Interactive processes in matching identity and expressions of unfamiliar faces: evidence for mutual facilitation effects

We investigated the interactions between matching identity and expressions of unfamiliar faces. In experiment 1, participants matched expressions in frontal and in oblique views, while we manipulated facial identity. In experiment 2, participants matched identity in frontal and in oblique views, while facial expressions were manipulated. Labeling of expressions was not required. Results showed mutual facilitation between matching facial identity and facial expressions, in accuracy as well as in reaction times. Thus, matching expressions was better and faster for same-identity images in oblique as well as in frontal views (experiment 1), and matching identity was better and faster for same-expression images in oblique as well as in frontal views (experiment 2). The discussion focuses on the implications of these results for the structural encoding of facial identity and facial expressions.     

Familiarity effects on categorization levels of faces and objects

It is well established that faces, in contrast to objects, are categorized as fast or faster at the individual level (e.g., Bill Clinton) than at the basic-level (e.g., human face). This subordinate-shift from basic-level categorization has been considered an outcome of visual expertise with processing faces. However, in the present study we found that, similar to familiar faces, categorization of individually-known familiar towers is also faster at the individual level than at the basic-level in naïve participants. In addition, category-verification of familiar stimuli, at basic and superordinate levels, was slower and less accurate compared to unfamiliar stimuli. Thus, the existence of detailed semantic information, regardless of expertise, can induce a shift in the default level of object categorization from basic to individual level. Moreover, the individually-specific knowledge is not only more easily-retrieved from memory but it might also interfere with accessing more general category information.     

The effect of time pressure on risky choice behavior

Thirty six subjects chose individually between pairs of gambles under three time pressure conditions: High (8 seconds), Medium (16 seconds) and Low (32 seconds). The gambles in each pair were equated for expected value but differed in variance, amounts to win and lose and their respective probabilities. Information about each dimension could be obtained by the subject sequentially according to his preference.The results show that subjects are less risky under High as compared to Medium and Low time pressure, risk taking being measured by choices of gambles with lower variance or lower amounts to lose and win. Subjects tended to spend more time observing the negative dimensions (amount to lose and probability of losing), whereas under low time pressure they preffered observing their positive counterparts. Information preference was found to be related to choices.Filtration of information and acceleration of its processing appear to be the strategies of coping with time pressure.     

Landau-Kleffner syndrome, electrical status epilepticus in slow wave sleep, and language regression in children

The Landau-Kleffner syndrome (LKS) and electrical status epilepticus in slow wave sleep (ESES) are rare childhood-onset epileptic encephalopathies in which loss of language skills occurs in the context of an epileptiform EEG activated in sleep. Although in LKS the loss of function is limited to language, in ESES there is a wider spectrum of cognitive impairment. The two syndromes are distinct but have some overlap. The relationship between the epileptiform EEG abnormalities and the loss of cognitive function remains controversial, even in LKS which is the most widely accepted as an acquired epileptic aphasia. Language regression also occurs in younger children, frequently in the context of a more global autistic regression. Many of these children have epileptiform EEGs. The term autistic regression with epileptiform EEG has been proposed for these children. Whether these children are part of an extended LKS spectrum is very controversial, because there are differences in age of onset, clinical phenotype, and EEG findings. An understanding of the available data on clinical characteristics, EEG findings, pathology, prognosis, and treatment of these syndromes is essential for further progress in this area.     

Restorying family therapy

This article describes a multi-systemic model of therapy developed by the author over the past decade and summarizes the main products of this project: Explication of key family systems notions, strategic family play therapy, multi-systemic therapy, and culturally-competent family therapy. The model incorporates beyond the family system, culture, wider ecosystems, psychodynamics, and the individual's neuropsychological, cognitive, and socio-emotional development. The model enables the therapist to design flexible multimodal interventions.     

The Ethics of De-Extinction

“de-extinction” refers to the process of resurrecting extinct species by genetic methods. This science-fiction-sounding idea is in fact already in early processes of scientific implementation. Although this recent “revival of the dead” raises deep ethical questions, the ethics of de-extinction has barely received philosophical treatment. Rather than seeking a verdict for or against de-extinction, this paper attempts an overview and some novel analyses of the main ethical considerations. Five dimensions of the ethics of de-extinction are explored: (a) the possible contribution of de-extinction to promoting ecological values, (b) the deontological argument that we owe de-extinction to species we rendered extinct, (c) the question of “playing God” through de-extinction, (d) the utilitarian perspective, and (e) the role of aesthetic considerations in the ethics of de-extinction. A general feature arising from the paper’s discussion is that, due to de-extinction’s special character, it repeatedly tests the limits of our ethical notions.     

Compensation of neural delays in visual‐motor behaviour: No evidence for shorter afferent delays for visual motion

Abstract

Faces and other objects that share a configuration present a special problem to the visual system. Two components of the visual system's solution to this homogeneity problem have been identified. Inversion studies have identified the use of relational features (Diamond &; Carey, 1986; Rhodes, Brake, &; Atkinson, 1993), and caricature studies have identified norm-based coding (Carey, Rhodes, Diamond, &; Hamilton, in preparation; Rhodes, Brennan, &; Carey, 1987; Rhodes &; McLean, 1990). Here we explore a possible link between these two components, asking whether caricature effects depend selectively on exaggeration of relational features. If so, then inversion, which makes relational features particularly difficult to code (compared with isolated features), should reduce caricature effects. In three experiments we found a caricature equivalence effect (caricatures identified as accurately as undistorted images and both better than anticaricatures) that was unaffected by orientation, suggesting that relational feature coding is not necessary for caricatures to be effective. Therefore, caricature and inversion effects reflect distinct components of face recognition. Caricature level and orientation also interacted differently with other factors, as would be expected if their effects depend upon different underlying processes. For one set of faces there was a caricature advantage in accuracy (Experiments 1 and 3). This superportrait effect occurred even for subjects who were unfamiliar with the faces prior to the experiment (Experiment 3), a result with important forensic implications. Furthermore, the effect was restricted to upright faces. Therefm, although caricatures can be recognized as well as undistorted images whatever features are exaggerated, exaggeration of relational features may be needed for a superportrait effect.     

Word associations are formed incidentally during sentential semantic integration

Sentential context facilitates the incidental formation of word associations (e.g., Prior, A., & Bentin, S. (2003). Incidental formation of episodic associations: the importance of sentential context. Memory and Cognition, 31(2), 306-316). The present study explored the mechanism of this effect. In two experiments, unrelated word pairs were embedded in coherent or semantically anomalous sentences. Anomalous sentences included either a local or a global anomaly. During an incidental study phase, participants performed a sentence categorization task. The strength of the incidental associations formed between two nouns jointly appearing in a sentence was probed by gauging their influence on subsequent paired-associate learning and cued recall in Experiment 1, and by assessing their associative priming effect in a subsequent unexpected explicit recognition test for single words in Experiment 2. In both experiments, significant associative memory was found for noun pairs studied in coherent sentences but not for those appearing in anomalous sentences, regardless of anomaly type. In a sentence rating task, global anomalies yielded less plausible sentences than local anomalies, however both types of anomalies were equally detrimental to the sentence integration process. We suggest that sentence constituents are incidentally associated during sentence processing, particularly as a result of sentence integration and the consolidation of a mental model.     

Attentional and perceptual factors affecting the attentional blink for faces and objects

When 2 different visual targets presented among different distracters in a rapid serial visual presentation (RSVP) are separated by 400 ms or less, detection and identification of the 2nd targets are reduced relative to longer time intervals. This phenomenon, termed the attentional blink (AB), is attributed to the temporary engagement of a limited-capacity attentional system by the 1st target, which reduces resources available for processing the 2nd target. Although AB has been reliably obtained with many stimulus types, it has not been found for faces (E. Awh et al., 2004). In the present study, the authors investigate the underpinnings of this immunity. Unveiling circumstances in which AB occurs within and across faces and other categories, the authors demonstrate that a multichannel model cannot account for the absence of AB effects on faces. The authors suggest instead that perceptual salience of the face within the distracters' series as well as the available resources determine whether or not faces are blinked in RSVP.     

Neural correlates of adaptation to voice identity

Apart from speech content, the human voice also carries paralinguistic information about speaker identity. Voice identification and its neural correlates have received little scientific attention up to now. Here we use event-related potentials (ERPs) in an adaptation paradigm, in order to investigate the neural representation and the time course of vocal identity processing. Participants adapted to repeated utterances of vowel-consonant-vowel (VCV) of one personally familiar speaker (either A or B), before classifying a subsequent test voice varying on an identity continuum between these two speakers. Following adaptation to speaker A, test voices were more likely perceived as speaker B and vice versa, and these contrastive voice identity aftereffects (VIAEs) were much more pronounced when the same syllable, rather than a different syllable, was used as adaptor. Adaptation induced amplitude reductions of the frontocentral N1-P2 complex and a prominent reduction of the parietal P3 component, for test voices preceded by identity-corresponding adaptors. Importantly, only the P3 modulation remained clear for across-syllable combinations of adaptor and test stimuli. Our results suggest that voice identity is contrastively processed by specialized neurons in auditory cortex within ～250 ms after stimulus onset, with identity processing becoming less dependent on speech content after ～300 ms.