Investigating the other-race effect in working memory

People have difficulties in remembering other-race faces; this so-called other-race effect (ORE) has been frequently observed in long-term recognition memory (LTM). Several theories argue that the ORE in LTM is caused by differences in earlier processing stages, such as encoding of ingroup and outgroup faces. We test this hypothesis by exploring whether the ORE can already be observed in visual working memory (VWM)—an intermediate system located between encoding processes and LTM storage. In four independent experiments, we observed decreased performance for outgroup faces compared to ingroup faces using three different VWM tasks: an adaptive N-back task, a self-ordered pointing task, and a change detection task. Also, we found that the number of items stored in VWM is smaller for outgroup faces than for ingroup faces. Further, we explored whether performance differences in the change detection task are related to the classic ORE in recognition memory. Our results provide further evidence that the ORE originates during earlier stages of cognitive processing. We discuss that (how) future ORE research may benefit from considering theories and evidence from the VWM literature.     

Letter‐case information and the identification of brand names

A central tenet of most current models of visual‐word recognition is that lexical units are activated on the basis of case‐invariant abstract letter representations. Here, we examined this assumption by using a unique type of words: brand names. The rationale of the experiments is that brand names are archetypically printed either in lowercase (e.g., adidas ) or uppercase (e.g., IKEA ). This allows us to present the brand names in their standard or non‐standard case configuration (e.g., adidas , IKEA vs. ADIDAS , ikea , respectively). We conducted two experiments with a brand‐decision task (‘is it a brand name?’): a single‐presentation experiment and a masked priming experiment. Results in the single‐presentation experiment revealed faster identification times of brand names in their standard case configuration than in their non‐standard case configuration (i.e., adidas faster than ADIDAS ; IKEA faster than ikea ). In the masked priming experiment, we found faster identification times of brand names when they were preceded by an identity prime that matched its standard case configuration than when it did not (i.e., faster response times to adidas ‐adidas than to ADIDAS ‐adidas ). Taken together, the present findings strongly suggest that letter‐case information forms part of a brand name's graphemic information, thus posing some limits to current models of visual‐word recognition.     

Virtual experiments in megastudies: A case study of language and emotion

A recent dramatic increase in the number and scope of chronometric and norming lexical megastudies offers the ability to conduct virtual experiments—that is, to draw samples of items with properties that vary in critical linguistic dimensions. This paper introduces a bootstrapping approach, which enables testing of research hypotheses against a range of samples selected in a uniform, principled manner and evaluates how likely a theoretically motivated pattern is in a broad distribution of possible outcome patterns. We apply this approach to conflicting theoretical and empirical accounts of the relationship between the psychological valence (positivity) of a word and its speed of recognition. To this end, we conduct three sets of multiple virtual experiments with a factorial and a regression design, drawing data from two lexical decision megastudies. We discuss the influence that criteria for stimuli selection, statistical power, collinearity, and the choice of dataset have on the efficacy and outcomes of the bootstrapping procedure.     

This time it’s personal: the memory benefit of hearing oneself

The production effect is the memory advantage of saying words aloud over simply reading them silently. It has been hypothesised that this advantage stems from production featuring distinctive information that stands out at study relative to reading silently. MacLeod (2011) (I said, you said: The production effect gets personal. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 18, 1197–1202. doi:10.3758/s13423-011-0168-8) found superior memory for reading aloud oneself vs. hearing another person read aloud, which suggests that motor information (speaking), self-referential information (i.e., “I said it”), or both contribute to the production effect. In the present experiment, we dissociated the influence on memory of these two components by including a study condition in which participants heard themselves read words aloud (recorded earlier) – a first for production effect research – along with the more typical study conditions of reading aloud, hearing someone else speak, and reading silently. There was a gradient of memory across these four conditions, with hearing oneself lying between speaking and hearing someone else speak. These results imply that oral production is beneficial because it entails two distinctive components: a motor (speech) act and a unique, self-referential auditory input.     

Infants recognize identity in a dynamic facial animation that simultaneously changes its identity and expression

Recognition of facial identity and facial expression have been reported to be correlated. Previous studies using static facial photographs reported that identity recognition was not interfered by task-irrelevant change of facial expression but that expression recognition was interfered by task-irrelevant change of facial identity. In this study, we created dynamic morphing animations that simultaneously changes facial identity and expression to investigate the interaction between identity and expression recognition. We tested 7 –8-month-old infants who were around the age at which the recognition of facial expression develops. Using the familiarization–novelty preference procedure, we examined whether infants could learn identity and facial expression from morphing animation. We found that infants learned identity but not expression from the morphing animation. Our results demonstrate that the interaction between identity and expression occurs differently in infancy than in adults when both the dimension of facial identity and the expression vary simultaneously.     

Familiarity matters: A review on prioritized processing of personally familiar faces

In this review, we synthesize the existing literature investigating personally familiar face processing and highlight the remarkable, enhanced processing efficiency resulting from real-life experience. Highly learned identity-specific visual and semantic information associated with personally familiar face representations facilitates detection, recognition of identity and social cues, and activation of person knowledge. These optimizations afford qualitatively different processing of personally familiar as compared to unfamiliar faces, which manifests on both the behavioural and neural level.     

Effects of geometric distortions,Gaussian blur,and contrast negation on recognition of familiar faces

It is assumed that “configural processing” is important for recognizing people whom we know. Studies have shown better discrimination of relational changes between facial features when faces are presented upright than upside down and when presented as photographic negatives. However, studies have also demonstrated tolerance for complex changes to facial configuration of familiar faces when images are geometrically distorted. In two experiments, we explored effects of linear stretching, Gaussian blur, and contrast negation on recognition of familiar or unfamiliar faces (Experiment 1) and familiar or unfamiliar company brand logos (Experiment 2). Only contrast negation severely impaired recognition of familiar faces but not unfamiliar faces or company brand logos. Effects of contrast negation were additional to linear stretching, whereas linear stretching independently had no impact on recognition. These findings highlight an important deficit in the recognition of familiar faces caused by contrast negation.     

Auditory speed tasks as potential candidates for the study of cognitive ageing

Speed of information processing is an important cognitive ability. It facilitates the efficient operation of higher order cognitive functions, such as reasoning, and is implicated in various models of cognitive decline. The present study considers the potential benefits of expanding the measurement of processing speed to include the auditory modality. It examines the reliability and factorial structure of a variety of auditory and visual speed tasks in a sample of N = 138 older adults aged between 51 and 82 years. Our findings demonstrate that auditory measures can be used to assess processing speed as indexed by existing widely used tests of this ability. Moreover, the inclusion of auditory tasks significantly increases the relationship between processing speed and general cognitive ability. This novel research provides strong evidence of the suitability of auditory speed tasks for the study of cognitive function in older people, and demonstrates the importance of expanding cognitive measurement to include alternate modalities.