Breaking face processing tasks apart to improve their predictive value in the real world: A comment on Ramon,Bobak, and White (2019)

In this commentary, I will expand on three aspects suggested by Ramon et al. (2019, British Journal of Psychology, 110, 461) to improve the predictive value of laboratory‐based tasks in real‐world applications. There are potential benefits that may arise from three interrelated considerations, particularly in terms of predicting agents’ susceptibility to errors in operational settings. The first is a proposal to conduct a detailed examination of performance on face processing tests rather than only analysing overall accuracy scores. The second involves considering non‐face‐related cognitive and meta‐cognitive sub‐processes involved in face processing tasks. The third highlights the contribution of superior recognisers in creating challenging tests that simulate difficult real‐world situations.     

Towards a ‘manifesto’ for super‐recognizer research

This article provides a response to five excellent commentaries on our article ‘Super‐recognizers: From the lab to the world and back again’. Specifically, the response summarizes commonalities between these commentaries. Based on this consensus, we propose a flexible framework for the assessment of superior face recognition and outline guiding principles to advance future work in the field.     

The influence of need for cognitive closure on the attention‐recognition stage of preventive coping

The current study explored the influence of need for cognitive closure (NFCC) on preventive coping via its effects on the attention‐recognition stage and sought to determine whether this influence was moderated by individuals' existing knowledge. An experiment involving 90 university students used the vignette‐reading paradigm to explore the relationships between NFCC, attention and preventive coping behaviour. The results indicated that when preventive coping situations were consistent with participants' previous knowledge, people with high, relative to low, NFCC were more inclined to use preventive coping strategies. As a stage of preventive coping, gaining awareness of potential stressors mediated the relationship between NFCC and preventive coping. However, when coping situations were inconsistent with participants' knowledge, the relationship between NFCC and preventive coping was non‐significant.     

Hemispheric processing of lexical information in Chinese character recognition and its relationship to reading performance

Hemispheric predominance has been well documented in the visual perception of alphabetic words. However, the hemispheric processing of lexical information in Chinese character recognition and its relationship to reading performance are far from clear. In the divided visual field paradigm, participants were required to judge the orthography, phonology, or semantics of Chinese characters, which were presented randomly in the left or right visual field. The results showed a right visual field/left hemispheric superiority in the phonological judgment task, but no hemispheric advantage in the orthographic or semantic task was found. In addition, reaction times in the right visual field for phonological and semantic tasks were significantly correlated with the reading test score. These results suggest that both hemispheres involved in the orthographic and semantic processing of Chinese characters, and that the left lateralized phonological processing is important for Chinese fluent reading.     

Determinants of assessing efficiency within auditory attention networks

The attention network test (ANT) assesses efficiency across alerting, orienting, and executive components of visual attention. This study examined approaches to assessing auditory attention networks, and performance was compared to the visual ANT. Results showed (1) alerting was sufficiently elicited in a pitch discrimination and sound localization task, although these effects were unrelated, (2) weak orienting of attention was elicited through pitch discrimination, which varied based on ISI and conflict level, but robust orienting of attention was found through sound localization, and (3) executive control was sufficiently assessed in both pitch discrimination and sound localization tasks, but these effects were unrelated. Correlation analysis suggested that, unlike alerting and orienting, sound localization auditory executive control functions tap a shared attention network system. Overall, the results suggest that auditory ANT measures are largely task and modality specific, with sound localization offering potential to assess all three attention networks in a single task.     

Difficult Differences: A Socio‐cultural Analysis of How Diversity Can Enable and Inhibit Creativity

The relationship between diversity and creativity can be seen as paradoxical. A diversity of perspectives should be advantageous for collaborative creativity, yet its benefits are often offset by adverse social processes. One suggestion for overcoming these negative effects is perspective taking. We compared four dyads with low scores on trait perspective taking with four dyads who were high on trait perspective taking on a brainstorming task followed by reconstructive interviews. Trait‐based perspective taking was strongly associated with greater creativity. However, contrary with expectation, interactional perspective taking behaviors (including questioning, signaling understanding, repairing) were associated with lesser creativity. The dyads that generated the fewest ideas were most likely to get stuck within ideational domains, struggling to understand one‐another, having to elaborate and justify their ideas more. In contrast, the dyads that generated many ideas were more likely to recognize each other's ideas as valuable without extensive justification or negotiation. We suggest that perspective taking is crucially important for mediating diversity in the generation of new ideas not only because it enables understanding the perspective of the other, but because it entails an atmosphere of tolerance, playfulness, and mutual recognition.     

Sex differences in facial emotion perception ability across the lifespan

Perception of emotion in the face is a key component of human social cognition and is considered vital for many domains of life; however, little is known about how this ability differs across the lifespan for men and women. We addressed this question with a large community sample (N?=?100,257) of persons ranging from younger than 15 to older than 60 years of age. Participants were viewers of the television show “Tout le Monde Joue”, and the task was presented on television, with participants responding via their mobile devices. Applying latent variable modeling, and establishing measurement invariance between males and females and across age, we found that, for both males and females, emotion perception abilities peak between the ages of 15 and 30, with poorer performance by younger adults and declining performance after the age of 30. In addition, we show a consistent advantage by females across the lifespan, which decreases in magnitude with increasing age. This large scale study with a wide range of people and testing environments suggests these effects are largely robust. Implications are discussed.     

Rhythmic priming across effector systems: A randomized controlled trial with Parkinson’s disease patients

This study investigated the immediate effects of auditory-motor entrainment across effector systems by examining whether Rhythmic Auditory Stimulation training of arm or finger movements would modulate gait speed. Forty-one participants with idiopathic Parkinson’s Disease were randomly assigned to 3 groups. Participants in the finger-tapping group tapped in synchrony with a metronome set to 20% faster pace than the pre-training walking cadence, whereas participants in the other group were asked to swing both arms in an alternating motion in synchrony with the metronome. Participants in the control condition did not receive training. To assess gait parameters pre- and post-training, participants walked on a 14-meter flat walkway at his/her preferred walking cadence with no auditory cueing. Results indicated that there was a significant increase in gait velocity after the finger tapping training (p < .005), whereas no differences were observed in the arm swing (p = .802) and in the control conditions (p = .525). Similarly, there were significant changes in gait cadence post-training in the finger tapping group (p < .005), but not after arm swing training (p = .879) or control (p = .759). There were no significant changes in stride length post-training in none of the groups. These findings suggest that auditory-motor entrainment in one effector system may prime a second effector system. Interestingly, however, the priming effect on gait was only observed in the finger tapping condition and not with synchronized arm swing movements. These findings have significant implications for motor rehabilitation and open new avenues for further investigation of the mechanisms underlying cross-effector coupling.     

No evidence that alcohol intoxication impairs judgments of learning in face recognition

Alcohol use is frequently involved in crime, making it crucial to understand the role of alcohol in facial recognition to maximize correct perpetrator identifications. Although the majority of the alcohol and face recognition research has investigated recognition with retrospective confidence judgments, we examined the effects of alcohol intoxication on face recognition with prospective metacognitive judgments. Participants (N = 54 university students without a history of hazardous alcohol/substance use) consumed either alcohol (mean breath alcohol concentration of 0.06 at pretest and 0.07 at post‐test) or a non‐alcoholic placebo drink. Participants then studied unfamiliar male and female faces and made judgments of learning (JOLs) for each face (i.e., predicted the likelihood of recognizing that face on a future memory test). After a brief distractor task, participants completed an old–new recognition test on which they attempted to distinguish the studied faces from new faces. It was found that the alcohol manipulation had minimal effect on face recognition performance or judgments of learning. Our results suggest that theory‐based cues about the effects of alcohol might play a greater role in retrospective judgments than prospective judgments. Although not a primary focus of the study, face recognition was better for male faces than female faces, and this occurred for both female and male participants. Limitations and implications of the research are discussed.