The effects of face inversion on the perception of long-range and local spatial relations in eye and mouth configuration

A recent study hypothesized a configurational anisotropy in the face inversion effect, with vertical relations more difficult to process. However, another difference in the stimuli of that report was that the vertical but not horizontal shifts lacked local spatial references. Difficulty processing long-range spatial relations might also be predicted from a relevance-interaction explanation, which proposes that in inverted faces, spatial relations are processed efficiently only within high-relevance local regions. The authors performed 2 experiments to distinguish between these hypotheses. Experiment 1 showed that the inversion effect for vertical shifts of the eyes alone was more similar to that for horizontal eye shifts than for vertical shifts of the eyes and eyebrows. In Experiment 2, focused attention reduced the inversion effect for vertical mouth position more than that for vertical shifts of the eyes and brows. The authors concluded that face inversion impairs the perception of both local spatial relations in low-relevance regions and long-range spatial relations extending across multiple facial regions, consistent with a loss of efficient whole-face processing of the spatial relations between features.     

Understanding the relations between different forms of racial prejudice: a cognitive consistency perspective

Research on racial prejudice is currently characterized by the existence of diverse concepts (e.g., implicit prejudice, old-fashioned racism, modern racism, aversive racism) that are not well integrated from a general perspective. The present article proposes an integrative framework for these concepts employing a cognitive consistency perspective. Specifically, it is argued that the reliance on immediate affective reactions toward racial minority groups in evaluative judgments about these groups depends on the consistency of this evaluation with other relevant beliefs pertaining to central components of old-fashioned, modern, and aversive forms of prejudice. A central prediction of the proposed framework is that the relation between "implicit" and "explicit" prejudice should be moderated by the interaction of egalitarianism-related, nonprejudicial goals and perceptions of discrimination. This prediction was confirmed in a series of three studies. Implications for research on prejudice are discussed.     

Nicotine withdrawal in smokers with current depressive disorders undergoing intensive smoking cessation treatment.

The authors investigated withdrawal in smokers with current threshold and subthreshold depressive disorders (N = 21) who were participating in a pilot study of intensive counseling interventions for smoking cessation. The majority of participants (67%) were taking antidepressants when they entered the trial. Withdrawal symptoms were compared in prolonged abstainers versus nonabstainers across a 12-week treatment period and at the 3-month follow-up assessment visit. Prolonged abstinence was associated with an increase in positive affect and a decrease in depressive symptoms and craving over time. Nonabstinence was associated with little overall change in these variables from treatment onset to the 3-month follow-up. At the 3-month follow-up, 44% of prolonged abstainers were in complete remission of their baseline depressive disorders, compared with 0% remission among nonabstainers. Findings suggest that within the context of an intensive smoking cessation intervention, some smokers with current depressive disorders may experience significant improvement in affective and craving symptoms. Findings also suggest that abstinence may be associated with improvement in affect.     

AppMonitor: A tool for recording user actions in unmodified Windows applications

This article describes AppMonitor, a Microsoft Windows-based client-side logging tool that records user actions in unmodified Windows applications. AppMonitor allows researchers to gain insights into many facets of interface interaction such as command use frequency, behavioral patterns prior to or following command use, and methods of navigating through systems and data sets. AppMonitor uses the Windows SDK libraries to monitor both low-level interactions, such as "left mouse button pressed" and "Ctrl-F pressed," as well as high-level "logical" actions, such as menu selections and scrollbar manipulations. The events recorded are configurable, allowing researchers to perform broad or targeted studies. No user input is required to manage logging, allowing participants to seamlessly conduct everyday work while their actions are monitored. The system currently supports logging in Microsoft Word and Adobe Reader; however, it could be extended for use with any Microsoft Windows-based application. To support other researchers wishing to create multilevel event loggers, we describe AppMonitor's underlying architecture and implementation, and provide a brief example of the data generated during our 4-month trial with six users.     

Structure and function in acquired prosopagnosia: Lessons from a series of 10 patients with brain damage

Acquired prosopagnosia varies in both behavioural manifestations and the location and extent of underlying lesions. We studied 10 patients with adult‐onset lesions on a battery of face‐processing tests. Using signal detection methods, we found that discriminative power for the familiarity of famous faces was most reduced by bilateral occipitotemporal lesions that involved the fusiform gyri, and better preserved with unilateral right‐sided lesions. Tests of perception of facial structural configuration showed severe deficits with lesions that included the right fusiform gyrus, whether unilateral or bilateral. This deficit was most consistent for eye configuration, with some patients performing normally for mouth configuration. Patients with anterior temporal lesions had better configuration perception, though at least one patient showed a more subtle failure to integrate configural data from different facial regions. Facial imagery, an index of facial memories, was severely impaired by bilateral lesions that included the right anterior temporal lobe and marginally impaired by fusiform lesions alone; unilateral right fusiform lesions tended to spare imagery for facial features. These findings suggest that (1) prosopagnosia is more severe with bilateral than unilateral lesions, indicating a minor contribution of the left hemisphere to face recognition, (2) perception of facial configuration critically involves the right fusiform gyrus and (3) access to facial memories is most disrupted by bilateral lesions that also include the right anterior temporal lobe. This supports assertions that more apperceptive variants of prosopagnosia are linked to fusiform damage, whereas more associative variants are linked to anterior temporal damage. Next, we found that behavioural indices of covert recognition correlated with measures of overt familiarity, consistent with theories that covert behaviour emerges from the output of damaged neural networks, rather than alternative pathways. Finally, to probe the face specificity of the prosopagnosic defect, we tested recognition of fruits and vegetables: While face specificity was not found in most of our patients, the data of one patient suggested that this may be possible with more focal lesions of the right fusiform gyrus.     

A novel assessment of behaviors associated with body dissatisfaction and disordered eating

The purpose of the present study was to compare response rates to questions assessing behaviors associated with body dissatisfaction and disordered eating on a standard self-report questionnaire that was nominally anonymous to an unmatched count questionnaire that allowed for true response anonymity. Five hundred sixty-seven undergraduate students were asked about disordered eating and body image-related behaviors using one of two response formats; either a conventional true-false questionnaire or an unmatched count questionnaire that did not require participants to directly respond to any sensitive questions. Both men and women had significantly different rates of endorsement between the two methods of assessment on the majority of the questions, suggesting that degree of anonymity and format of response may affect endorsements of these potentially sensitive topics. These results contribute to the existing literature highlighting the necessity of understanding self-report bias in determining accurate rates of sensitive behaviors.