Hearing facial identities

While audiovisual integration is well known in speech perception, faces and speech are also informative with respect to speaker recognition. To date, audiovisual integration in the recognition of familiar people has never been demonstrated. Here we show systematic benefits and costs for the recognition of familiar voices when these are combined with time-synchronized articulating faces, of corresponding or noncorresponding speaker identity, respectively. While these effects were strong for familiar voices, they were smaller or nonsignificant for unfamiliar voices, suggesting that the effects depend on the previous creation of a multimodal representation of a person's identity. Moreover, the effects were reduced or eliminated when voices were combined with the same faces presented as static pictures, demonstrating that the effects do not simply reflect the use of facial identity as a “cue” for voice recognition. This is the first direct evidence for audiovisual integration in person recognition.     

Attention to low- and high-spatial frequencies in categorizing facial identities, emotions and gender in children with autism

This study was aimed at investigating face categorization strategies in children with autistic spectrum disorders (ASD). Performance of 17 children with ASD was compared to that of 17 control children in a face-matching task, including hybrid faces (composed of two overlapping faces of different spatial bandwidths) and either low- or high-pass filtered faces. Participants were asked to match faces on the basis of identity, emotion or gender. Results revealed that children with ASD used the same strategies as controls when matching faces by gender. By contrast, in the identity and the emotion conditions, children with ASD showed a high-pass bias (i.e., preference for local information), contrary to controls. Consistent with previous studies on autism, these findings suggest that children with ASD do use atypical (local-oriented) strategies to process faces.     

Categorizing facial identities, emotions, and genders: attention to high- and low-spatial frequencies by children and adults

Three age groups of participants (5-6 years, 7-8 years, adults) matched faces on the basis of facial identity. The procedure involved either low- or high-pass filtered faces or hybrid faces composed from two faces associated with different spatial bandwidths. The comparison stimuli were unfiltered faces. In the three age groups, the data indicated a significant bias for processing of low-pass information in priority. In a second task, participants were asked to identify the emotion (smiling or grimacing) or gender (male or female) of hybrid high-pass/low-pass faces. Opposite results emerged in the two tasks irrespective of the age group; the gender discrimination task indicated a bias for low-pass information, and the emotion task indicated a bias for high-pass information. These differences suggest independent processing routes for functionally different types of information such as emotion, gender, and identity. These routes are already established by 5 years of age.     

Children's social identities

This paper provides a brief overview of recent developmental research on themes related to children's social identities. Initially, consideration is given to the capacity for social categorization, following which attention is given to children's developing conceptions of social identities, their identification with social groups, and the consequences of identification upon various phenomena such as ingroup favouritism and well‐being. Finally, some personal thoughts on the wider political implications of this research are offered. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Frege on identities

The idea underlying the Begriffsschrift account of identities was that the content of a sentence is a function of the things it is about. If so, then if an identity a=b is about the content of its contained terms and is true, then a=a and a=b have the same content. But they do not have the same content; so, Frege concluded, identities are not about the contents of their contained terms. The way Frege regarded the matter is that in an identity the terms flanking the symbol for identity do not have their ordinary contents, but instead have themselves as their contents. In ‘Uber Sinn und Bedeutung’ Frege became convinced that if an identity a=bis about the signs aand b, then it expresses no proper knowledge. So, since it is evident that many such identities do express proper knowledge, Frege concluded that identities are not about their contained signs. So he became convinced that his Begriffsschrift account was incorrect. What was the error in the argument that led Frege to that account? It was thinking that the content of a sentence is a function of the contents of its constituent signs, that is, the things it is about.     

Bridging identities and disciplines: advances and challenges in understanding multiple identities

The chapters in this volume address the need for a better understanding of the development of intersecting identities over age and context. The chapters provide valuable insights into the development of identities, particularly group identities. They highlight common processes across identities, such as the role of contrast and comparison and the need for individual effort in identity formation. They suggest the value of studying multiple identities in interaction and using interdisciplinary approaches. However, research across identities and disciplines poses challenges for investigators. These challenges can be met and the field advanced by collaborative studies among scholars who represent different disciplines and have studied different identities.     

Hearing shape

In 4 experiments, participants listened to suspended occluded objects set into vibration by a pendular hammer. In Experiment 1, participants provided analogue measures of the heights and widths of 3 rectangular steel plates equal in area and weight. The same report method and rectangular dimensions were used in Experiment 2 with 3 plates each of steel, wood, and Plexiglas. Heights and widths were distinguished and perceived in similar proportions to the actual dimensions regardless of material composition. In Experiments 3 and 4, participants successfully identified circular, triangular, and rectangular plates of a single material (Experiment 3) and of 3 different materials (Experiment 4). Discussion focuses on the dependency of perceived dimensions on the physical properties and linear dimensions of the plates and the acoustic structure determined by the solutions to the 2-dimensional wave equation.     

Hearing Spaces

In this paper I argue that empty space can be heard. This position contrasts with the generally held view that the only things that can be heard are sounds, their properties, echoes, and perhaps sound sources. Specifically, I suggest that when sounds reverberate in enclosed environments we auditorily represent the volume of space surrounding us. Clearly, we can learn the approximate size of an enclosed space through hearing a sound reverberate within it, and so any account that denies that we hear empty space must instead show how beliefs about volumes of space can be derived indirectly from what is heard. That is, if space is not auditorily represented when we hear sounds reverberate, what is? I consider whether hearing reverberation can be thought of as hearing a distinct sound, hearing echoes, or hearing a property of a sound. I argue that experiences of reverberation cannot be reduced to the perception of any of these types and that therefore empty space is represented in auditory perceptual content. In the final section I outline two ways in which space might be represented.     

Role identities versus social identities: Masculinity, femininity, instrumentality and communality

Three studies were designed to prove that while instrumentality and communality are mainly dimensions related to role identities, and thus determined by occupational status, masculinity and femininity are social identities linked to gender. Some ideas are put forward as to the reasons that have led historically to the overlapping of role and gender identities. The studies showed that people differentiate communality/instrumentality and masculinity/femininity, perceiving the former as linked to professional status and the latter to gender membership. Finally, current representations of masculinity and femininity are explored.     

Story telling: crafting identities

ABSTRACT

Career guidance clients are seeking to craft new identities that better position them in their careers. The focus of the present article is on narrative career counselling's potential contribution in providing a meaningful and useful experience for career guidance clients. To illustrate the potential of narrative career counselling, the story telling approach is offered as an example to illustrate how identity can be crafted in contextually and culturally sensitive ways.     

Hearing Bad News

Personal reports of receiving bad news provide data that describes patients' comprehension, reflections, experienced emotions, and an interpretative commentary with the wisdom of hindsight. Analysis of autobiographical accounts of "hearing bad news" enables the identification of patterns of how patients found out diagnoses, buffering techniques used, and styles of receiving the news. I describe how patients grapple with the news, their somatic responses to hearing, and how they struggle and strive to accept what they are hearing. I discuss metaphors used within the languages of hearing bad news. Finally, I discuss implications for a change of focus in the breaking bad news research agenda, that is, from the physician's "performance" to a patient-focused agenda.     

Hearing the roar

In this paper I will discuss the case of an older male patient, Michael, and that of a little boy, Daniel. In both cases the archetypal image of a roaring lion has interesting clinical implications. However, the symbol of the lion had a totally different meaning for each patient as the case material will demonstrate.     

Hearing by eye

Recent work on integration of auditory and visual information during speech perception has indicated that adults are surprisingly good at, and rely extensively on, lip reading. The conceptual status of lip read information is of interest: such information is at the same time both visual and phonological. Three experiments investigated the nature of short term coding of lip read information in hearing subjects. The first experiment used asynchronous visual and auditory information and showed that a subject's ability to repeat words, when heard speech lagged lip movements, was unaffected by the lag duration, both quantitatively and qualitatively. This suggests that lip read information is immediately recoded into a durable code. An experiment on serial recall of lip read items showed a serial position curve containing a recency effect (characteristic of auditory but not visual input). It was then shown that an auditory suffix diminishes the recency effect obtained with lip read stimuli. These results are consistent with the hypothesis that seen speech, that is not heard, is encoded into a durable code which has some shared properties with heard speech. The results of the serial recall experiments are inconsistent with interpretations of the recency and suffix effects in terms of precategorical acoustic storage, for they demonstrate that recency and suffix effects can be supra-modal.     

Threatened identities and interethnic interactions

This chapter adopts a social identity threat perspective to examine dynamics of interethnic interactions. We first review relevant literature regarding the conditions under which both White and ethnic minority individuals are likely to experience social identity threat within the specific context of interethnic interactions. We focus on the threat of being perceived as stereotypical of one's ethnic group, considering situation- and person-level factors that trigger the experience of such threat during interethnic interactions. Next, we offer a framework for understanding how individuals cope with social identity threat during interethnic interactions, proposing three main classes of responses: avoidance, outgroup devaluation/derogation, and behaviour modulation/regulation. We review factors that are likely to influence the adoption of one of these responses, and then consider potential implications that each type of response may have for individuals' experiences during interactions, the development of interethnic friendships, and the attenuation of prejudice.     

A Q-methodological study of smoking identities

In contrast to the psychological literature on adolescent smoking, little research has investigated the social identities of adult smokers. This study aimed to identify shared ‘smoking identities’ amongst a sample of 64 British smokers from different socio-economic groups using Q-methodology. Participants were asked to sort 70 items concerning smoking and smokers according to their agreement/disagreement with them. The 64 Q-sorts were then subjected to a by-person factor analysis yielding six factors, with the first four interpretable factors being presented here. Each factor is understood to represent a distinct ‘identity position’. The first two, the ‘addicted’ smoker, and the ‘in control’ smoker, oriented around a biomedical model of smoking as an addictive health risk. The final two, the ‘no big deal’ smoker and the ‘proud’ smoker reflected alternative understandings and values. The identity positions also differed in the extent to which smoking was considered a core part of self-identity. Unpacking the ‘smoking identities’ of current smokers offers the opportunity to devise targeted health promotion.     

A Q-methodological study of lesbian identities

A Q-methodological study of lesbian identities is reported, which reveals substantive factors representing identity account clusters explicated as the ‘Personal Fulfilment’ identity, the ‘Special Person’ identity, the ‘Individualistic’ identity, the ‘Radical Feminist’ identity, and the ‘Traditional’ identity. These identities are supported and illuminated by the use of accounts given by the same respondents in tape-recorded interviews and are related to the rather limited previous literature in the field. Further developments in the investigation of accounts of identity are proposed.     

On P-compatible hybrid identities and hyperidentities

P-compatible identities are built up from terms with a special structure. We investigate a variety defined by a set ofP-compatible hybrid identities and answer the question whether a variety defined by a set ofP-compatible hyperidentities can be solid.Presented byJan Zygmunt;