The effect of changes in posture and clothing on the development of unfamiliar person recognition

In contrast to face recognition little is known about the development of unfamiliar whole‐person recognition. Various cues in a person's appearance may contribute to recognition performance. An age‐related influence of different features on person recognition performance is possible. Here, we investigated two variable features of person recognition, namely posture and clothing, in 4‐year‐olds, 6‐year‐olds, 8‐year‐olds, 10‐year‐olds and adults. The experimental methodology of a short‐term recognition‐test with an immediate four alternative forced choice (4AFC)‐array was used. Targets were shown for 5 seconds. Experiment 1 clearly indicates that a variation of both posture and clothing decreases performance in all age groups compared to a standard, i.e. a no‐change condition. An interaction age×variation of posture and clothing was not observed. In order to untangle the two aspects of posture and clothing, Experiment 2 varied only posture between encoding and recognition. An age‐effect was shown, but no other significant result occurred. Experiment 3 investigated variation of clothing only, and found main effects of clothing and age. Because there was no interaction between the two factors we infer that a change of clothing impairs all subjects' recognition performance. Children's person recognition performance suffers in a way similar to adults' person recognition performance when clothing is varied. In contrast, changing posture does not necessarily decrease recognition accuracy, neither in children nor in adults. No developmental gains were found for dealing with the transformation of posture and clothing between the encoding and recognition phase. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Abstract noun classification: using a neural network to match word context and word meaning

Psychologists have used artificial neural networks for a few decades to simulate perception, language acquisition, and other cognitive processes. This paper discusses the use of artificial neural networks in research on semantics—in particular, in the investigation of abstract noun meanings. It is widely acknowledged that a word’s meaning varies with its contexts of use, but it is a complex task to identify which context elements are relevant to a word’s meaning. The present study illustrates how connectionist networks can be used to examine this problem. A simple feedforward network learned to distinguish among six abstract nouns, on the basis of characteristics of their contexts, in a corpus of randomly selected naturalistic sentences.     

ERP evidence for own-age effects on late stages of processing sad faces

Faces convey important information on interaction partners, such as their emotional state and age. Faces of the same age are, according to recent research, preferentially processed. The aim of the present study was to investigate whether the neural processes underlying this own-age effect are influenced by the emotional expression of the face, and to explore possible explanations such as the frequency or quality of contact to own-age versus other-age groups. Event-related potentials were recorded while 19 younger (18–30 years) and 19 older (64–86 years) observers watched younger and older sad and happy faces. Sad but not happy faces elicited higher late positive potential amplitudes for own-age than for other-age faces. This own-age effect was significant for older, but not for younger, observers, and correlated with the quality of contact with the own-age versus the other-age group. This pattern suggests that sad own-age faces are motivationally more relevant.     

Comment on Wagner,Elejabarrieta and Lahnsteiner (1995): From sperm and ovum to gender stereotypes

Wagner, Elejabarrieta and Lahnsteiner (1995) conclude that people use gender-stereotypic attributes and sexual metaphors in describing the sperm and the ovum. The conclusion is criticized on the basis of two arguments: (1) the sperm is, in actuality, more active than the ovum and this difference is reflected in subjects' judgements; (2) in their study, the researchers themselves induced (a) the person metaphor and (b) gender categories. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Parts and wholes in person recognition: developmental trends

This study's aim is the investigation of short-term visual person recognition in 8- and 10-year-olds and adults, within the part-whole paradigm introduced by. Natural unfamiliar whole persons were contrasted with natural unfamiliar faces to test for differences between person processing and face processing. Two experiments showed advantages of whole face recognition over isolated face feature recognition. Also, these was a complete over part probe advantage (CPA, ) for person recognition in all age groups. Thus, recognition became more accurate between 8 years and adulthood, but no developmental shift in visual information processing was observable with face and whole person recognition. I conclude that person recognition does not rely on processes completely different from those of face recognition and that this holds for 8- and 10-year-olds as well as for adults.     

Parenting Behaviors of Mothers and Fathers of Preschool Age Children with Internalizing Disorders

This study investigated parenting behaviors of mothers and fathers of clinically anxious preschool children (with or without depressive comorbidity) and healthy comparison children. Studies assessing children from early school age onwards have found that parental control, rejection, and inconsistent discipline are associated with the presence of children’s internalizing symptoms/disorders. Despite the scarcity of studies investigating these associations at preschool age, we assumed that findings with older children would also apply to children in this age group. In a cross-sectional study we assessed N = 176 children of preschool age (M = 5; 2 years) and both of their parents. A diagnostic interview (Preschool Age Psychiatric Assessment) was conducted to determine children’s psychiatric diagnoses, yielding the following results: a group of n = 67 children with pure anxiety disorders (AD group), a group of n = 38 children with anxiety disorders with depressive comorbidity (AD/DC group), and a comparison group of n = 71 children without psychiatric disorders. Both parents completed the German extended version of the Alabama Parenting Questionnaire. We evaluated maternal depressive symptoms and children’s temperament as further correlates. All variables that differed significantly between groups were entered into multinomial logistic regression analyses to test which variables predict group membership. When comparing each of the two anxiety groups with the comparison group we obtained the following results: (1) Inconsistent paternal discipline and maternal depressive symptoms increased and children’s positive affectivity decreased the probability of children of being in the AD group rather than in the comparison group. (2) Maternal overinvolvement, maternal depressive symptoms and children’s negative affectivity increased and children’s positive affectivity decreased the probability of children of belonging to the AD/DC group rather than to the comparison group. When comparing the two anxiety groups with each other, we found that inconsistent paternal discipline increased and children’s negative affectivity decreased the probability of children of being in the AD group rather than in the AD/DC group. The results suggest that paternal parenting behaviors show different associations with internalizing disorders at preschool age than maternal parenting behaviors. This underlines the importance of including fathers in the prevention and treatment of internalizing disorders at preschool age.     

Lebensqualität von ärztlichen und psychologischen Psychotherapeuten

In a large empirical cross-sectional study the quality of life of medical and psychological psychotherapists ( n =71, respectively n =103) was examined as well as the influence of the different therapeutic methods used. Instruments used were the Questionnaire on Quality of Life of Physicians (Reimer and Jurkat 2003) respectively the Questionnaire on Quality of Life of Psychologists (Jurkat and Reimer 2003) as well as the SF-36 Health Survey (Bullinger and Kirchberger 1998). The majority of participants in both samples are satisfied with their life. Psychological psychotherapists are comparatively more content with their work situation and judge their own health more positively than their medical colleagues do. Both groups feel their income situation to be a loss in quality of life. A common fear is an even greater bureaucratic burden and financial deterioration. Thus it seems that psychohygienic measures and secure job perspectives may contribute to raising the quality of life of psychotherapists.     

Identity Status Change Within Personal Style Clusters: A Longitudinal Perspective From Early Adulthood to Midlife

Differences in identity stability and change from age 36 through 42 to 50 were examined between three male and female personal style clusters extracted at age 27. We expected, first, the identity statuses to consistently differ between the clusters and, second, those with the least mature identity to move closer to others during midlife. Differences between the personal style clusters were discovered on all identity statuses across ages. Although significant personal style × age interactions were not detected, some evidence of pace-of-development differences emerged for women: Initial differences in identity maturation between the female groups partially leveled off by midlife. In men, early adulthood identity maturation in the conflicted group was however followed by a re-decline in later midlife.