Transcranial electric stimulation and cognitive training improves face perception

Recently, there has been much interest the effectiveness of cognitive training programmes across a variety of cognitive and perceptual domains. Some evidence suggests that combining training programmes with noninvasive brain stimulation techniques such as transcranial random noise stimulation (tRNS) can enhance training gains, but to date this has only been examined in numerosity and arithmetic tasks. In this study, we examined whether tRNS modulated the effects of a face recognition training programme. Participants completed a face discrimination training task for an hour per day over five days. Each day, training was preceded by twenty minutes of active high frequency tRNS or sham stimulation, targeted at the posterior temporal cortices or the inferior frontal gyri (IFG). Participants who received active stimulation to the posterior temporal cortices showed significant improvement on a facial identity discrimination task (the Cambridge Face Perception Test) after training, whereas those receiving sham or IFG stimulation showed no performance change. There was no evidence of an effect of stimulation on a face memory task (the Cambridge Face Memory Test). These results suggest that tRNS can enhance the effectiveness of cognitive training programmes, but further work is needed to establish whether perceptual gains can be generalised to face memory

Who am I talking with? A face memory for social robots

In order to provide personalized services and to develop human-like interaction capabilities robots need to rec- ognize their human partner. Face recognition has been studied in the past decade exhaustively in the context of security systems and with significant progress on huge datasets. However, these capabilities are not in focus when it comes to social interaction situations. Humans are able to remember people seen for a short moment in time and apply this knowledge directly in their engagement in conversation. In order to equip a robot with capabilities to recall human interlocutors and to provide user- aware services, we adopt human-human interaction schemes to propose a face memory on the basis of active appearance models integrated with the active memory architecture. This paper presents the concept of the interactive face memory, the applied recognition algorithms, and their embedding into the robot’s system architecture. Performance measures are discussed for general face databases as well as scenario-specific datasets

Dissociation between Face Perception and Face Memory in Adults, but Not Children, with Developmental Prosopagnosia

Cognitive models propose that face recognition is accomplished through a series of discrete stages, including perceptual representation of facial structure, and encoding and retrieval of facial information. This implies that impaired face recognition can result from failures of face perception, face memory, or both. Studies of acquired prosopagnosia, autism spectrum disorders, and the development of normal face recognition support the idea that face perception and face memory are distinct processes, yet this distinction has received little attention in developmental prosopagnosia (DP). To address this issue, we tested the face perception and face memory of children and adults with DP. By definition, face memory is impaired in DP, so memory deficits were present in all participants. However, we found that all children, but only half of the adults had impaired face perception. Thus, results from adults indicate that face perception and face memory are dissociable, while the results from children provide no evidence for this division. Importantly, our findings raise the possibility that DP is qualitatively different in childhood versus adulthood. We discuss theoretical explanations for this developmental pattern and conclude that longitudinal studies are necessary to better understand the developmental trajectory of face perception and face memory deficits in DP

A robust method of measuring other-race and other-ethnicity effects: the Cambridge Face Memory Test format

Other-race and other-ethnicity effects on face memory have remained a topic of consistent research interest over several decades, across fields including face perception, social psychology, and forensic psychology (eyewitness testimony). Here we demonstrate that the Cambridge Face Memory Test format provides a robust method for measuring these effects. Testing the Cambridge Face Memory Test original version (CFMT-original; European-ancestry faces from Boston USA) and a new Cambridge Face Memory Test Chinese (CFMT-Chinese), with European and Asian observers, we report a race-of-face by race-of-observer interaction that was highly significant despite modest sample size and despite observers who had quite high exposure to the other race. We attribute this to high statistical power arising from the very high internal reliability of the tasks. This power also allows us to demonstrate a much smaller within-race other ethnicity effect, based on differences in European physiognomy between Boston faces/observers and Australian faces/observers (using the CFMT-Australian)

Repetition suppression and memory for faces is reduced in adults with autism spectrum conditions

Autism spectrum conditions (ASC) are associated with a number of atypicalities in face processing, including difficulties in face memory. However, the neural mechanisms underlying this difficulty are unclear. In neurotypical individuals, repeated presentation of the same face is associated with a reduction in activity, known as repetition suppression (RS), in the fusiform face area (FFA). However, to date, no studies have investigated RS to faces in individuals with ASC, or the relationship between RS and face memory. Here, we measured RS to faces and geometric shapes in individuals with a clinical diagnosis of an ASC and in age and IQ matched controls. Relative to controls, the ASC group showed reduced RS to faces in bilateral FFA and reduced performance on a standardized test of face memory. By contrast, RS to shapes in object-selective regions and object memory did not differ between groups. Individual variation in face memory performance was positively correlated with RS in regions of left parietal and prefrontal cortex. These findings suggest difficulties in face memory in ASC may be a consequence of differences in the way faces are stored and/or maintained across a network of regions involved in both visual perception and shortterm/ working memory

Modelling Face Memory Reveals Task-generalizable Representations

Current cognitive theories are cast in terms of information-processing mechanisms that use mental representations. For example, people use their mental representations to identify familiar faces under various conditions of pose, illumination and ageing, or to draw resemblance between family members. Yet, the actual information contents of these representations are rarely characterized, which hinders knowledge of the mechanisms that use them. Here, we modelled the three-dimensional representational contents of 4 faces that were familiar to 14 participants as work colleagues. The representational contents were created by reverse-correlating identity information generated on each trial with judgements of the face’s similarity to the individual participant’s memory of this face. In a second study, testing new participants, we demonstrated the validity of the modelled contents using everyday face tasks that generalize identity judgements to new viewpoints, age and sex. Our work highlights that such models of mental representations are critical to understanding generalization behaviour and its underlying information-processing mechanisms

Face memory

A memória é uma importante e complexa consolidação que integra as funções cognitivas superiores. Os seres humanos são constituídos de múltiplos elementos adquiridos ao longo da sua história evolutiva, conservando, individualmente certa autonomia através de elementos que atuam no funcionamento do organismo. O desenvolvimento cognitivo, junto com a relação à quantidade de rostos que um indivíduo vê durante a vida, e com a atividade dos neurônios, gera diferenças na memória de rostos entre os indivíduos. Portanto esse estudo tem como objetivo entender através de um comparativo entre moradores de regiões menores como vilas portuguesas possuem uma maior capacidade de memorização de rostos enquanto moradores de regiões maiores e mais populosas, no Brasil, possuem menos dessa capacidade. Resultados de testes de memória realizados por diferentes autores em diferentes países mostram que as pessoas têm uma recordação significativamente maior relacionada a uma história emocional do que neutra. Com isso foi possível concluir que cidades mais populosas apresentam maiores índices de ansiedade, transtorno que altera as funções do cérebro como a amígdala cerebral e o hipocampo, aumentando a dificuldade de memorização de rostos. Além disso, o cérebro por uma questão de economia de energia, se adapta a não necessidade de memorizar rostos pois isso não nos coloca em risco de vida,  como sugere através da ansiedade, então não é uma necessidade à sobrevivência e pode ser descartado. Em relação à formação da memória de rostos, pode-se inferir que ela está associada a diferentes fatores sociais, de instrução, gênero e idade. E que esta diferença está associada primordialmente ao desenvolvimento cerebral do hipocampo, do córtex pré-frontal e à ação da amígdala e das ondas Theta.Memory is an important and complex cognitive function that integrates the higher cognitive functions. Human beings are made up of multiple elements acquired throughout their evolutionary history, individually preserving a certain autonomy through elements that act in the functioning of the organism. Cognitive development, along with the relationship with the amount of faces an individual sees during life, and the activity of neurons, generates differences in the memory of faces among individuals. Therefore this study aims to understand through a comparison whether residents of smaller regions such as villages have a greater ability to memorize faces while residents of larger and more populated regions have less of this ability. Results from memory tests conducted by different authors in different countries show that people have significantly higher recall related to an emotional story than a neutral one. With this it was possible to conclude that more populated cities have higher rates of anxiety, a disorder that alters brain functions such as the brain amygdala and hippocampus, increasing the difficulty of memorizing faces. Moreover, the brain, as a matter of energy saving, adapts itself to not need to memorize faces because this does not put us at risk of life, so it is not a necessity for survival and can be discarded. Regarding the formation of the memory of faces, it can be inferred that it is associated with different social factors, education, gender and age. And that this difference is associated primarily with the brain development of the hippocampus, the prefrontal cortex, and the action of the amygdala and theta waves

Recognising faces but not traits: Accurate personality judgment from faces is unrelated to superior face memory

It is suggested that accurate personality judgments of faces are driven by a morphological ‘kernel of truth’ from face shape. We hypothesised that this relationship could lead to those with better face identification ability being better at personality judgments. We investigated the relationship between face memory, face matching, Big Five personality traits, and accuracy in recognising Big Five personality traits from 50 photographs of unknown faces. In our sample (n = 792) there was overall good (but varying) face memory and personality judgment accuracy. However, there was convincing evidence that these two skills do not correlate (all r < .06). We also replicate the known relationship between extraversion and face memory ability in the largest sample to date

A Lower-Class Advantage in Face Memory

People remember what they deem important. In line with research suggesting that lower-class (vs. higher class) individuals spontaneously appraise other people as more relevant, we show that social class is associated with the habitual use of face memory. We find that lower-class (vs. higher class) participants exhibit better incidental memory for faces (i.e., spontaneous memory for faces they had not been instructed to memorize; Studies 1 and 2). No social-class differences emerge for faces participants are instructed to learn (Study 2), suggesting that this pattern reflects class-based relevance appraisals rather than memory ability. Study 3 extends our findings to eyewitness identification. Lower-class (vs. higher-class) participants’ eyewitness accuracy is less impacted by the explicit relevance of a target (clearly relevant thief vs. incidental bystander). Integrative data analysis shows a robust negative association between social class and spontaneous face memory. Preregistration (Studies 1 and 3) and cross-cultural replication (Study 2) further strengthen the results.Division of Behavioral and Cognitive Sciences https://doi.org/10.13039/100000169Peer Reviewe