Gender is a dimension of face recognition

In an experiment, the authors investigated the impact of gender categorization on face recognition. Participants were familiarized with composite androgynous faces labeled with either a woman's first name (Mary) or a man's first name (John). The results indicated that participants more quickly eliminated faces of the opposite gender than faces of the same gender than the face they were looking for. This gender effect did not result from greater similarity between faces of the same gender. Rather, early gender categorization of a face during face recognition appears to speed up the comparison process between the perceptual input and the facial representation. Implications for face recognition models are discussed.     

Contributions of endothermy to huddling behavior in infant Norway rats (Rattus norvegicus) and Syrian golden hamsters (Mesocricetus auratus)

Infant Syrian golden hamsters (Mesocricetus auratus) do not exhibit endogenous heat production before 3 weeks of age and do not huddle effectively during cold exposure, gaining little thermoregulatory benefit from the presence of multiple littermates. In contrast, infant Norway rats (Rattus norvegicus) produce heat endogenously and are effective at maintaining elevated body temperatures by huddling. Therefore, the ineffective huddling of infant hamsters may be due to the absence of endogenous heat production. The huddling behavior of infants in mixed huddles of 8-day-old hamsters and weight-matched 4-5-day-old rats was observed to explore this possibility. The results indicate that hamsters, even when cold, effectively gain access to heat-producing rats, supporting the idea that endothermy contributes to the behavior of huddling by providing heat to each individual and thermal stimuli to other infants to support aggregation.     

Variability and detection of invariant structure

Two experiments investigated learning of nonadjacent dependencies by adults and 18–month–olds. Each learner was exposed to three–element strings (e.g., pel–kicey–jic) produced by one of two artificial languages. Both languages contained the same adjacent dependencies, so learners could distinguish the languages only by acquiring dependencies between the first and third elements (the nonadjacent dependencies). The size of the pool from which the middle elements were drawn was systematically varied to investigate whether increasing variability (in the form of decreasing predictability between adjacent elements) would lead to better detection of nonadjacent dependencies. Infants and adults acquired nonadjacent dependencies only when adjacent dependencies were least predictable. The results point to conditions that might lead learners to focus on nonadjacent versus adjacent dependencies and are important for suggesting how learning might be dynamically guided by statistical structure.     

Evidence for attentional capture by a surprising color singleton in visual search

Three experiments were conducted to investigate whether surprising color singletons capture attention. Participants performed a visual search task in which a target letter had to be detected among distractor letters. Experiments 1 and 2 assessed accuracy as the dependent variable. In Experiment 1, the unannounced presentation of a color singleton 500 ms prior to the letters (and in the same position as the target letter) resulted in better performance than in the preceding conjunction search segment, in which no singleton was presented, and performance was as good in this surprise–singleton trial as in the following feature search segment, in which the singleton always coincided with the target. In contrast, no improvement was observed when the color singleton was presented simultaneously with the letters in Experiment 2, indicating that attentional capture occurred later in the surprise trial than in the feature search segment. In Experiment 3, set size was varied, and reaction time was the dependent variable. Reaction time depended on set size in the conjunction search segment, but not in the surprise trial nor in the feature search segment. The results of the three experiments support the view that surprising color singletons capture attention independently of a corresponding attentional set.     

Organisation: what levels of processing are levels of

The psychology of thought and memory has historically been concerned with a struggle between associationism and its opponents. Organisation theory--in part an offspring of Gestalt concepts--has been the most successful and vocal of these contenders. The levels-of-processing framework has been a part of the effort to overcome associationist predilections. Aspects of principles of organisation and of the recent history of organisation theory are presented, followed by an analysis of the levels-of-processing approach in terms of organisational concepts.     

Place learning in scopolamine-treated rats: the roles of distal cues and catecholaminergic mediation

Experiments 1 and 2 tested the hypothesis that cholinergic receptor antagonists impair place learning in a water maze by interfering with the processing of distal, visual cues. Extramaze cues were offered to rats in the form of geometrical patterns arranged on the inner circumference of a curtain surrounding the water maze. In Experiment 1 the animals were offered both the distal cues and proximal cues in the form of pingpong balls in fixed positions on the surface of the water while only distal cues were present in Experiment 2. Animals were injected with either scopolamine (0.5 mg/kg body wt) or saline 20 min prior to the daily place learning sessions. Upon reaching criterion level performance the animals were tested on "rotation" sessions on which the distal cues were displaced. The outcome of such "rotations" demonstrated that-regardless of the presence or absence of proximal cues-scopolamine-treated rats relied at least as much as normal animals on the distal cues. The acquisition phase of both Experiments 1 and 2 demonstrated an almost complete lack of scopolamine-associated impairment in acquisition and performance of the place learning task. In Experiment 3 (when scopolamine was no longer administered) the subjects of Experiment 2 were exposed to a series of pharmacological "challenges" of their place learning performance and eventually to surgical ablation of the anteromedial prefrontal cortex. The outcome of the pharmacological challenges and the postoperative test of task performance demonstrated that the place learning performance of animals which had acquired the task under scopolamine was mediated by a neural substrate dissimilar to the substrate of task performance in normal animals. Rats acquiring the task while deprived of the cholinergic system demonstrated above-normal contributions to task mediation from catecholaminergic-probably dopaminergic-mechanisms and tentative results pointed to a "shift" toward prefrontal task mediation.     

Primary care physicians attitude toward diagnosis and treatment of late-life depression

Underdiagnosis and undertreatment of late-life depression is common, especially in primary care settings. To help assess whether physicians attitude and confidence in diagnosing and managing depression serve as barriers to care, a total of 176 physicians employed in 18 primary care groups were administered surveys to assess attitudes towards diagnosis, treatment, and management of depression in elderly patients, (individuals over 65 years of age). Logistic regression was performed to assess the association of physician characteristics on attitudes. Nearly all of the physicians surveyed felt that depression in the elderly was a primary care problem, and 41% reported late-life depression as the most common problem seen in older patients. Physicians were confident in their ability to diagnose and manage depression, yet 45% had no medical education on depression in the previous three years. Physicians confidence in their ability to diagnose, treat, and manage depression, and their reported adequacy of training, do not appear to correspond to the amount of continuing medical education in depression, suggesting that physician overconfidence may potentially be serving as a barrier to care.     

The relevance of Rawls' principle of justice for research on cognitively impaired patients

An ethical conflict arises when we must performresearch in the interest of future patients,but that this may occasionally injure theinterests of today's patients.In the case of cognitively impaired persons, thequestion arises whether it is compatible withhumane healthcare not only to treat, but alsoto use these patients for research purposes.Some bioethicists and theologians haveformulated a general duty of solidarity, alsopertaining to cognitively impaired persons, as ajustification for research on these persons. Ifone examines this thesis from the theory ofjustice according to John Rawls, it is revealedthat such a duty of solidarity cannotnecessarily be extrapolated from Rawls'conception of justice. This is at least true ofRawls' difference principle, because accordingto the difference principle only those measuresare justifiable which serve the interest of therespective least well off. Those measures whichwould engender additional injury for the leastwell off could not be balanced by any utilityaccording to Rawls.However, John Rawls' difference principleis subordinate to the first principle,which is that each person has an equalright to the most extensive basic libertycompatible with the same liberty for others.These primary goods are determined by thefreedom and integrity of the person.This integrity of decisionally impaired personswould be in danger if one would abstain fromresearch and thus forego the increase inknowledge related to their disease. Thus onecould conclude, at least from Rawls' firstprinciple, that society must take on a duty toguarantee the degrees of freedom forcognitively impaired persons and thus alsosupport the efforts for their healing.     

Examination of relationships among trait-like individual differences, state-like individual differences, and learning performance

Several authors (e.g., J.T. Austin & H.J. Klein, 1996; R. Kanfer, 1990b, 1992) have urged researchers to examine comprehensive models of distal individual differences as predictors of proximal motivational processes and performance. Two field studies in an academic setting tested a model of relationships among trait-like individual differences (cognitive ability, general self-efficacy, and goal orientation), state-like individual differences (state anxiety, task-specific self-efficacy, and goals), and learning performance. Most hypothesized relationships among these constructs received support when tested on 2 samples, when examining different performance episodes, and when using different goal orientation and state-anxiety measures. In general, state-like individual differences were found to mediate the relationships between trait-like individual differences and learning performance. Implications of these results are discussed and suggestions for future research are provided.