In a key study, Megreya and Burton (Memory & Cognition, 34, 865-876, 2006) argued that identity-matching tasks using unfamiliar faces may not effectively measure general 'real-world' face-processing ability - that is they are "not faces". They observed a high correlation in performance between upright and inverted unfamiliar face matching, a pattern not seen with familiar faces, which they interpreted as indicating unfamiliar face matching is qualitatively different and largely driven by image-specific factors. However, the authors cautioned that this limitation likely applies only to unfamiliar face-matching tasks for identity rather than other types of face judgements (e.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAccurate implicit personality trait judgements can be made from faces, but as yet the focus has been on young participants making judgements of young faces. The current study sought to explore if similar patterns of performance are seen across the age range, with both young and older adult groups. In addition, we investigated whether implicit trait judgements are associated with cognitive, and trait factors including face recognition, emotional expression perception, autism traits, and alexithymia traits.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFWe investigated visual working memory (VWM) for faces and two novel non-face pattern types (Blobs and Mondrians) in individuals with developmental prosopagnosia (DP) and age-matched controls. Participants completed both simultaneous and sequential encoding tasks, judging whether a probe item matched one shown at encoding. DPs showed a consistent face disadvantage across both encoding types, while controls showed a face advantage, but only during simultaneous encoding.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThis study aims to explore the relationship between face processing ability and individuals' insight into that ability, with a particular focus on those who 'self-refer' as having face recognition difficulties; namely, individuals with developmental prosopagnosia (DP). Specifically, the study examines whether self-referred individuals represent a subpopulation with elevated levels of insight into their face recognition performance compared to the general population. Using Bayesian hierarchical modelling, we compared performance across the 'objective' Cambridge Face Memory Test (CFMT) and the 'subjective' 20-item Prosopagnosia Index (PI20) in self-referred DP individuals (N = 279) and normative populations (N = 1,344)-this statistical approach allows for flexible, probabilistic predictions about performance based on subjective insight and group membership, enabling more nuanced comparisons.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe other ethnicity effect (OEE) refers to the common finding that individuals generally perform better in recognizing faces from their own ethnicity than from others. Wan et al. (2017) identified a subset of individuals with a marked difficulty in recognizing other ethnicity faces, termed other ethnicity blindness (OEB).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFGiven the widespread occurrence of procrastination and its adverse association with well-being, investigating the individual variables that influence procrastination is a crucial matter. Previous research has identified dispositional mindfulness to be negatively associated with procrastination, but the underlying mechanisms driving this relationship remain unclear. In this study, the aim was to investigate whether the inverse relationship between dispositional mindfulness and procrastination could be explained by the mediating roles of trait anxiety and maladaptive perfectionism.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFVisual imagery has a close overlapping relationship with visual perception. Posterior cortical atrophy (PCA) is a neurodegenerative syndrome marked by early impairments in visuospatial processing and visual object recognition. We asked whether PCA would therefore also be marked by deficits in visual imagery, tested using objective forced-choice questionnaires, and whether imagery deficits would be selective for certain properties.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Recently instigated local practice for patients with small abdominal aortic aneurysms (AAAs) involves contacting all patients, aged ≥85 years, to discuss with them the advantages and disadvantages of removal from surveillance. However, reasons why patients opt to remain on, or come off, surveillance, are currently unknown. The present study's objective is to explore patient perception of surveillance decision-making.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFEvidence suggests that some patients with isolated hippocampal damage appear to present with selective preservation of unfamiliar face recognition relative to other kinds of visual test stimuli (e.g., words).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFQ J Exp Psychol (Hove)
October 2024
Within the domain of face processing, researchers have been interested in quantifying the relationship between objective (i.e., performance on laboratory tests of recognition and matching) and subjective measures of ability (typically, self-report questionnaires).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPurpose: Co-design has previously been used to design custom assistive devices, involving the end user in the process to ensure the device meets their needs. From devices previously created, designs could be re-used and modified to meet variations in the needs of other individuals with similar clinical needs. This service evaluation explored the re-usability of a holder for helping administer the spray medication Sativex, for individuals with multiple sclerosis.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe COVID-19 pandemic has presented a global threat to physical and mental health worldwide. Research has highlighted adverse impacts of COVID-19 on wellbeing but has yet to offer insights as to how wellbeing may be protected. Inspired by developments in wellbeing science and guided by our own theoretical framework (the GENIAL model), we examined the role of various potentially protective factors in a sample of 138 participants from the United Kingdom.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFJ Exp Psychol Hum Percept Perform
July 2021
Individuals are better at recognizing faces from their own ethnic group compared with other ethnicity faces-the (OEE). This finding is said to reflect differences in experience and familiarity to faces from other ethnicities relative to faces corresponding with the viewers' ethnicity. However, own-ethnicity face recognition performance ranges considerably within a population, from very poor to extremely good.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFDisabil Rehabil Assist Technol
May 2022
Purpose: Assistive technology can provide a key tool to enabling independence, greater inclusion and participation in society for individuals with chronic conditions. This potential is currently not always realized due to barriers to accessing and using assistive technology. This review aims to identify the common barriers to acquiring and using assistive technology for users with chronic conditions through a systematic meta-synthesis.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFJ Alzheimers Dis
November 2020
Slowed behavioral reaction time is associated with pathological brain changes, including white matter lesions, the common clinical characteristic of subcortical ischemic vascular cognitive impairment (SIVCI). In the present study, reaction time (RT) employing Trails B of the Trail Making Test, with responses capped at 300 s, was investigated in SIVCI (n = 27) compared to cognitively healthy aging (CH) (n = 26). RT was significantly slowed in SIVCI compared to CH (Cohen's d effect size = 1.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFJ Alzheimers Dis
November 2020
In this study, reaction time (RT), intraindividual variability (IIV), and errors, and the effects of practice and processing load upon such function, were compared in patients with subcortical ischemic vascular cognitive impairment (SIVCI) [n = 27] and cognitively healthy older adults (CH) [n = 26]. Compared to CH aging, SIVCI was characterized by a profile of significantly slowed RT, raised IIV, and higher error levels, particularly in the presence of distracting stimuli, indicating that the integrity and/or accessibility of the additional functions required to support high processing load, serial search strategies, are reduced in SIVCI. Furthermore, although practice speeded RT in SIVCI, unlike CH, practice did not lead to an improvement in IIV.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFA prevailing debate in the psychological literature concerns the domain-specificity of the face recognition system, where evidence from typical and neurological participants has been interpreted as evidence that faces are "special". Although several studies have investigated the same question in cases of developmental prosopagnosia, the vast majority of this evidence has recently been discounted due to methodological concerns. This leaves an uncomfortable void in the literature, restricting our understanding of the typical and atypical development of the face recognition system.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIn the last 15 years, increasing numbers of individuals have self-referred to research laboratories in the belief that they experience severe everyday difficulties with face recognition. The condition "developmental prosopagnosia" (DP) is typically diagnosed when impairment is identified on at least two objective face-processing tests, usually involving assessments of face perception, unfamiliar face memory, and famous face recognition. While existing evidence suggests that some individuals may have a mnemonic form of prosopagnosia, it is also possible that other subtypes exist.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAlthough subjective cognitive impairment (SCI) is increasingly recognized clinically and in research as a risk factor for mild cognitive impairment and dementia (particularly Alzheimer's disease), it is etiologically heterogeneous and potentially treatable. Compared to mild cognitive impairment and Alzheimer's disease, SCI however remains poorly characterized with debate continuing regarding its clinical relevance. The primary aim of this study was to improve the characterization of SCI within the general public by investigating functions sometimes omitted clinically or in research, namely visual attention-related information processing speed (RT) and its intra-individual variability (IIVRT), general cognition, depression, anxiety, memory, quality of life (QOL), and neuroticism.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIn the field of cognitive neuropsychology of phonological short-term memory (pSTM), a key debate surrounds the issue of how impairment on tasks deemed to tap this system imply a dissociable phonological input and output buffer system, with the implication that impairments can be fractionated across disruption to separate functional components (Nickels, Howard & Best, 1997). This study presents CT, a conduction aphasic who showed no impairment on basic auditory discrimination tasks, but had very poor nonword repetition. Clear-cut examples of such cases are very rare (see Jacquemot, Dupoux & Bachoud-Levi, 2007), and we interpret the case with reference to a pSTM model that includes input and output buffers.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThis paper describes longitudinal testing of two Semantic Dementia (SD) cases. It is common for patients with SD to present with deficits in reading aloud irregular words (i.e.
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