Implicit processing of the eyes and mouth: Evidence from human electrophysiology

The current study examined the time course of implicit processing of distinct facial features and the associate event-related potential (ERP) components. To this end, we used a masked priming paradigm to investigate implicit processing of the eyes and mouth in upright and inverted faces, using a prime duration of 33 ms. Two types of prime-target pairs were used: 1. congruent (e.g., open eyes only in both prime and target or open mouth only in both prime and target); 2. incongruent (e.g., open mouth only in prime and open eyes only in target or open eyes only in prime and open mouth only in target). The identity of the faces changed between prime and target. Participants pressed a button when the target face had the eyes open and another button when the target face had the mouth open. The behavioral results showed faster RTs for the eyes in upright faces than the eyes in inverted faces, the mouth in upright and inverted faces. Moreover they also revealed a congruent priming effect for the mouth in upright faces. The ERP findings showed a face orientation effect across all ERP components studied (P1, N1, N170, P2, N2, P3) starting at about 80 ms, and a congruency/priming effect on late components (P2, N2, P3), starting at about 150 ms. Crucially, the results showed that the orientation effect was driven by the eye region (N170, P2) and that the congruency effect started earlier (P2) for the eyes than for the mouth (N2). These findings mark the time course of the processing of internal facial features and provide further evidence that the eyes are automatically processed and that they are very salient facial features that strongly affect the amplitude, latency, and distribution of neural responses to faces

A First Step toward the Understanding of Implicit Learning of Hazard Anticipation in Inexperienced Road Users Through a Moped-Riding Simulator

Hazard perception is considered one of the most important abilities in road safety. Several efforts have been devoted to investigating how it improves with experience and can be trained. Recently, research has focused on the implicit aspects of hazard detection, reaction, and anticipation. In the present study, we attempted to understand how the ability to anticipate hazards develops during training with a moped-riding simulator: the Honda Riding Trainer (HRT). Several studies have already validated the HRT as a tool to enhance adolescents\u2019 hazard perception and riding abilities. In the present study, as an index of hazard anticipation, we used skin conductance response (SCR), which has been demonstrated to be linked to affective/implicit appraisal of risk. We administered to a group of inexperienced road users five road courses two times a week apart. In each course, participants had to deal with eight hazard scenes (except one course that included only seven hazard scenes). Participants had to ride along the HRT courses, facing the potentially hazardous situations, following traffic rules, and trying to avoid accidents. During the task, we measured SCR and monitored driving performance. The main results show that learning to ride the simulator leads to both a reduction in the number of accidents and anticipation of the somatic response related to hazard detection, as proven by the reduction of SCR onset recorded in the second session. The finding that the SCR signaling the impending hazard appears earlier when the already encountered hazard situations are faced anew suggests that training with the simulator acts on the somatic activation associated with the experience of risky situations, improving its effectiveness in detecting hazards in advance so as to avoid accidents. This represents the starting point for future investigations into the process of generalization of learning acquired in new virtual situations and in real-road situations

Daytime REM sleep affects emotional experience but not decision choices in moral dilemmas

Moral decision-making depends on the interaction between automatic emotional responses and rational cognitive control. A natural emotional regulator state seems to be sleep, in particular rapid eye movement (REM) sleep. We tested the impact of daytime sleep, either with or without REM, on moral decision. Sixty participants were presented with 12 sacrificial (6 Footbridge-and 6 Trolley-type) and 8 everyday-type moral dilemmas at 9 AM and at 5 PM. In sacrificial dilemmas, participants had to decide whether or not to kill one person to save more people (utilitarian choice), and to judge how morally acceptable the proposed choice was. In everyday-type dilemmas, participants had to decide whether to endorse moral violations involving dishonest behavior. At 12 PM, 40 participants took a 120-min nap (17 with REM and 23 with NREM only) while 20 participants remained awake. Mixed-model analysis revealed that participants judged the utilitarian choice as less morally acceptable in the afternoon, irrespective of sleep. We also observed a negative association between theta activity during REM and increased self-rated unpleasantness during moral decisions. Nevertheless, moral decision did not change across the day and between groups. These results suggest that although both time and REM sleep may affect the evaluation of a moral situation, these factors did not ultimately impact the individual moral choices

Gaze cuing of attention in snake phobic women: the influence of facial expression

Only a few studies investigated whether animal phobics exhibit attentional biases in contexts where no phobic stimuli are present. Among these, recent studies provided evidence for a bias toward facial expressions of fear and disgust in animal phobics. Such findings may be due to the fact that these expressions could signal the presence of a phobic object in the surroundings. To test this hypothesis and further investigate attentional biases for emotional faces in animal phobics, we conducted an experiment using a gaze-cuing paradigm in which participants\u2019 attention was driven by the task-irrelevant gaze of a centrally presented face. We employed dynamic negative facial expressions of disgust, fear and anger and found an enhanced gaze-cuing effect in snake phobics as compared to controls, irrespective of facial expression. These results provide evidence of a general hypervigilance in animal phobics in the absence of phobic stimuli, and indicate that research on specific phobias should not be limited to symptom provocation paradigms

An Approach To Artificial Society Generation For Video Games

Since their inception in the 1940s, video games have always had a need for non-player characters (NPCs) driven by some form of artificial intelligence (AI). More recently, researchers and developers have attempted to create believable, or human-like, agents by modeling them after humans by borrowing concepts from the social sciences. This thesis explores an approach to generating a society of such believable agents with human-like attributes and social connections. This approach allows agents to form various kinds of relationships with other agents in the society, and even provides an introductory form of shared or influenced attributes based on their spouse or parents. Our proposed method is a simplified system for generating a society, but shows great potential for future work. As a modularized and parameterized framework, there are many opportunities for adding new layers to the system to improve the realism of the generated society

Desde dentro, desde fuera: transculturación lingüística y enfrentamiento con la historia en la narrativa de Junot Díaz y Rita Indiana

Hoy más que nunca las fronteras culturales y lingüísticas tienden a fluidificarse, obligándonos a replantear la cuestión de las identidades locales, nacionales y continentales. Esto es particularmente cierto en el ámbito caribeño: proponemos un análisis del caso dominicano que muestra la transculturación de dos autores en medio de Quisqueya y Estados Unidos, Junot Díaz y Rita Indiana Hernández

Resquebrajando el patriarcado. El juego del poder en La balada de Alfonsina Bairán de Andrés L. Mateo

La novela dominicana de la dictadura, muy poco conocida fuera de las fronteras del país caribeño, se ha caracterizado en los últimos años por el espacio nuevo que ha sabido dar a los personajes femeninos en su reescritura ficcional de la Era de Trujillo. La balada de Alfonsina Bairán de Andrés L. Mateo es, sin duda, una de las obras más significativas en este sentido.The Dominican novel of dictatorship, little known outside the borders of the Caribbean country, has been characterized in recent years by the new space that has given to female characters in its fictional rewriting of Trujillo’s Era. The Ballad of Alfonsina Bairán by Andrés L. Mateo is certainly one of the most significant examples of it