The nature of early self-recognition

In studies of mirror-self-recognition subjects are usually surreptitiously marked on their head, and then presented with a mirror. Scores of studies have established that by 18 to 24 months, children investigate their own head upon seeing the mark in the mirror. Scores of papers have debated what this means. Suggestions range from rich interpretations (e.g., the development of self-awareness) to lean accounts (e.g., the development of proprioceptivevisual matching), and include numerous more moderate proposals (e.g., the development of a concept of one's face). In Study 1, 18-24-monthold toddlers were given the standard test and a novel task in which they were marked on their legs rather than on their face. Toddlers performed equivalently on both tasks, suggesting that passing the test does not rely on information specific to facial features. In Study 2, toddlers were surreptitiously slipped into trouser legs that were prefixed to a highchair. Toddlers failed to retrieve the sticker now that their legs looked different from expectations. This finding, together with the findings from a third study which showed that self-recognition in live video feedback develops later than mirror selfrecognition, suggests that performance is not solely the result of proprioceptive-visual matching.

Recognition memory effects in event-based prospective memory

Prospective memory (ProM) is the memory for future actions. It requires retrieving content of anaction in response to an ambiguous cue. Currently, it is unclear if ProM is a distinct form of memory, or merely a variant of retrospective memory (RetM). While content retrieval in ProM appears analogous to conventional RetM, less is known about the process of cue detection. Using a modified version of the standard ProM paradigm, three experiments manipulated stimulus characteristics known to influence RetM, in order to examine their effects on ProM performance. Experiment 1 (N — 80) demonstrated that low frequency stimuli elicited significantly higher hit rates and lower false alarm rates than high frequency stimuli, comparable to the mirror effect in RetM. Experiment 2 (N = 80) replicated these results, and showed that repetition of distracters during the test phase significantly increased false alarm rates to second and subsequent presentations of low frequency distracters. Building on these results. Experiment 3 (AT = 40) showed that when the study list was strengthened, the repeated presentation of targets and distracters did not significantly affect response rates. These experiments demonstrate more overlap between ProM and RetM than has previously been acknowledged. The implications for theories of ProM are considered.

Grammatical priming of visual word recognition in fourth-grade children

Previous work examining context effects in children has been limited to semantic context. The current research examined the effects of grammatical priming of word-naming in fourth-grade children. In Experiment 1, children named both inflected and uninflected noun and verb target words faster when they were preceded by grammatically constraining primes than when they were preceded by neutral primes. Experiment 1 used a long stimulus onset asynchrony (SOA) interval of 750 msec. Experiment 2 replicated the grammatical priming effect at two SOA intervals (400 msec and 700 msec), suggesting that the grammatical priming effect does not reflect the operation of any gross strategic effects directly attributable to the long SOA interval employed in Experiment 1. Grammatical context appears to facilitate target word naming by constraining target word class. Further work is required to elucidate the loci of this effect.

A naturalistic study of the word frequency effect in episodic recognition

In order to separate the effects of experience from other characteristics of word frequency (e.g., orthographic distinctiveness), computer science and psychology students rated their experience with computer science technical items and nontechnical items from a wide range of word frequencies prior to being tested for recognition memory of the rated items. For nontechnical items, there was a curvilinear relationship between recognition accuracy and word frequency for both groups of students. The usual superiority of low-frequency words was demonstrated and high-frequency words were recognized least well. For technical items, a similar curvilinear relationship was evident for the psychology students, but for the computer science students, recognition accuracy was inversely related to word frequency. The ratings data showed that subjective experience rather than background word frequency was the better predictor of recognition accuracy.

Etalonnage de trois épreuves de recognition continue : Effets de l'âge, du sexe et du niveau socio-professionnel sur les mesures de discrimination et de biais de réponse. [Standardization of three continuous recognition test forms - Effects of age, sex and socio-economic level on measurements of discrimination and response bias.]

Nous présontons l'étalonnage d'un test mnésique de recognition dans un échantillon de 180 adultes francophones de la Suisse Romande. Le test comprend trois formes utilisant un matériel verbal (mots) ou non verbal (visages ou paysages). Une attention particulière est accordée à l'âge dans la présentation des résultats. Celui-ci affecte plus précocement et plus intensément la performance aux formes non verbales qu'à la forme verbale du test. Il induit également une importante augmentation du nombre de fausses reconnaissances pour les formes non verbales.

Unicoloniality, recognition and genetic differentiation in a native Formica ant.

Some ants have an extraordinary form of social organization, called unicoloniality, whereby individuals mix freely among physically separated nests. This mode of social organization has been primarily studied in introduced and invasive ant species, so that the recognition ability and genetic structure of ants forming unicolonial populations in their native range remain poorly known. We investigated the pattern of aggression and the genetic structure of six unicolonial populations of the ant Formica paralugubris at four hierarchical levels: within nests, among nests within the same population, among nests of populations within the Alps or Jura Mountains and among nests of the two mountain ranges. Ants within populations showed no aggressive behaviour, but recognized nonnestmates as shown by longer antennation bouts. Overall, the level of aggression increased with geographic and genetic distance but was always considerably lower than between species. No distinct behavioural supercolony boundaries were found. Our study provides evidence that unicoloniality can be maintained in noninvasive ants despite significant genetic differentiation and the ability to discriminate between nestmates and nonnestmates.

Other-race faces : limitations of expert face recognition /

Adults' expert face recognition is limited to the kinds of faces they encounter on a daily basis (typically upright human faces of the same race). Adults process own-race faces holistically (Le., as a gestalt) and are exquisitely sensitive to small differences among faces in the spacing of features, the shape of individual features and the outline or contour of the face (Maurer, Le Grand, & Mondloch, 2002), however this expertise does not seem to extend to faces from other races. The goal of the current study was to investigate the extent to which the mechanisms that underlie expert face processing of own-race faces extend to other-race faces. Participants from rural Pennsylvania that had minimal exposure to other-race faces were tested on a battery of tasks. They were tested on a memory task, two measures of holistic processing (the composite task and the part/whole task), two measures of spatial and featural processing (the JanelLing task and the scrambledlblurred faces task) and a test of contour processing (JanelLing task) for both own-and other-race faces. No study to date has tested the same participants on all of these tasks. Participants had minimal experience with other-race faces; they had no Chinese family members, friends or had ever traveled to an Asian country. Results from the memory task did not reveal an other-race effect. In the present study, participants also demonstrated holistic processing of both own- and other-race faces on both the composite task and the part/whole task. These findings contradict previous findings that Caucasian adults process own-race faces more holistically than other-race faces. However participants did demonstrate an own-race advantage for processing the spacing among features, consistent with two recent studies that used different manipulations of spacing cues (Hayward et al. 2007; Rhodes et al. 2006). They also demonstrated an other-race effect for the processing of individual features for the Jane/Ling task (a direct measure of featural processing) consistent with previous findings (Rhodes, Hayward, & Winkler, 2006), but not for the scrambled faces task (an indirect measure offeatural processing). There was no own-race advantage for contour processing. Thus, these results lead to the conclusion that individuals may show less sensitivity to the appearance of individual features and the spacing among them in other-race faces, despite processing other-race faces holistically.

What happens in the first 200 ms of word reading : ERP studies on visual word recognition with top-down and bottom-up approaches /

In this thesis, three main questions were addressed using event-related potentials (ERPs): (1) the timing of lexical semantic access, (2) the influence of "top-down" processes on visual word processing, and (3) the influence of "bottom-up" factors on visual word processing. The timing of lexical semantic access was investigated in two studies using different designs. In Study 1,14 participants completed two tasks: a standard lexical decision (LD) task which required a word/nonword decision to each target stimulus, and a semantically primed version (LS) of it using the same category of words (e.g., animal) within each block following which participants made a category judgment. In Study 2, another 12 participants performed a standard semantic priming task, where target stimulus words (e.g., nurse) could be either semantically related or unrelated to their primes (e.g., doctor, tree) but the order of presentation was randomized. We found evidence in both ERP studies that lexical semantic access might occur early within the first 200 ms (at about 170 ms for Study 1 and at about 160 ms for Study 2). Our results were consistent with more recent ERP and eye-tracking studies and are in contrast with the traditional research focus on the N400 component. "Top-down" processes, such as a person's expectation and strategic decisions, were possible in Study 1 because of the blocked design, but they were not for Study 2 with a randomized design. Comparing results from two studies, we found that visual word processing could be affected by a person's expectation and the effect occurred early at a sensory/perceptual stage: a semantic task effect in the PI component at about 100 ms in the ERP was found in Study 1 , but not in Study 2. Furthermore, we found that such "top-down" influence on visual word processing might be mediated through separate mechanisms depending on whether the stimulus was a word or a nonword. "Bottom-up" factors involve inherent characteristics of particular words, such as bigram frequency (the total frequency of two-letter combinations of a word), word frequency (the frequency of the written form of a word), and neighborhood density (the number of words that can be generated by changing one letter of an original word or nonword). A bigram frequency effect was found when comparing the results from Studies 1 and 2, but it was examined more closely in Study 3. Fourteen participants performed a similar standard lexical decision task but the words and nonwords were selected systematically to provide a greater range in the aforementioned factors. As a result, a total of 18 word conditions were created with 18 nonword conditions matched on neighborhood density and neighborhood frequency. Using multiple regression analyses, we foimd that the PI amplitude was significantly related to bigram frequency for both words and nonwords, consistent with results from Studies 1 and 2. In addition, word frequency and neighborhood frequency were also able to influence the PI amplitude separately for words and for nonwords and there appeared to be a spatial dissociation between the two effects: for words, the word frequency effect in PI was found at the left electrode site; for nonwords, the neighborhood frequency effect in PI was fovind at the right elecfrode site. The implications of otir findings are discussed.

The time-course of lexical activation in Japanese morphographic word recognition: Evidence for a character-driven processing model

This lexical decision study with eye tracking of Japanese two-kanji-character words investigated the order in which a whole two-character word and its morphographic constituents are activated in the course of lexical access, the relative contributions of the left and the right characters in lexical decision, the depth to which semantic radicals are processed, and how nonlinguistic factors affect lexical processes. Mixed-effects regression analyses of response times and subgaze durations (i.e., first-pass fixation time spent on each of the two characters) revealed joint contributions of morphographic units at all levels of the linguistic structure with the magnitude and the direction of the lexical effects modulated by readers’ locus of attention in a left-to-right preferred processing path. During the early time frame, character effects were larger in magnitude and more robust than radical and whole-word effects, regardless of the font size and the type of nonwords. Extending previous radical-based and character-based models, we propose a task/decision-sensitive character-driven processing model with a level-skipping assumption: Connections from the feature level bypass the lower radical level and link up directly to the higher character level.

Examining the impact of trait anxiety on the recognition of facial emotional expressions

Question : Cette thèse comporte deux articles portant sur l’étude d’expressions faciales émotionnelles. Le processus de développement d’une nouvelle banque de stimuli émotionnels fait l’objet du premier article, alors que le deuxième article utilise cette banque pour étudier l’effet de l’anxiété de trait sur la reconnaissance des expressions statiques. Méthodes : Un total de 1088 clips émotionnels (34 acteurs X 8 émotions X 4 exemplaire) ont été alignés spatialement et temporellement de sorte que les yeux et le nez de chaque acteur occupent le même endroit dans toutes les vidéos. Les vidéos sont toutes d’une durée de 500ms et contiennent l’Apex de l’expression. La banque d’expressions statiques fut créée à partir de la dernière image des clips. Les stimuli ont été soumis à un processus de validation rigoureux. Dans la deuxième étude, les expressions statiques sont utilisées conjointement avec la méthode Bubbles dans le but d’étudier la reconnaissance des émotions chez des participants anxieux. Résultats : Dans la première étude, les meilleurs stimuli ont été sélectionnés [2 (statique & dynamique) X 8 (expressions) X 10 (acteurs)] et forment la banque d’expressions STOIC. Dans la deuxième étude, il est démontré que les individus présentant de l'anxiété de trait utilisent préférentiellement les basses fréquences spatiales de la région buccale du visage et ont une meilleure reconnaissance des expressions de peur. Discussion : La banque d’expressions faciales STOIC comporte des caractéristiques uniques qui font qu’elle se démarque des autres. Elle peut être téléchargée gratuitement, elle contient des vidéos naturelles et tous les stimuli ont été alignés, ce qui fait d’elle un outil de choix pour la communauté scientifique et les cliniciens. Les stimuli statiques de STOIC furent utilisés pour franchir une première étape dans la recherche sur la perception des émotions chez des individus présentant de l’anxiété de trait. Nous croyons que l’utilisation des basses fréquences est à la base des meilleures performances de ces individus, et que l’utilisation de ce type d’information visuelle désambigüise les expressions de peur et de surprise. Nous pensons également que c’est la névrose (chevauchement entre l'anxiété et la dépression), et non l’anxiété même qui est associée à de meilleures performances en reconnaissance d’expressions faciales de la peur. L’utilisation d’instruments mesurant ce concept devrait être envisagée dans de futures études.

False recognition of abstract versus common objects in older and younger adults: testing the semantic categorization account

Older adults often demonstrate higher levels of false recognition than do younger adults. However, in experiments using novel shapes without preexisting semantic representations, this age-related elevation in false recognition was found to be greatly attenuated. Two experiments tested a semantic categorization account of these findings, examining whether older adults show especially heightened false recognition if the stimuli have preexisting semantic representations, such that semantic category information attenuates or truncates the encoding or retrieval of item-specific perceptual information. In Experiment 1, ambiguous shapes were presented with or without disambiguating semantic labels. Older adults showed higher false recognition when labels were present but not when labels were never presented. In Experiment 2, older adults showed higher false recognition for concrete but not abstract objects. The semantic categorization account was supported.

Achievement motivation and memory: achievement goals differentially influence immediate and delayed remember–know recognition memory

Little research has been conducted on achievement motivation and memory and, more specifically, on achievement goals and memory. In the present research, the authors conducted two experiments designed to examine the influence of mastery-approach and performance-approach goals on immediate and delayed remember–know recognition memory. The experiments revealed differential effects for achievement goals over time: Performance-approach goals showed higher correct remember responding on an immediate recognition test, whereas mastery-approach goals showed higher correct remember responding on a delayed recognition test. Achievement goals had no influence on overall recognition memory and no consistent influence on know responding across experiments. These findings indicate that it is important to consider quality, not just quantity, in both motivation and memory, when studying relations between these constructs. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)(journal abstract)

The effects of distraction on metacognition and metacognition on distraction: evidence from recognition memory

The effects of auditory distraction in memory tasks have been examined to date with procedures that minimize participants’ control over their own memory processes. Surprisingly little attention has been paid to metacognitive control factors which might affect memory performance. In this study, we investigate the effects of auditory distraction on metacognitive control of memory, examining the effects of auditory distraction in recognition tasks utilizing the metacognitive framework of Koriat and Goldsmith (1996), to determine whether strategic regulation of memory accuracy is impacted by auditory distraction. Results replicated previous findings in showing that auditory distraction impairs memory performance in tasks minimizing participants’ metacognitive control (forced-report test). However, the results revealed also that when metacognitive control is allowed (free-report tests), auditory distraction impacts upon a range of metacognitive indices. In the present study, auditory distraction undermined accuracy of metacognitive monitoring (resolution), reduced confidence in responses provided and, correspondingly, increased participants’ propensity to withhold responses in free-report recognition. Crucially, changes in metacognitive processes were related to impairment in free-report recognition performance, as the use of the ‘don’t know’ option under distraction led to a reduction in the number of correct responses volunteered in free-report tests. Overall, the present results show how auditory distraction exerts its influence on memory performance via both memory and metamemory processes.

Circadian phase and intertrial interval interfere with social recognition memory

A modified version of the social habituation/dis-habituation paradigm was employed to examine social recognition memory in Wistar rats during two opposing (active and inactive) circadian phases, using different intertrial intervals (30 and 60 min). Wheel-running activity was monitored continuously to identify circadian phase. To avoid possible masking effects of the light-dark cycle, the rats were synchronized to a skeleton photoperiod, which allowed testing during different circadian phases under identical lighting conditions. In each trial, an infantile intruder was introduced into an adult`s home-cage for a 5-minute interaction session, and social behaviors were registered. Rats were exposed to 5 trials per day for 4 consecutive days: oil days I and 2, each resident was exposed to the same intruder; on days 3 and 4, each resident was exposed to a different intruder in each trial. I he resident`s social investigatory behavior was more intense when different intruders were presented compared to repeated presentation of the same intruder, suggesting social recognition memory. This effect was stronger when the rats were tested during the inactive phase and when the intertrial interval was 60 min, These findings Suggest that social recognition memory, as evaluated in this modified habituation/dis-habituation paradigm, is influenced by the circadian rhythm phase during which testing is performed, and by intertrial interval. (C) 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.