Is the face-perception system human-specific at birth?

The present study investigates the human-specificity of the orienting system that allows neonates to look preferentially at faces. Three experiments were carried out to determine whether the face-perception system that is present at birth is broad enough to include both human and nonhuman primate faces. The results demonstrate that the newborns did not show any spontaneous visual preference for the human face when presented simultaneously with a monkey face that shared the same features, configuration, and low-level perceptual properties (Experiment 1). The newborns were, however, able to discriminate between the 2 faces belonging to the 2 different species (Experiment 2). In Experiment 3, the newborns were found to prefer looking at an upright, compared with an inverted, monkey face, as they do for human faces. Overall, the results demonstrate that newborns perceive monkey and human faces in a similar way. These findings are consistent with the hypothesis that the system underlying face preference at birth is broad enough to bias newborns' attention toward both human and nonhuman primate faces.     

Motivated social categorization: fundamental motives enhance people's sensitivity to basic social categories

This article presents an evolutionary framework for identifying the characteristics people use to categorize members of their social world. Findings suggest that fundamental social motives lead people to implicitly categorize social targets based on whether those targets display goal-relevant phenotypic traits. A mate-search prime caused participants to categorize opposite-sex targets (but not same-sex targets) based on their level of physical attractiveness (Experiment 1). A mate-guarding prime interacted with relationship investment, causing participants to categorize same-sex targets (but not opposite-sex targets) based on their physical attractiveness (Experiment 2). A self-protection prime interacted with chronic beliefs about danger, increasing participants' tendency to categorize targets based on their racial group membership (Black or White; Experiment 3). This work demonstrates that people categorize others based on whether they display goal-relevant characteristics reflecting high levels of perceived desirability or threat. Social categorization is guided by fundamental evolved motives designed to enhance adaptive social outcomes.     

Mental disorders and communication of intent to die in indigenous suicide cases, Queensland, Australia

In comparing Indigenous to non-Indigenous suicide in Australia, this study focussed on the frequency of the association between some psychiatric conditions, such as depression and alcohol abuse, and some aspect of suicidality, in particular communication of suicide intent. Logistic regression was implemented to analyze cases of Indigenous (n = 471) versus non-Indigenous suicides (n = 6,655), using the Queensland Suicide Register as a data source. Compared to non-Indigenous suicides, Indigenous cases had lower odds of being diagnosed with unipolar depression, seeking treatment for psychiatric conditions or leaving a suicide note. Indigenous suicides had greater odds of verbally communicating suicide intent and having a history of alcohol and substance use. The magnitude of these differences is remarkable, underscoring the need for culturally sensitive suicide prevention efforts.     

Information processing and aspects of visual attention in children with the DSM-III-R diagnosis “pervasive developmental disorder not otherwise specified” (PDDNOS): II. sustained attention

A group of 15 nonhyperactive children of normal intelligence with the DSM-III-R diagnosis “pervasive developmental disorder not otherwise specified” (PDDNOS) performed a sustained attention task. Adopting a cognitive-energetical linear stage model of human information processing, we investigated whether task performances deteriorated due to a diminishing level of arousal, activation, or by the active ‘effortful’ mode of information processing. In comparison to an age-matched group of normal children, the patients showed no sharper decrease in perceptual sensitivity (d'). D' is assumed to be a measure of arousal. However, the children with PDDNOS exhibited large fluctuations in their response bias beta (β), which is assumed to be a measure of activation. During the first part of the task, they shifted between under- and overestimating negative responses. In the latter part of the task this pattern altered to significantly overestimating the number of negative responses. This indicates that the patients were not able to appropriately tune to the task-inherent response probability. Moreover, as compared to the control children, the patients showed a significantly sharper decrease in hit rate with time on task, despite the fact that feedback was given on the errors. The findings are interpreted as an increasing loss of the ability to control the response bias due to difficulties in maintaining the voluntary effortful mode of processing information with prolonged time on task.     

Cognitive components of troubleshooting strategies

This study investigated the kinds of knowledge necessary to learn an important troubleshooting strategy, elimination. A total of 50 college-level students searched for the source of failures in simple digital networks. Production system modelling suggested that students using a common but simpler backtracking strategy would learn the more advanced elimination strategy if they applied certain domain-specific knowledge and the general-purpose problem-solving strategy of reductio ad absurdum. In an experiment, students solved network troubleshooting problems after being trained with either the domain-specific knowledge, the reductio ad absurdum strategy, both types of knowledge, or neither. Students needed both the domain-specific and general knowledge identified by the models in order to significantly increase their elimination use.