Socio-cognitive,expertise-based and appearance-based accounts of the other-‘race’ effect in face perception: A label-based systematic review of neuroimaging results

Two competing theories explain the other-‘race’ effect (ORE) either by greater perceptual expertise to same-‘race’ (SR) faces or by social categorization of other-‘race’ (OR) faces at the expense of individuation. To assess expertise and categorization contributions to the ORE, a promising—yet overlooked—approach is comparing activations for different other-‘races’. We present a label-based systematic review of neuroimaging studies reporting increased activity in response to OR faces (African, Caucasian, or Asian) when compared with the SR of participants. Hypothetically, while common activations would reflect general aspects of OR perception, ‘race’-preferential ones would represent effects of ‘race’-specific visual appearance. We find that several studies report activation of occipito-temporal and midcingulate areas in response to faces across different other-‘races’, presumably due to high demand on the visual system and category processing. Another area reported in response to all OR faces, the caudate nucleus, suggests the involvement of socio-affective processes and behavioural regulation. Overall, our results support hybrid models—both expertise and social categorization contribute to the ORE, but they provide little evidence for reduced motivation to process OR faces. Additionally, we identify areas preferentially responding to specific OR faces, reflecting effects of visual appearance.     

Spillover and crossover effects of exposure to work-related aggression and adversities: A dyadic diary study

The past two decades have produced extensive evidence on the manifold and severe outcomes for victims of aggression exposure in the workplace. However, due to the dominating individual-centered approach, most findings miss a social network perspective. Consequently, knowledge of negative spillover to different life-domains or crossover to uninvolved individuals alongside a detailed understanding of the involved transmission processes remains scarce. By integrating social aggression theorizing, the present study investigated transmission routes (emphatic, behavioral) of experienced adversities and aggression at work toward perpetration of aggressive behavior and potential spillover and crossover effects into the private life domain in a diary study of 72 mixed dyads. Analyses of mediation based upon the Actor-Partner Interdependence Model revealed an association between the frequency of perpetrating aggressive behavior in the work context and a spillover into the private life domain via aggression-promoting internal states (emotions, cognitions, arousal). Based on the different patterns of mediation, it appears that adversities follow a mental transmission process, whereby experienced aggression displayed behavioral assimilation. In contrast, no crossover effects of exposure to adversities or aggression at work to a study partner at home could be detected. Practical and theoretical implications as well as limitations and ideas for future work are discussed.     

How to do things with things

J.L. Austin has demonstrated that people can do things—bring about social facts — with words. Here we describe how some people do things with things. This is a study of the symbolic use and situated history of material objects during a business negotiation between two German entrepreneurs: of the practical transformation of things-at-hand from objects of use into exemplars, or into forms-at-hand that can be used for the construction of transitory symbolic artifacts. Arranging boxes in a particular fashion can be the equivalent of an illocutionary act, but unlike words things remain on the scene as indexical monuments to prior interactional arrangements.

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Speaking rate,voice-onset time,and quantity: The search for higher-order invariants for two Icelandic speech cues

The temporal structure of speech has been shown to be highly variable. Speaking rate, stress, and other factors influence the duration of individual speech sounds. The highly elastic nature of speech would seem to pose a problem for the listener, especially with respect to the perception of temporal speech cues such as voice-onset time (VOT) and quantity: How does the listener disentangle those temporal changes whicqh are linguistically significant from those which are extrinsic to the linguistic message? This paper reports data on the behavior of two Icelandic speech cues at different speaking rates. The results show that manipulations of rate have the effect of slightly blurring the distinction between unaspirated and aspirated stops. Despite great changes in the absolute durations of vowels and consonants, the two categories of syllables-V:C and VC:-are nonetheless kept totally distinct. In two perceptual experiments, it is shown that while the ratio of vowel to rhyme duration is the primary cue to quantity and remains invariant at different rates, no such ratio can be defined for VOT. These results imply that quantity is the only one of these two speech cues that is selfnormalizing for rate. Models of rate-dependent speech processing need to address this difference.     

Activation of nociceptin opioid peptide (NOP) receptor impairs contextual fear learning in mice through glutamatergic mechanisms

The present study investigated whether the selective nociceptin opioid peptide (NOP) receptor agonist, Ro64-6198, impairs acquisition of fear conditioning through glutamatergic mechanisms. Systemic administration of Ro64-6198 (0.3 and 1 mg/kg) or the non-competitive NMDA receptor antagonist, MK-801 (0.03 and 0.1 mg/kg) prior to conditioning severely impaired contextual but not cued fear learning in C57BL/6N mice. When administered together at sub-effective doses, Ro64-6198 (0.5 mg/kg) and MK-801 (0.05 mg/kg), synergistically impaired contextual fear learning, but left cued fear learning intact. We next used the immediate shock deficit paradigm (ISD) to examine the effects of Ro64-6198 and MK-801 on contextual memory formation in the absence of the foot-shock. As expected, naive mice that were shocked briefly after being placed in the training chamber displayed no contextual fear conditioning. This learning deficit was elevated by prior exposure of mice to the training context. Furthermore, administration of Ro64-6198 and MK-801, either separately at amnesic doses (1 mg/kg and 0.1 mg/kg, respectively) or concomitantly at sub-effective doses (0.5 mg/kg and 0.05 mg/kg, respectively) significantly reduced the facilitating effects of context preexposure. These findings demonstrate the existence of functional antagonism between NOP and NMDA receptors that predominantly contributes to modulation of conditioned fear learning which involves spatial-processing demands.