The Reverse-Caricature Effect Revisited: Familiarization With Frontal Facial Caricatures Improves Veridical Face Recognition

Prior research suggests that recognition of a person's face can be facilitated by exaggerating the distinctive features of the face during training. We tested if this 'reverse-caricature effect' would be robust to procedural variations that created more difficult learning environments. Specifically, we examined whether the effect would emerge with frontal rather than three-quarter views, after very brief exposure to caricatures during the learning phase and after modest rotations of faces during the recognition phase. Results indicate that, even under these difficult training conditions, people are more accurate at recognizing unaltered faces if they are first familiarized with caricatures of the faces, rather than with the unaltered faces. These findings support the development of new training methods to improve face recognition.     

The development of intergroup bias in childhood: how social norms can shape children's racial behaviours

The present research examined the developmental course of racial behaviours in childhood. It tested the hypothesis that White children's expressions of racial prejudice do not necessarily decline in middle childhood due to the development of particular cognitive skills but that instead, as argued by the socio-normative approach, children older than seven will go on expressing prejudiced attitudes under appropriate conditions. This would be explained by the presence of an anti-racism norm, along with the existence of values promoting equal rights, which impede blatant expressions of racism. In the first study 283 White children aged 6-7 and 9-10 years performed a task of resource allocation to White and Black target children in conditions of high (White interviewer was present) or low (White interviewer was absent) salience of the anti-racist norm. The 6- to 7-year-old children discriminated against the Black target in both conditions whereas older children discriminated against the Black child only when the anti-racist norm was not salient. In Study 2, 187 White children aged 6-7 and 9-10 years performed the same resource allocation task in conditions of explicit activation of similarity vs dissimilarity or egalitarian vs merit-based norms regarding race relations. Supporting the hypothesis of the role of racist or anti-racist norms on the expression of intergroup discrimination, results have again shown that 6- to 7-year-old children discriminated against the Black target in both conditions while older children presented significantly different prejudiced/nonprejudiced behaviours consistent with the activated norms. These results were discussed in terms of the need for a reanalysis of the assumptions and research results of the cognitive-developmental theory and of further developments in the socio-normative approach regarding the development of prejudice in childhood.     

Which is the real intelligence? A reply to Robinson (1999)

Robinson's ([Robinson, D.L. (1999). The ‘IQ’ factor: implications for intelligence theory and measurement. Personality and Individual Differences, 27, 715–735]) arguments that crystallized intelligence represents the “one valid intelligence factor” are disputed. It is argued that Robinson seriously underestimated the relevance of fluid abilities to “intelligence”, by using an inappropriate criterion for assessing the intelligence-saturation of cognitive ability variables. The relevance of fluid and crystallized abilities to popular, psychometric, and biological conceptions of intelligence is discussed, and the issue of age-related changes in fluid and crystallized intelligence is also addressed.     

Impact of encoding depth on awareness of perceptual effects in recognition memory

Pictorial stimuli are more likely to be recognized if they are the same size, rather than a different size, at study and at test. This size congruency effect was replicated in two experiments in which the encoding variables were respectively undivided versus divided attention and level of processing. In terms of performance, these variables influenced recognition and did not influence size congruency effects. But in terms of awareness, measured by remember and know responses, these variables did influence size congruency effects. With undivided attention and with a deep level of processing, size congruency effects occurred only in remembering. With divided attention and with a shallow level of processing, size congruency effects occurred only in knowing. The results show that effects that occur in remembering may also occur independently in knowing. They support theories in which remembering and knowing reflect different memory processes or systems. They do not support the theory that remembering and knowing reflect differences in trace strength.     

Relation between aging and research productivity of academic psychologists

Using a cross-sequential design involving four birth cohorts and five measurement periods, a curvilinear relation between aging and research productivity was found for more than 1,000 academic psychologists. Productivity typically began at a low rate in the 20s, increased to a peak around age 40, then decreased in the later years. Substantial individual differences were also observed. Those who began as high publishers remained more productive than the low or medium groups at each age level examined, and even at ages 55-64 they were more productive than the medium or low publishers were at their highest rate. Altogether, across cohorts and publishing levels, age accounted for 6.5% of the variance in publication rate from ages 25-34 to 55-64.     

Speed of information processing and general intelligence

This study investigates the relationship between a number of measures of speed of cognitive information-processing and intelligence test scores. One hundred university students were given five tests of speed-of-processing, measuring their speed of encoding, short-term memory scanning, long-term memory retrieval, efficiency of short-term memory storage and processing, and simple and choice reaction time or decision-making speed. They were also given the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale and the Raven Advanced Progression Matrices. A number of multiple regression analyses show that the cognitive processing measures are significantly related to IQ scores. Other analyses indicate that this relationship cannot be attributed to the common content shared by the reaction time and the intelligence tests, nor to the fact that parts of the WAIS are timed. It is concluded that the reaction time tests measure basic cognitive operations which are involved in many forms of intellectual behavior, and that individual differences in intelligence can be attributed, to a moderate extent, to variance in the speed or efficiency with which individuals can execute these operations.     

AN ALTERNATING TREATMENT COMPARISON OF ORAL AND TOTAL COMMUNICATION TRAINING PROGRAMS WITH ECHOLALIC AUTISTIC CHILDREN

An alternating treatment comparison was conducted of the relative effectiveness of oral and total communication training models for teaching expressive labeling skills to three echolalic autistic children. The results of this comparison demonstrated that total communication proved to be the most successful approach with each of the subjects. In addition, the replication of these findings both within and across subjects suggest that total communication may be, in general, the most effective of these two training models for teaching basic vocal language skills to echolalic children. A number of hypotheses are presented that may provide a basis for the demonstrated effect.     

Tutor Attributions and Attitude As a Function of Tutee Performance1

In a single-session tutoring situation, a sixth-grade tutor taught a concept-formation task to a third-grade tutee. Over the series of trials, performance of the tutee was controlled to create differential patterns of success and failure on the task: success-success, failure-failure, success-failure, and failure-success. Results showed that sequence of performance exerted a strong impact on the tutor's attributions of ability and affective responses concerning the tutee. The tutee's initial performance had greater impact on the tutor's reactions than later performance, indicating a strong primacy effect. Differential performance by the tutee did not affect the tutor's evaluation of his own teaching ability.     

Binocular interaction of orientation and spatial frequency channels: Evoked potentials and observer sensitivity

The interaction between size and orientation feature processing in the human visual system was investigated. Both observer sensitivity (d’ss) and the visual evoked potential (VEP) to test gratings flashed to one eye were investigated as a function of the nature of a continuously presented suppressing grating viewed either by that same eye or the opposite eye. The test and suppressing gratings were varied both in bar width (9′ss vs. 36′ss) and orientation (vertical vs. horizontal). The continuous grating intra- and interocularly suppressed the monocular VEPs to the flashed grating, the specificity of the suppression depending on the latency at which VEP amplitude was measured. VEP amplitude measured at early latencies (100–125 msec) was suppressed primarily when the flashed and continuous gratings were the same orientation, regardless of size. Starting at about 200 msec, and thereafter, VEP amplitudes were suppressed when the continuous bars were either the same orientationor size as the flashed bars. Late latencies, starting at 220 msec, and thereafter, were suppressed primarily when the bars in the two gratings were the same orientation and size. The reduction in observer sensitivity (d′ss) paralleled the changes found in the late VEP measures. These effects were evident under both the intraocular and interocular suppressing conditions. This pattern of VEP suppression, measured across eight points in the VEP waveform, was interpreted as indicating the existence of a sequence of channels that are specific first to a particular grating orientation, then to either a particular grating spatial frequency or orientation, and finally to the conjunction of a particular orientation and spatial frequency. Both sequential and parallel feature processing appears to take place in the human visual cortex, with grating orientation being encoded earlier than grating size.