Elements of person knowledge: Episodic recollection helps us to identify people but not to recognize their faces

Faces automatically draw attention, allowing rapid assessments of personality and likely behaviour. How we respond to people is, however, highly dependent on whether we know who they are. According to face processing models person knowledge comes from an extended neural system that includes structures linked to episodic memory. Here we use scalp recorded brain signals to demonstrate the specific role of episodic memory processes during face processing. In two experiments we recorded Event-Related Potentials (ERPs) while participants made identify, familiar or unknown responses to famous faces. ERPs revealed neural signals previously associated with episodic recollection for identify but not familiar faces. These findings provide novel evidence suggesting that recollection is central to face processing, providing one source of person knowledge that can be used to moderate the initial impressions gleaned from the core neural system that supports face recognition

Elements of person knowledge : episodic recollection helps us to identify people but not to recognize their faces

This research was supported by the Scottish Imaging Network: A Platform for Scientific Excellence (www.sinapse.ac.uk) and a Grant from the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BB/L023644/1).Faces automatically draw attention, allowing rapid assessments of personality and likely behaviour. How we respond to people is, however, highly dependent on whether we know who they are. According to face processing models person knowledge comes from an extended neural system that includes structures linked to episodic memory. Here we use scalp recorded brain signals to demonstrate the specific role of episodic memory processes during face processing. In two experiments we recorded Event-Related Potentials (ERPs) while participants made identify, familiar or unknown responses to famous faces. ERPs revealed neural signals previously associated with episodic recollection for identify but not familiar faces. These findings provide novel evidence suggesting that recollection is central to face processing, providing one source of person knowledge that can be used to moderate the initial impressions gleaned from the core neural system that supports face recognition.Publisher PDFPeer reviewe

Familiarity for Associations? A Test of the Domain Dichotomy Theory

Episodic recognition memory is mediated by functionally separable retrieval processes, notably familiarity (a general sense of prior exposure) and recollection (the retrieval of contextual details), whose relative engagement depends partly on the nature of the information being retrieved. Currently, the specific contribution of familiarity to associative recognition memory (where retrieval of the relationships between pairs of stimuli is required) is not clearly understood. Here we test domain dichotomy theory, which predicts that familiarity should contribute more to associative memory when stimuli are similar (within-domain) than when they are distinct (between-domain). Participants studied stimulus pairs, and at test, discriminated intact from rearranged pairs. Stimuli were either within-domain (name-name or image-image pairs) or between-domain (name-image pairs). Across experiments we employed two different behavioural measures of familiarity, based on ROC curves and a Modified Remember-Know procedure. Both experiments provided evidence that familiarity can contribute to associative recognition; however familiarity was stronger for between-domain pairs - in direct contrast to the domain dichotomy prediction

A decade after SARS: strategies for controlling emerging coronaviruses

Two novel coronaviruses have emerged in humans in the 21st century, Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus (SARS-CoV) and Middle East Respiratory Syndrome human coronavirus (MERS-CoV), both of which cause acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) and have high mortality rates. There are no clinically approved vaccines or antiviral drugs available for either of these infections; thus, a priority in the field is the development of effective therapeutic and preventive strategies that can be readily applied to new emergent strains. This review will: describe the emergence and identification of novel human coronaviruses over the last 10 years; review their key biological features, including tropism and receptor use; and summarize approaches to develop broadly effective vaccines

Les palmarès d’établissements et leur usage. Les différences entre l’Angleterre et l’Écosse

Cet article traite des différences d’approches dans l’utilisation des données sur les performances scolaires en Écosse et en Angleterre. Il montre qu’il continue d’exister des différences significatives entre ces deux pays, tant en ce qui concerne les politiques éducatives que les pratiques. Les développements importants que connaît l’Écosse posent de nouveaux défis dans la manière de concilier les objectifs généraux du curriculum avec une plus grande liberté accordée aux établissements et la nécessité de mesurer et d’élever la qualité.This article addresses the differing approaches to the use of school performance data in Scotland and England, showing that there remain significant differences between these two countries, in both educational policy and practice. The important developments Scotland has witnessed pose new challenges in terms of reconciling the general objectives of the curriculum with the greater liberty granted to institutions and the need to measure and raise quality.Este artículo examina las diferencias de enfoque al utilizar los datos sobre los resultados escolares en Escocia e Inglaterra. Muestra que siguen existiendo diferencias significativas entre estos dos países, tanto en las políticas educativas como en las prácticas. Los desarrollos importantes que conoce Escocia introducen nuevos desafíos en la manera de conciliar los objetivos generales del currículo con una libertad mayor concedida a los establecimientos y la necesidad de evaluar y elevar la calidad

Asymptotic Euler-Maclaurin formula over lattice polytopes

An asymptotic expansion formula of Riemann sums over lattice polytopes is given. The formula is an asymptotic form of the local Euler-Maclaurin formula due to Berline-Vergne. The proof given here for Delzant lattice polytopes is independent of the local Euler-Maclaurin formula. But we use it for general lattice polytopes. As corollaries, an explicit formula for each term in the expansion over Delzant polytopes in two dimension and an explicit formula for the third term of the expansion for Delzant polytopes in arbitrary dimension are given. Moreover, some uniqueness results are given.Comment: 35 pages. Results in the previous version are generalized to lattice polytopes. Some further results are added. The title is changed. The organization is changed to clarify the discussion

An item's status in semantic memory determines how it is recognized : dissociable patterns of brain activity observed for famous and unfamiliar faces

This work was supported by a grant from the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council, United Kingdom (BB/L023644/1).Are all faces recognized in the same way, or does previous experience with a face change how it is retrieved? Previous research using human scalp-recorded Event-Related Potentials (ERPs) demonstrates that recognition memory can produce dissociable brain signals under a variety of circumstances. While many studies have reported dissociations between the putative ‘dual processes’ of familiarity and recollection, a growing number of reports demonstrate that recollection itself may be fractionated into component processes. Many recognition memory studies using lexical materials as stimuli have reported a left parietal ERP old/new effect for recollection; however, when unfamiliar faces are recollected, an anterior effect can be observed. This paper addresses two separate hypotheses concerning the functional significance of the anterior old/new effect: perceptual retrieval and semantic status. The perceptual retrieval view is that the anterior effect reflects reinstatement of perceptual information bound up in an episodic representation, while the semantic status view is that information not represented in semantic memory pre-experimentally elicits the anterior effect instead of the left parietal effect. We tested these two competing accounts by investigating recognition memory for unfamiliar faces and famous faces in two separate experiments, in which same or different pictures of studied faces were presented as test items to permit brain activity associated with retrieving face and perceptual information to be examined independently. The difference in neural activity between same and different picture hits was operationalized as a pattern of activation associated with perceptual retrieval; while the contrast between different picture hits and correct rejection of new faces was assumed to reflect face retrieval. In Experiment 1, using unfamiliar faces, the anterior old/new effect (500–700 ms) was observed for face retrieval but not for perceptual retrieval, challenging the perceptual retrieval hypothesis. In Experiment 2, using famous faces, face retrieval was associated with a left parietal effect (500–700 ms), supporting the semantic representation hypothesis. A between-subjects analysis comparing scalp topography across the two experiments found that the anterior effect observed for unfamiliar faces is dissociable from the left parietal effect found for famous faces. This pattern of results supports the hypothesis thatPublisher PDFPeer reviewe

An item's status in semantic memory determines how it is recognized: Dissociable patterns of brain activity observed for famous and unfamiliar faces

Are all faces recognized in the same way, or does previous experience with a face change how it is retrieved? Previous research using human scalp-recorded Event-Related Potentials (ERPs) demonstrates that recognition memory can produce dissociable brain signals under a variety of circumstances. While many studies have reported dissociations between the putative ‘dual processes’ of familiarity and recollection, a growing number of reports demonstrate that recollection itself may be fractionated into component processes. Many recognition memory studies using lexical materials as stimuli have reported a left parietal ERP old/new effect for recollection; however, when unfamiliar faces are recollected, an anterior effect can be observed. This paper addresses two separate hypotheses concerning the functional significance of the anterior old/new effect: perceptual retrieval and semantic status. The perceptual retrieval view is that the anterior effect reflects reinstatement of perceptual information bound up in an episodic representation, while the semantic status view is that information not represented in semantic memory pre-experimentally elicits the anterior effect instead of the left parietal effect. We tested these two competing accounts by investigating recognition memory for unfamiliar faces and famous faces in two separate experiments, in which same or different pictures of studied faces were presented as test items to permit brain activity associated with retrieving face and perceptual information to be examined independently. The difference in neural activity between same and different picture hits was operationalized as a pattern of activation associated with perceptual retrieval; while the contrast between different picture hits and correct rejection of new faces was assumed to reflect face retrieval. In Experiment 1, using unfamiliar faces, the anterior old/new effect (500–700msec) was observed for face retrieval but not for perceptual retrieval, challenging the perceptual retrieval hypothesis. In Experiment 2, using famous faces, face retrieval was associated with a left parietal effect (500–700msec), supporting the semantic representation hypothesis. A between-subjects analysis comparing scalp topography across the two experiments found that the anterior effect observed for unfamiliar faces is dissociable from the left parietal effect found for famous faces. This pattern of results supports the hypothesis that an item's status in semantic memory determines how it is recognized