Can massive but passive exposure to faces contribute to face recognition abilities?

Recent studies have suggested that individuation of other-race faces is more crucial for enhancing recognition performance than exposure that involves categorization of these faces to an identity-irrelevant criterion. These findings were primarily based on laboratory training protocols that dissociated exposure and individuation by using categorization tasks. However, the absence of enhanced recognition following categorization may not simulate key aspects of real-life massive exposure without individuation to other-race faces. Real-life exposure spans years of seeing a multitude of faces, under variant conditions, including expression, view, lighting and gaze, albeit with no subcategory individuation. However, in most real-life settings, massive exposure operates in concert with individuation. An exception to that are neonatology nurses, a unique population that is exposed to--but do not individuate--massive numbers of newborn faces. Our findings show that recognition of newborn faces by nurses does not differ from adults who are rarely exposed to newborn faces. A control study showed that the absence of enhanced recognition cannot be attributed to the relatively short exposure to each newborn face in the neonatology unit or to newborns' apparent homogeneous appearance. It is therefore the quality--not the quantity--of exposure that determines recognition abilities.     

Understanding Sexual Revictimization of Women Through Metaphors: A Qualitative Research

The aim of this study was to contribute to the phenomenological understanding of revictimization through metaphors used by women when describing their revictimization experiences. Data were collected through in-depth semistructured interviews with 9 women regarding their repeated sexual victimization. Content analysis focused on metaphors used by the women when describing revictimization. Analysis of the metaphors revealed vulnerability in relation to the self and to interpersonal relationships. The metaphors relating to the self are portrayed through images of imprisonment, homelessness, contamination, and disability. Interpersonal relationships are described through the image of boundaries. These metaphors reflect duality: the profound need for security and the perception of boundaries as limiting and confining. Metaphors can be useful as a heuristic instrument for understanding women’s experience of the duality and the contradictions in coping with revictimization, and for intervention.     

High arousal and low arousal work-related positive affects and basal cardiovascular activity

Basal cardiovascular activity may be modulated by positive affect activation levels. In the current study, it was hypothesized that work-related high arousal positive affect (HAPA) will have a U-shaped association with basal cardiovascular activity and low or un-aroused positive affect (LAPA) will be negatively associated with basal cardiovascular activity. Participants were 1807, apparently, healthy adults. HAPA and LAPA were assessed with the Job-related Affective Well-being Scale. Outcome measures were resting heart rate (HR), systolic (SBP), and diastolic blood pressure (DBP) levels. Results for HAPA supported the hypothesized relationships, such that HR and SBP were lower when HAPA was at moderate levels, but higher when HAPA was at high or low levels. LAPA was negatively associated with SBP and DBP. Our findings suggest that HAPA and LAPA have differential consequences regarding cardiovascular function.     

Primacy Effect in Credibility Judgements: The Vulnerability of Verbal Cues to Biased Interpretations

We explored the vulnerability of credibility judgements of written accounts (mediated by their richness in details) to primacy effect. Specifically, we examined whether the order by which two texts were presented affected their credibility judgements. In Experiment 1, participants read two life stories of the same narrator, one rich and the other poor in details, while their presentation order was manipulated. Results showed that participants tended to believe the narrator more when the rich story preceded the poor story than when the presentation order was reversed. In Experiment 2, the richness‐order was manipulated within a single story, and its results revealed that, although participants read stories of equal length, they perceived a story that began in a rich manner as richer than a story that began in a poor manner. Together, results point to the vulnerability of the ‘richness in detail’ indicator to judgemental biases. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Bridging the gap between explicit and implicit measurement of personality: The questionnaire-based implicit association test

This study presents the questionnaire-based implicit association test (qIAT), a method that resembles the assessment procedures of self-report scales and allows an implicit assessment of constructs measured by such instruments. The qIAT measures the speed of association between ordinary questionnaires’ items (i.e., short statements rather than single words) and true versus false self-related sentences. Participants completed self-report measures of all Big-Five domains and the qIAT that measured extraversion. The qIAT implicit extraversion score showed good levels of internal consistency and it correlated with explicit extraversion but not with other explicit scales, thus supporting the convergent and discriminant validity of this measure. It also predicted a criterion behavior, and this prediction was incremental to self-report assessment of the same set of items. The qIAT opens the door for the indirect assessment of numerous psychological phenomena measured by existing self-report scales.     

The associations of the Five Factor Model of personality with inflammatory biomarkers: A four-year prospective study

This study evaluated the associations of the Five Factor Model of personality with two inflammation biomarkers, C-reactive protein and fibrinogen, and the possible moderating effects of common health-related behaviors (physical activity and smoking) concurrently and over four years, while adjusting for socio-demographic and health status. Participants were individuals who underwent a health examination at two points of time, T1 (n = 1709) and T2 (n = 923), about four years apart. Regression analyses uncovered positive associations between Neuroticism and Extraversion with two inflammatory biomarkers at baseline (T1) and over time (T2) and increases in their levels over time. Additionally, a synergistic interaction of neuroticism and physical inactivity was associated with higher levels of inflammation biomarkers at both time periods. Openness was negatively associated with inflammation biomarkers at T1 and T2, but not with changes in their levels. No significant associations were found for Agreeableness and Conscientiousness. The results suggest that personality traits might be involved in the inflammatory process both concurrently and over time, and thus indicate a possible mechanism by which personality traits might influence health, especially cardiovascular disease risk.     

Credibility judgments of narratives: language, plausibility, and absorption

Two experiments were conducted in order to find out whether textual features of narratives differentially affect credibility judgments made by judges having different levels of absorption (a disposition associated with rich visual imagination). Participants in both experiments were exposed to a textual narrative and requested to judge whether the narrator actually experienced the event he described in his story. In Experiment 1, the narrative varied in terms of language (literal, figurative) and plausibility (ordinary, anomalous). In Experiment 2, the narrative varied in terms of language only. The participants' perceptions of the plausibility of the story described and the extent to which they were absorbed in reading were measured. The data from both experiments together suggest that the groups applied entirely different criteria in credibility judgments. For high-absorption individuals, their credibility judgment depends on the degree to which the text can be assimilated into their own vivid imagination, whereas for low-absorption individuals it depends mainly on plausibility. That is, high-absorption individuals applied an experiential mental set while judging the credibility of the narrator, whereas low-absorption individuals applied an instrumental mental set. Possible cognitive mechanisms and implications for credibility judgments are discussed.     

Using the model statement to elicit verbal differences between truth tellers and liars amongst Arab interviewees: A partial replication of Leal,Vrij, Deeb,and Jupe (2018)

Leal, Vrij, Deeb, and Jupe (2018) found—with British participants—that a model statement elicited (a) more information and (b) a cue to deceit: After exposure to a model statement, liars reported significantly more peripheral information than truth tellers. We sought to replicate these findings with Arabs living in Israel. Truth tellers and liars reported a stand‐out event that they had (truth tellers) or pretended to have (liars) experienced in the last 2 years. Half of the participants were given a model statement in the second phase of the interview. Replicating Leal et al. (2018a), (a) truth tellers reported more core details than liars initially and (b) a model statement resulted in more additional core and peripheral details in the second phase of the interview. Unlike in Leal et al. (2018a), a model statement did not have a differential effect on truth tellers in the current experiment.     

The shape of facial features and the spacing among them generate similar inversion effects: A reply to

It is often argued that picture-plane face inversion impairs discrimination of the spacing among face features to a greater extent than the identity of the facial features. However, several recent studies have reported similar inversion effects for both types of face manipulations. In a recent review, Rossion (2008) claimed that similar inversion effects for spacing and features are due to methodological and conceptual shortcomings and that data still support the idea that inversion impairs the discrimination of features less than that of the spacing among them. Here I will claim that when facial features differ primarily in shape, the effect of inversion on features is not smaller than the one on spacing. It is when color/contrast information is added to facial features that the inversion effect on features decreases. This obvious observation accounts for the discrepancy in the literature and suggests that the large inversion effect that was found for features that differ in shape is not a methodological artifact. These findings together with other data that are discussed are consistent with the idea that the shape of facial features and the spacing among them are integrated rather than dissociated in the holistic representation of faces.     

Musical Training,Bilingualism, and Executive Function: A Closer Look at Task Switching and Dual‐Task Performance

This study investigated whether musical training and bilingualism are associated with enhancements in specific components of executive function, namely, task switching and dual‐task performance. Participants (n = 153) belonging to one of four groups (monolingual musician, bilingual musician, bilingual non‐musician, or monolingual non‐musician) were matched on age and socioeconomic status and administered task switching and dual‐task paradigms. Results demonstrated reduced global and local switch costs in musicians compared with non‐musicians, suggesting that musical training can contribute to increased efficiency in the ability to shift flexibly between mental sets. On dual‐task performance, musicians also outperformed non‐musicians. There was neither a cognitive advantage for bilinguals relative to monolinguals, nor an interaction between music and language to suggest additive effects of both types of experience. These findings demonstrate that long‐term musical training is associated with improvements in task switching and dual‐task performance.