Investigation of effects of face rotation on race processing: An ERPs study

Recent ERP research has indicated that the processing of faces of other races (OR) and same race (SR) as the perceiver differs at the perceptual level, more precisely for the N170 component. The purpose of the present study was to continue the investigation of the race-of-face processing across multiple orientations. Event-related brain potentials (ERPs) and performance were recorded when Caucasian participants were required to categorize by race Caucasian and African faces presented in eight different angles of orientation. Three main observations were made: (1) the face-sensitive N170 is modulated by the race of faces, being larger in response to OR compared to SR faces; (2) face rotation affected this component in the same pattern for both racial groups; (3) the N170-ORE progressively disappeared as the faces moved away from their canonical orientation at the right hemisphere only. Thus, the current findings suggest that configural/holisitic information is extracted from faces of both racial groups, but that upright OR faces require increased demands.     

The speed of visual recognition memory

Two processes are thought to support visual recognition memory (VRM): Familiarity and recollection. The former is generally considered to be faster. However, the relationship between the precise onset of the two processes is unclear. Here, we use a novel paradigm, the SAB (Speed and Accuracy Boosting procedure) that constrains participants to use their fastest strategy and provides a continuous distribution of their reaction times. We show that fast recognition occurs as early as ~370 ms, a limit that appears incompressible whatever types of stimuli were used. In a second experiment, running the SAB in conjunction with a modified version of the remember/know paradigm, we show that responses up to ~420 ms are based solely on familiarity. These time limits of 370 ms and 420 ms provide strong constraints on the neural mechanisms underlying VRM and suggest that the fastest, familiarity-based, responses could rely on the visual ventral stream only.     

Intergroup predictors of older workers' attitudes towards work and early exit

Using self-determination theory (Deci &; Ryan, 2008) as the guiding theoretical framework, the present study tested a model that incorporates workers' perceptions of organizational support and supervisor autonomy support, global and domain specific (i.e., work) motivation, work satisfaction, and turnover intentions. The hypothesized model was tested using a sample of 735 workers (362 men and 373 women). Results revealed that work motivation was significantly related to both intraindividual (global motivation) and contextual factors (organizational support and supervisor autonomy support). In addition, perceived organizational support and work autonomous motivation were positively related to work satisfaction, whereas turnover intentions were negatively related to perceived organizational support and work autonomous motivation, and positively related to work controlled motivation. The present results underscore the importance of understanding the mechanisms through which higher turnover intentions and lower worker satisfaction take place, eventually leading to appropriate interventions.     

Children's Ability to Recognize Emotions From Partial and Complete Facial Expressions

The authors investigated children's ability to recognize emotions from the information available in the lower, middle, or upper face. School-age children were shown partial or complete facial expressions and asked to say whether they corresponded to a given emotion (anger, fear, surprise, or disgust). The results indicate that 5-year-olds were able to recognize fear, anger, and surprise from partial facial expressions. Fear was better recognized from the information located in the upper face than those located in the lower face. A similar pattern of results was found for anger, but only in girls. Recognition improved between 5 and 10 years old for surprise and anger, but not for fear and disgust.     

The role of intergroup disgust in predicting negative outgroup evaluations

We introduce intergroup disgust as an individual difference and contextual manipulation. As an individual difference, intergroup disgust sensitivity (ITG-DS) represents affect-laden revulsion toward social outgroups, incorporating beliefs in stigma transfer and social superiority. Study 1 (5 samples, N = 708) validates the ITG-DS scale. Higher ITG-DS scorers demonstrated greater general disgust sensitivity, disease concerns, authoritarian/conservative ideologies, and negative affect. Greater ITG-DS correlated with stronger outgroup threat perceptions and discrimination, and uniquely predicted negative outgroup attitudes beyond well-established prejudice-predictors. Intergroup disgust was experimentally manipulated in Study 2, exposing participants (n = 164) to a travel blog concerning contact with a disgust-evoking (vs. neutral) outgroup. Manipulated disgust generated negative outgroup evaluations through greater threat and anxiety. This mediation effect was moderated: Those higher (vs. lower) in ITG-DS did not experience stronger disgust, threat, or anxiety reactions, but demonstrated stronger translation of aversive reactions (especially outgroup threat) into negative attitudes. Theory development and treatment implications are considered.     

Symmetry brings an impression of familiarity but does not improve recognition memory

Studies have shown that symmetric stimuli are recognized better than asymmetric stimuli but evidence suggests that this advantage may result from a familiarity bias induced by symmetry. We used a classic episodic memory paradigm to test this bias and see if it truly accounts for the symmetry advantage. Subjects first encoded symmetric and asymmetric figures. During a subsequent recognition phase, they discriminated the encoded (old) figures from new intermixed figures. The recognition rate of old figures was higher with symmetric figures than asymmetric figures. However, the tendency to falsely recognize new figures was also higher when they were symmetric, meaning that the higher recognition rate for symmetric figures was artificially inflated by a response bias. Three other experiments further tested this finding and examined the influence of some variables (rotation in virtual 3D space, stimulus meaningfulness, and redundancy of information) on the bias. A fifth experiment with photo stimuli confirmed that the response bias also applies to objects that we regularly encounter in everyday life. In conclusion, our results show that symmetry does not enhance mnemonic processes but instead induces a response bias leading individuals to judge such stimuli as having been seen.     

Functional magnetic resonance imaging study of Piaget's conservation-of-number task in preschool and school-age children: a neo-Piagetian approach

Jean Piaget’s theory is a central reference point in the study of logico-mathematical development in children. One of the most famous Piagetian tasks is number conservation. Failures and successes in this task reveal two fundamental stages in children’s thinking and judgment, shifting at approximately 7 years of age from visuospatial intuition to number conservation. In the current study, preschool children (nonconservers, 5-6 years of age) and school-age children (conservers, 9-10 years of age) were presented with Piaget’s conservation-of-number task and monitored by functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). The cognitive change allowing children to access conservation was shown to be related to the neural contribution of a bilateral parietofrontal network involved in numerical and executive functions. These fMRI results highlight how the behavioral and cognitive stages Piaget formulated during the 20th century manifest in the brain with age.     

Visual memory and visual perception: when memory improves visual search

This study examined the relationship between memory and perception in order to identify the influence of a memory dimension in perceptual processing. Our aim was to determine whether the variation of typical size between items (i.e., the size in real life) affects visual search. In two experiments, the congruency between typical size difference and perceptual size difference was manipulated in a visual search task. We observed that congruency between the typical and perceptual size differences decreased reaction times in the visual search (Exp. 1), and noncongruency between these two differences increased reaction times in the visual search (Exp. 2). We argue that these results highlight that memory and perception share some resources and reveal the intervention of typical size difference on the computation of the perceptual size difference.     

The influence of contour fragmentation on recognition memory: an event-related potential study

The present study was carried out to examine how the event-related potentials to fragmentation predict recognition success. Stimuli were abstract meaningless figures that were either complete or fragmented to various extents but still recoverable. Stimuli were first encoded as part of a symmetry discrimination task. In a subsequent recognition phase, encoded stimuli were presented complete along with never presented stimuli and participants performed an old/new discrimination task. Fragmentation stimuli elicited more negative ERPs than complete figures over the frontal, central and parietal areas between 180 and 260 ms, and over the occipito-temporal areas between 220 and 340 ms. Only this latter effect was modulated as a function of whether stimuli were recognized or not during the recognition phase of the memory test. More specifically, the effect occurred for stimuli that were later forgotten and was absent for stimuli that were later recognized. This ERP to fragmentation, the occipito-temporal N(frag), possibly reflects the brain response to encoding difficulty, and is thus predictive of recognition performance.     

An fMRI investigation of a novel analogue to the Trail-Making Test

The Trail-Making Test (TMT) is a widely used neuropsychological measure that assesses visuomotor abilities and cognitive flexibility. For the TMT-A condition participants are required to locate and connect numbers (i.e. 1-2-3…) while in the TMT-B condition participants perform the set-shifting task of locating and connecting numbers and letters (i.e. 1-A-2-B…). The TMT-B condition has shown impairments in many clinical populations, particularly schizophrenia patients, but the neurobiological underpinning of the task can be difficult to discern given pragmatic obstacles in adapting the task for neuroimaging. In a behavioural testing experiment we demonstrated a close correspondence between performance on the standard TMT and a novel, computer programmed adaptation of the TMT (pcTMT). The pcTMT was designed for functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) administration and neuroimaging data for this task were obtained in. A whole brain analysis revealed significantly greater activation during the pcTMT-B relative to the pcTMT-A in right inferior/middle frontal cortices, right precentral gyrus, left angular gyrus/left middle temporal gyrus. These results identify the regions that most likely underlie cognitive flexibility during the TMT and are candidate regions underlying the impairment of groups with poor set-shifting abilities.