Browsing by Subject "Recognition (Psychology)"

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Open Access
A comparison of dimensional models of emotion: evidence from emotions, prototypical events, autobiographical memories, and words.
(Memory, 2009-11) Rubin, David C; Talarico, Jennifer M
The intensity and valence of 30 emotion terms, 30 events typical of those emotions, and 30 autobiographical memories cued by those emotions were each rated by different groups of 40 undergraduates. A vector model gave a consistently better account of the data than a circumplex model, both overall and in the absence of high-intensity, neutral valence stimuli. The Positive Activation - Negative Activation (PANA) model could be tested at high levels of activation, where it is identical to the vector model. The results replicated when ratings of arousal were used instead of ratings of intensity for the events and autobiographical memories. A reanalysis of word norms gave further support for the vector and PANA models by demonstrating that neutral valence, high-arousal ratings resulted from the averaging of individual positive and negative valence ratings. Thus, compared to a circumplex model, vector and PANA models provided overall better fits.
Open Access
Decoding an olfactory mechanism of kin recognition and inbreeding avoidance in a primate.
(BMC Evol Biol, 2009-12-03) Boulet, Marylène; Charpentier, Marie JE; Drea, Christine M
BACKGROUND: Like other vertebrates, primates recognize their relatives, primarily to minimize inbreeding, but also to facilitate nepotism. Although associative, social learning is typically credited for discrimination of familiar kin, discrimination of unfamiliar kin remains unexplained. As sex-biased dispersal in long-lived species cannot consistently prevent encounters between unfamiliar kin, inbreeding remains a threat and mechanisms to avoid it beg explanation. Using a molecular approach that combined analyses of biochemical and microsatellite markers in 17 female and 19 male ring-tailed lemurs (Lemur catta), we describe odor-gene covariance to establish the feasibility of olfactory-mediated kin recognition. RESULTS: Despite derivation from different genital glands, labial and scrotal secretions shared about 170 of their respective 338 and 203 semiochemicals. In addition, these semiochemicals encoded information about genetic relatedness within and between the sexes. Although the sexes showed opposite seasonal patterns in signal complexity, the odor profiles of related individuals (whether same-sex or mixed-sex dyads) converged most strongly in the competitive breeding season. Thus, a strong, mutual olfactory signal of genetic relatedness appeared specifically when such information would be crucial for preventing inbreeding. That weaker signals of genetic relatedness might exist year round could provide a mechanism to explain nepotism between unfamiliar kin. CONCLUSION: We suggest that signal convergence between the sexes may reflect strong selective pressures on kin recognition, whereas signal convergence within the sexes may arise as its by-product or function independently to prevent competition between unfamiliar relatives. The link between an individual's genome and its olfactory signals could be mediated by biosynthetic pathways producing polymorphic semiochemicals or by carrier proteins modifying the individual bouquet of olfactory cues. In conclusion, we unveil a possible olfactory mechanism of kin recognition that has specific relevance to understanding inbreeding avoidance and nepotistic behavior observed in free-ranging primates, and broader relevance to understanding the mechanisms of vertebrate olfactory communication.
Open Access
Genetic mapping of brain plasticity across development in Williams syndrome: ERP markers of face and language processing.
(Dev Neuropsychol, 2013) Mills, DL; Dai, L; Fishman, I; Yam, A; Appelbaum, LG; St George, M; Galaburda, A; Bellugi, U; Korenberg, JR
In Williams Syndrome (WS), a known genetic deletion results in atypical brain function with strengths in face and language processing. We examined how genetic influences on brain activity change with development. In three studies, event-related potentials (ERPs) from large samples of children, adolescents, and adults with the full genetic deletion for WS were compared to typically developing controls, and two adults with partial deletions for WS. Studies 1 and 2 identified ERP markers of brain plasticity in WS across development. Study 3 suggested that, in adults with partial deletions for WS, specific genes may be differentially implicated in face and language processing.
Open Access
I can see it both ways: first- and third-person visual perspectives at retrieval.
(Conscious Cogn, 2009-12) Rice, Heather J; Rubin, David C
The number of studies examining visual perspective during retrieval has recently grown. However, the way in which perspective has been conceptualized differs across studies. Some studies have suggested perspective is experienced as either a first-person or a third-person perspective, whereas others have suggested both perspectives can be experienced during a single retrieval attempt. This aspect of perspective was examined across three studies, which used different measurement techniques commonly used in studies of perspective. Results suggest that individuals can experience more than one perspective when recalling events. Furthermore, the experience of the two perspectives correlated differentially with ratings of vividness, suggesting that the two perspectives should not be considered in opposition of one another. We also found evidence of a gender effect in the experience of perspective, with females experiencing third-person perspectives more often than males. Future studies should allow for the experience of more than one perspective during retrieval.
Restricted
Neural mechanisms of context effects on face recognition: automatic binding and context shift decrements.
(J Cogn Neurosci, 2010-11) Hayes, Scott M; Baena, Elsa; Truong, Trong-Kha; Cabeza, Roberto
Although people do not normally try to remember associations between faces and physical contexts, these associations are established automatically, as indicated by the difficulty of recognizing familiar faces in different contexts ("butcher-on-the-bus" phenomenon). The present fMRI study investigated the automatic binding of faces and scenes. In the face-face (F-F) condition, faces were presented alone during both encoding and retrieval, whereas in the face/scene-face (FS-F) condition, they were presented overlaid on scenes during encoding but alone during retrieval (context change). Although participants were instructed to focus only on the faces during both encoding and retrieval, recognition performance was worse in the FS-F than in the F-F condition ("context shift decrement" [CSD]), confirming automatic face-scene binding during encoding. This binding was mediated by the hippocampus as indicated by greater subsequent memory effects (remembered > forgotten) in this region for the FS-F than the F-F condition. Scene memory was mediated by right parahippocampal cortex, which was reactivated during successful retrieval when the faces were associated with a scene during encoding (FS-F condition). Analyses using the CSD as a regressor yielded a clear hemispheric asymmetry in medial temporal lobe activity during encoding: Left hippocampal and parahippocampal activity was associated with a smaller CSD, indicating more flexible memory representations immune to context changes, whereas right hippocampal/rhinal activity was associated with a larger CSD, indicating less flexible representations sensitive to context change. Taken together, the results clarify the neural mechanisms of context effects on face recognition.
Open Access
Object files can be purely episodic.
(Perception, 2007) Mitroff, Stephen R; Scholl, Brian J; Noles, Nicholaus S
Our ability to track an object as the same persisting entity over time and motion may primarily rely on spatiotemporal representations which encode some, but not all, of an object's features. Previous researchers using the 'object reviewing' paradigm have demonstrated that such representations can store featural information of well-learned stimuli such as letters and words at a highly abstract level. However, it is unknown whether these representations can also store purely episodic information (i.e. information obtained from a single, novel encounter) that does not correspond to pre-existing type-representations in long-term memory. Here, in an object-reviewing experiment with novel face images as stimuli, observers still produced reliable object-specific preview benefits in dynamic displays: a preview of a novel face on a specific object speeded the recognition of that particular face at a later point when it appeared again on the same object compared to when it reappeared on a different object (beyond display-wide priming), even when all objects moved to new positions in the intervening delay. This case study demonstrates that the mid-level visual representations which keep track of persisting identity over time--e.g. 'object files', in one popular framework can store not only abstract types from long-term memory, but also specific tokens from online visual experience.
Open Access
Production and recognition bias of stylistic sentences using a story reading task.
(J Psycholinguist Res, 2002-03) Zervakis, Jennifer; Rubin, David C
Four experiments examined participants' ability to produce surface characteristics of sentences using an on-line story reading task. Participants read a series of stories in which either all, or the majority of sentences were written in the same "style," or surface form. Twice per story, participants were asked to fill in a blank consistent with the story. For sentences that contained three stylistic regularities, participants imitated either all three characteristics (Experiment 2) or two of the three characteristics (Experiment 1), depending on the proportion of in-style sentences. Participants demonstrated a recognition bias for the read style in an unannounced recognition task. When participants read stories in which the two styles were the dative/double object alternation, participants demonstrated a syntactic priming effect in the cloze task, but no consistent recognition bias in a later recognition test (Experiments 3 and 4).
Open Access
Stream segregation on a single electrode as a function of pulse rate in cochlear implant listeners.
(2010) Duran, Sara I
While cochlear implants usually provide a high level of speech recognition in quiet, speech recognition in noise and music appreciation remain challenging. In response to these issues, several studies have proposed increasing the number of channels of information through multiple pulse rate strategies. For the selection of pulse rates, studies of multi-rate strategies have considered implementation issues such as harmonics, pitch saturation, and tonotopic order but have not considered the fundamental perceptual question of whether two pulse rates can provide independent channels of information on a single electrode. This study measures stream segregation as an indicator of whether different pulse rates on the same electrode can be perceived independently. This approach differs from that of previous stream segregation studies which focused on stimulation of alternating electrodes, with the motivation of determining a relationship between electrode stream segregation and speech perception in challenging noisy environments. Stream segregation in this study was measured using two stimulus sequences following an A-B-A-B structure where A and B were different pulse rates stimulatingthe same electrode. The timing between A and B was controlled to provide either aregular or irregular gap between the two pulse trains. The threshold at which subjects could distinguish a regular rhythm from an irregular rhythm was used as an estimate of stream segregation since detecting an irregular rhythm is an easier task when the streams are fused. Stream segregation in cochlear implant users, as with normal hearing listeners, was hypothesized to be influenced by factors such as frequency and the relative timing between tones. To attempt to assess the relationship between these and stream segregation, subjects’ rate discrimination and gap detection abilities were also measured. The results of this study indicate that stream segregation can occur for two pulse rates on a single electrode; thus, it may be possible to use pulse rates to create additional channels of information. Further, the stream segregation results were not strongly correlated with the gap detection or rate discrimination results. The lack of correlation with the gap detection results suggests that the task was measuring a separate perceptual phenomenon rather than providing another measure of gap detection. The lack of correlation with the rate discrimination results suggests that discriminability may not be a limiting factor in selecting rates for segregation. These results may have implications for the future design of multi-rate speech processing strategies.
Open Access
The reminiscence bump in the temporal distribution of the best football players of all time: Pelé, Cruijff or Maradona?
(Q J Exp Psychol (Hove), 2012) Janssen, Steve MJ; Rubin, David C; Conway, Martin A
The reminiscence bump is the tendency to recall more autobiographical memories from adolescence and early adulthood than from adjacent lifetime periods. In this online study, the robustness of the reminiscence bump was examined by looking at participants' judgements about the quality of football players. Dutch participants (N = 619) were asked who they thought the five best players of all time were. The participants could select the names from a list or enter the names when their favourite players were not on the list. Johan Cruijff, Pelé, and Diego Maradona were the three most often mentioned players. Participants frequently named football players who reached the midpoint of their career when the participants were adolescents (mode = 17). The results indicate that the reminiscence bump can also be identified outside the autobiographical memory domain.
Open Access
The short and long of it: neural correlates of temporal-order memory for autobiographical events.
(J Cogn Neurosci, 2008-07) St Jacques, Peggy; Rubin, David C; LaBar, Kevin S; Cabeza, Roberto
Previous functional neuroimaging studies of temporal-order memory have investigated memory for laboratory stimuli that are causally unrelated and poor in sensory detail. In contrast, the present functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study investigated temporal-order memory for autobiographical events that were causally interconnected and rich in sensory detail. Participants took photographs at many campus locations over a period of several hours, and the following day they were scanned while making temporal-order judgments to pairs of photographs from different locations. By manipulating the temporal lag between the two locations in each trial, we compared the neural correlates associated with reconstruction processes, which we hypothesized depended on recollection and contribute mainly to short lags, and distance processes, which we hypothesized to depend on familiarity and contribute mainly to longer lags. Consistent with our hypotheses, parametric fMRI analyses linked shorter lags to activations in regions previously associated with recollection (left prefrontal, parahippocampal, precuneus, and visual cortices), and longer lags with regions previously associated with familiarity (right prefrontal cortex). The hemispheric asymmetry in prefrontal cortex activity fits very well with evidence and theories regarding the contributions of the left versus right prefrontal cortex to memory (recollection vs. familiarity processes) and cognition (systematic vs. heuristic processes). In sum, using a novel photo-paradigm, this study provided the first evidence regarding the neural correlates of temporal-order for autobiographical events.