Familiarity and emotional expression influence an early stage of face processing: an electrophysiological study

Recent data indicate that the familiarity and the emotional expression of faces occur at an early stage of information processing. The goal of the present study was to determine whether these two aspects interact at the structural encoding stage as reflected by the N170 component of event-related potentials in tasks requiring the subjects either to identify whether the faces were familiar or the nature of the emotional expression. The results indicate that the neural responses to level of familiarity and emotional expression were observable at this early processing stage but without interacting. In particular, faces of personal importance to the subjects differed from those of less personal importance. Because familiarity did not interact with emotional expression at behavioral and electrophysiologic levels, our results support the contention of parallel and independent processing of faces.     

From the grave to the cradle: evidence that mortality salience engenders a desire for offspring

On the basis of terror management theory, the authors hypothesized that reminders of mortality (mortality salience) should promote the desire for offspring to the extent that it does not conflict with other self-relevant worldviews that also serve to manage existential concerns. In 3 studies, men, but not women, desired more children after mortality salience compared with various control conditions. In support of the authors' hypothesis that women's desire for offspring was inhibited as a function of concerns about career success, Study 3 showed that career strivings moderated the effect of mortality salience on a desire for offspring for female participants only; furthermore, Study 4 revealed that when the compatibility of having children and a career was made salient, female participants responded to mortality salience with an increased number of desired children. Taken together, the findings suggest that a desire for offspring can function as a terror management defense mechanism.     

Response selection involves executive control: Evidence from the selective interference paradigm

In the present study, we investigated whether response selection involves executive control, using the selective interference paradigm within Baddeley's (1986) working memory framework. The interference from response selection was estimated by comparing the patterns of dual-task interference of simple and choice RT tasks with those of a number of established working memory tasks. In Experiment 1, we compared impairment of forward and backward verbal serial recall from the RT tasks and articulatory suppression. Experiment 2 measured the adverse effects of the RT tasks and matrix tapping on forward and backward visuospatial serial recall. Finally, in Experiment 3, we examined the impairment from the RT tasks with two measures of executive control--namely, letter and category fluency. Altogether, the three experiments demonstrated that response selection interferes with executive control and that the interference is not produced at the level of working memory's slave systems, which supports the assumption of executive involvement in response selection.     

Modulation of recognition and temporal order memory retrieval by dopamine D1 receptor in rats

The present study examines the effects of SKF 81297, a selective D1 agonist, on information retrieval in recognition and temporal order memory for objects, using three different tasks. Separate groups of rats were trained in each task and then given an intraperitoneal injection of saline or the D1 agonist (0.03, 0.3 mg/kg), before the memory testing trial in an object recognition, object location, and object temporal order memory tasks. We show that SKF 81297, at high dose (0.3 mg/kg), facilitates information retrieval after a long delay (4 h) in the three memory tasks whereas both high and low doses of D1 agonist impair recognition memory after a short delay (15 min). These results indicate a significant role of dopamine D1 receptors in recognition memory for both familiarity and place of objects in addition to object temporal order memory.     

Evaluating the coordination dynamics of handwriting

This study aims to test the hypothesis that handwriting is governed by the dynamics of non-linear coupled oscillators. Accordingly, its first goal is to identify preferred, basic graphic shapes corresponding to spontaneously stable combinations of the two frequency-locked oscillatory x-y components of the trajectories. Six participants were required to produce 26 ellipsoids of varying eccentricities and orientations presented consecutively on a graphic tablet. These shapes corresponded to a systematic manipulation of the relative phase and the relative amplitude of the oscillators by a constant step. Results showed that among those, only eight ellipsoids were produced in a spontaneous and stable fashion. They were characterized by attraction of nearby shapes, and by a higher accuracy and velocity. Alike all periodic motion, graphic skills, hence handwriting, exhibit preferred coordination patterns, which can be ascribed to the non-linear coupling of two oscillators.     

Identity but not expression memory for unfamiliar faces is affected by ageing

We examined age-related differences in memory for identity and emotional expression of unfamiliar faces. Younger and older adults were presented with happy and angry faces and were later asked to recognise the same faces displaying a neutral expression. When a face was recognised, they also had to remember what the initial expression of the face had been. In addition, states of awareness associated with both identity and expression memory were assessed with the remember/know/guess paradigm. Older adults showed less recollective experience than younger adults for identity but not for emotional expressions of the faces. This evidence indicates that age-related differences in memory may depend on the nature of the to-be-remembered information, with emotional/social information being remembered as well in older as in younger adults.     

Identity and expression memory for happy and angry faces in social anxiety

We examined the influence of social anxiety on memory for both identity and emotional expressions of unfamiliar faces. Participants high and low in social anxiety were presented with happy and angry faces and were later asked to recognise the same faces displaying a neutral expression. They also had to remember what the initial expressions of the faces had been. Remember/know/guess judgements were asked both for identity and expression memory. For participants low in social anxiety, both identity and expression memory were more often associated with "remember" responses when the faces were previously seen with a happy rather than an angry expression. In contrast, the initial expression of the faces did not affect either identity or expression memory for participants high in social anxiety. We interpreted these findings by arguing that most people tend to preferentially elaborate positive rather than negative social stimuli that are important to the self and that this tendency may be reduced in high socially anxious individuals because of the negative meaning they tend to ascribe to positive social information.     

Motor simulation in tool-use effect on distance estimation: A replication of Witt and Proffitt (2008)

Psychonomic Bulletin & Review - Witt and Proffit (Human Perception and Performance, 34 (6), 1479–1492, 2008) hypothesized that when people intend to reach a target, they run a motor...     

The role of syllabic structure in French visual word recognition

Two experiments are reported in which the processing units involved in the reading of French polysyllabic words are examined. A comparison was made between units following the maximal onset principle (i.e., the spoken syllable) and units following the maximal coda principle (i.e., the basic orthographic syllabic structure [BOSS]). In the first experiment, it took longer to recognize that a syllable was the beginning of a word (e.g., the FOE of FOETUS) than to make the same judgment of a BOSS (e.g., FOET). The fact that a BOSS plus one letter (e.g., FOETU) also took longer to judge than the BOSS indicated that the maximal coda principle applies to the units of processing in French. The second experiment confirmed this, using a lexical decision task with the different units being demarcated on the basis of color. It was concluded that the syllabic structure that is so clearly manifested in the spoken form of French is not involved in visual word recognition.     

Estimating the executive demands of a one-back choice reaction time task by means of the selective interference paradigm

The present study proposes a new executive task, the one-back choice reaction time (RT) task, and implements the selective interference paradigm to estimate the executive demands of the processing components involved in this task. Based on the similarities between a one-back choice RT task and the n-back updating task, it was hypothesized that one-back delaying of a choice reaction involves executive control. In three experiments, framed within Baddeley's (1986) working-memory model, a one-back choice RT task, a choice RT task, articulatory suppression, and matrix tapping were performed concurrently with primary tasks involving verbal, visuospatial, and executive processing. The results demonstrate that one-back delaying of a choice reaction interferes with tasks requiring executive control, while the potential interference at the level of the verbal or visuospatial working memory slave systems remains minimal.