences or moment-to-moment variability). DAT1 is a gene that produces a protein involved in the transport of dopamine from the synapse. To our knowledge, this is the first study that has associated neurotransmitter genotypes with RT slope on a reflexive attention experiment. The direction of these effects is consistent with genetic risk for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). That is, those with two risk alleles for ADHD (6R/6R on the DAT1 intron 8 VNTR) either got slower as the task progressed or had the least improvement. Those with no risk alleles (5R/5R) had the most improvement in RT as the task progressed.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Genetic associations with reflexive visual attention in infancy and childhood

  Developmental Science · 2015-11-27 · 55 citations

  article

  This study elucidates genetic influences on reflexive (as opposed to sustained) attention in children (aged 9-16 years; N = 332) who previously participated as infants in visual attention studies using orienting to a moving bar (Dannemiller, 2004). We investigated genetic associations with reflexive attention measures in infancy and childhood in the same group of children. The genetic markers (single nucleotide polymorphisms and variable number tandem repeats on the genes APOE, BDNF, CHRNA4, COMT, DRD4, HTR4, IGF2, MAOA, SLC5A7, SLC6A3, and SNAP25) are related to brain development and/or to the availability of neurotransmitters such as acetylcholine, dopamine, or serotonin. This study shows that typically developing children have differences in reflexive attention associated with their genes, as we found in adults (Lundwall, Guo & Dannemiller, 2012). This effort to extend our previous findings to outcomes in infancy and childhood was necessary because genetic influence may differ over the course of development. Although two of the genes that were tested in our adult study (Lundwall et al., 2012) were significant in either our infant study (SLC6A3) or child study (DRD4), the specific markers tested differed. Performance on the infant task was associated with SLC6A3. In addition, several genetic associations with an analogous child task occurred with markers on CHRNA4, COMT, and DRD4. Interestingly, the child version of the task involved an interaction such that which genotype group performed poorer on the child task depended on whether we were examining the higher or lower infant scoring group. These findings are discussed in terms of genetic influences on reflexive attention in infancy and childhood.

  PublisherDOI

• A Gene X Gene Interaction Between COMT and DAT1 in the Attentional Cost of an Invalid Visual Cue

  Journal of Vision · 2012-08-10

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Exogenous Visual Orienting Is Associated with Specific Neurotransmitter Genetic Markers: A Population-Based Genetic Association Study

  PLoS ONE · 2012-02-14 · 17 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  BACKGROUND: Currently, there is a sense that the spatial orienting of attention is related to genotypic variations in cholinergic genes but not to variations in dopaminergic genes. However, reexamination of associations with both cholinergic and dopaminergic genes is warranted because previous studies used endogenous rather than exogenous cues and costs and benefits were not analyzed separately. Examining costs (increases in response time following an invalid pre-cue) and benefits (decreases in response time following a valid pre-cue) separately could be important if dopaminergic genes (implicated in disorders such as attention deficit disorder) independently influence the different processes of orienting (e.g., disengage, move, engage). METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: We tested normal subjects (N = 161) between 18 and 61 years. Participants completed a computer task in which pre-cues preceded the presence of a target. Subjects responded (with a key press) to the location of the target (right versus left of fixation). The cues could be valid (i.e., appear where the target would appear) or invalid (appear contralateral to where the target would appear). DNA sequencing assays were performed on buccal cells to genotype known genetic markers and these were examined for association with task scores. Here we show significant associations between visual orienting and genetic markers (on COMT, DAT1, and APOE; R(2)s from 4% to 9%). CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE: One measure in particular--the response time cost of a single dim, invalid cue - was associated with dopaminergic markers on COMT and DAT1. Additionally, variations of APOE genotypes based on the ε2/ε3/ε4 alleles were also associated with response time differences produced by simultaneous cues with unequal luminances. We conclude that individual differences in visual orienting are related to several dopaminergic markers as well as to a cholinergic marker. These results challenge the view that orienting is not associated with genotypic variation in dopaminergic genes.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Bilateral Visual Orienting with Adults Using a Modified Posner Paradigm and a Candidate Gene Study

  Journal of Vision · 2010-08-02

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  Visual orienting represents “the aligning of attention” with a stimulus (Posner, 1980). We examined the associations between multiple genetic markers (DBH, DRD4, DAT1, APOE e4, and COMT) and measures from a cued-orienting task. In previous research using this paradigm, costs have been combined with benefits into an overall validity score, and almost no genetic associations with visual orienting have been found (Fan, Wu, Fosella & Posner, 2001). It could be premature, however, to claim that genes play no role in explaining individual differences in orienting. If costs and benefits are determined by (even partially) distinct neural mechanisms, then they should be analyzed separately. This is consistent with Posner's formulation of orienting as a three-step process of disengaging, moving and then re-engaging attention at a new location. Disengaging attention (which is necessary for invalid but not for valid cues) could have separate genetic influences. We used a modified cued-orienting paradigm (Posner, 1980) that added bilateral cues with unequal luminances (Kean & Lambert, 2003). Subjects respond with a left or right key press to the location of a small white square (the target) which appeared 150 msec after the brief presentation of a cue. The cue was either bright or dim. Subjects were told that the target had a 50% probability of appearing near the cue (for single cues) or near the brighter cue (for bilateral, asymmetric cues). Each individual's average response time (RT) to neutral cues served as a baseline for determining the costs and benefits of invalid and valid cues, respectively. In our sample of 161 individuals, the correlation between costs and benefits was low, r = .25. Each of the genetic markers showed significant association with at least one attentional measure, especially with invalid dim cues. The majority of the genes showing associations with orienting code for dopamine.

  PublisherDOI

• A contrast polarity heterogeneity effect in infant visual orienting

  Journal of Vision · 2010-03-17

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  Visual orienting in human infants has been modeled assuming dimensional switching across trials (Dannemiller, VSS, 2003). In displays with a single moving bar and 27 static bars, directional orienting is determined on some proportion of trials exclusively by the movement, but on the complementary proportion of trials, the stimulus dimensions that comprise the static elements (e.g., contrast polarity, color, size) control orienting. The observed proportion of trials with orienting toward the moving bar then conforms to a mixture model of these two proportions. A further test of this model was conducted, and the results required modification of the model in a theoretically interesting way. Orienting was measured at two ages: 7–11 weeks and 17–21 weeks in two experiments with 129 infants. Bars of positive and negative contrast polarity relative to the background luminance were used. The dimensional switching model accounted well at both ages for the observed proportion of trials with orienting toward the moving bar but only if it was assumed in the model that the strength of the internal motion signal depended on the heterogeneity of the contrast polarities of the bars in the display. In homogenous displays with all of the bars having the same contrast polarity, orienting did not depend on the absolute polarity of the moving bar. However, in heterogeneous displays in which half of the bars had positive polarities and half of the bars had negative polarities, orienting toward the moving bar occurred more frequently when it had negative polarity than when it had positive polarity. This same asymmetry held regardless of how bars of the two contrast polarities were spatially distributed in the display. These results could be explained by assuming that a type of contrast gain mechanism enhances the perceived contrasts of the negative polarity bars only when bars of both polarities are present in the display simultaneously. This polarity heterogeneity effect was equally strong at both ages.

  PublisherDOI

• Motion pop-out in young human infants

  Journal of Vision · 2010-03-15

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  Motion pop-out occurs when there is a single moving target among multiple static distractors. Motion pop-out occurs in human infants, but the extent of pop-out is modulated by the characteristics and spatial distribution of the static elements in the visual field (Dannemiller, 2000). When equal numbers of low and high contrast static elements are distributed unevenly across the visual field, infants are less likely to orient toward the moving target when it appears contralaterally to the hemifield with more of the high contrast static elements. The static elements compete with the moving target to determine the likelihood of motion pop-out. A signal detection model with a maximum-response decision rule captures these results with infants reasonably well. This model predicts a set-size effect as the number of static elements in the visual field increases unlike the case with adults in which no set size effects are predicted when the moving singleton is well above detection threshold. In two separate samples (n = 97 and n = 98) with infants from 2 to 5 months using Teller's (1979) Forced-Choice Preferential Looking procedure, the predicted set size effect did not occur with a range from 1 to 14 distractors. Instead, infants oriented toward the moving target at levels above chance but below 100%, and set size had no effect. We now show with two additional experiments (N = 64) that both the competition effect with heterogeneous distractors and the lack of a set size effect with homogeneous distractors are explained by a high-threshold-like model in which motion pop-out occurs on some percentage of trials. On the complementary percentage of trials pop-out fails to occur but orienting is not completely random; instead, it is determined by the properties of the static elements. This is analogous to a less-than-ideal observer whose orienting decision is based on the target on some percentage of the trials and on the distractors on the remaining trials.

  PublisherDOI

• Dot polarity in dynamic Glass patterns

  Journal of Vision · 2010-03-18

  articleOpen access

  Each frame of a Glass pattern consists of a random placement of dots and a spatially shifted copy of this pattern. Thus, each dot has a partner, forming dot-pair dipoles. When shown in succession, motion is perceived along the axis of the spatial shift. The perception of motion in dynamic Glass patterns is believed to be a two-stage process: first, local orientation detectors respond to the orientation signal in the dot-pair dipole; and second, global detectors integrate local orientation signals. We examined the ability to detect rotation in dynamic Glass patterns whose dipoles contained a) the same polarity, b) opposite polarity within a dipole, and c) opposite polarity between dipoles. We also manipulated the extent of spatial shift between the dots in a dipole. A two-interval forced procedure was used, and the proportion of dipoles spatially shifted to be consistent with rotation was varied. The task was to determine which interval (noise or signal + noise) contained rotation. When both dots in a dipole were the same polarity, rotation detection thresholds increased with increasing dot separation. The same pattern was found when dot polarity differed between dipoles. Thresholds were significantly elevated, however, when dot polarity differed within a dipole. Unlike other reports (Wilson, Switkes & DeValois, 2004), we find that observers are capable of discriminating between Glass patterns and random noise even when dot-pair dipoles are of opposite polarity. This outcome suggests an additional role for global mechanisms in the perception of motion from dynamic Glass patterns.

  PublisherDOI

• A dimensional switching model of early visual orienting in human infants

  Journal of Vision · 2010-03-18

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  Visual orienting by human infants to a singleton bar oscillating in a field of similar static bars is influenced by non-motion related characteristics of the static bars such as their colors and contrast polarities implying natural variation across trials in the stimulus dimension controlling orienting (Dannemiller, 1998; 2001). With a sample of 207 infants in six experiments (7- to 11- OR 17- to 21-week-olds), two possible models for understanding how different stimulus dimensions (e.g., color, motion) interact to determine a directional orienting response were compared. Model 1: all stimulus dimensions are reduced to a single salience dimension with the location of the highest salience element controlling orienting (winner-take-all, WTA). Model 2: on a given trial one dimension (e.g., motion) dominates the orienting response while others (e.g., color) have no influence, with the dominant dimension switching across trials (dimensional switching, DS). A set size manipulation (range 2 to 28 bars) in which static bars are added equally to both sides of the visual field can distinguish the models. The WTA model predicts a decrease in orienting to the singleton moving bar because with internal noise, the likelihood that one of the static bars will produce the maximum response increases as more bars are added to the field. The DS model predicts no set size effect because trials on which orienting is dominated by non-motion related stimulus dimensions (e.g., color) will lead to chance orienting with respect to the location of the oscillating bar independently of the number of static bars added to the visual field. The DS model captured the behavior of older infants better than the WTA model with motion pop-out evident at this older age, while the WTA model better captured the behavior of the younger infants. A quantitative version of the DS model that captures this variation in stimulus-related orienting behavior will be presented. [Supported by NICHD R01 HD32927.]

  PublisherDOI

Recent grants

• NIH Grant R01HD032927

  NIH · $1.9M · 2008

• NIH Grant R01HD023247

  NIH · $519k · 1995

Frequent coauthors

• Benjamin R. Stephens

  14 shared

• Robert L. Freedland

  SUNY Downstate Health Sciences University

  9 shared

• Martin S. Banks

  7 shared

• Timothy Babler

  4 shared

• Rebecca A. Lundwall

  Brigham Young University

  4 shared

• Yoko Nagata

  Japan Anti Tuberculosis Association

  3 shared

• E. Eugenie Hartmann

  Akron Children's Hospital

  2 shared

• Timothy Petersik

  Ripon College

  2 shared

Education

• Ph.D., Psychology

  The University of Texas at Austin

  1983

• B.S., Psychology

  Northwestern University

  1974