Fixation to features and neural processing of facial expressions in a gender discrimination task

The final publication is available at Elsevier via http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.bandc.2015.05.007. © 2015. This manuscript version is made available under the CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 license http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/Early face encoding, as reflected by the N170 ERP component, is sensitive to fixation to the eyes. Whether this sensitivity varies with facial expressions of emotion and can also be seen on other ERP components such as P1 and EPN, was investigated. Using eye-tracking to manipulate fixation on facial features, we found the N170 to be the only eye-sensitive component and this was true for fearful, happy and neutral faces. A different effect of fixation to features was seen for the earlier P1 that likely reflected general sensitivity to face position. An early effect of emotion (∼120 ms) for happy faces was seen at occipital sites and was sustained until ∼350 ms post-stimulus. For fearful faces, an early effect was seen around 80 ms followed by a later effect appearing at ∼150 ms until ∼300 ms at lateral posterior sites. Results suggests that in this emotion-irrelevant gender discrimination task, processing of fearful and happy expressions occurred early and largely independently of the eye-sensitivity indexed by the N170. Processing of the two emotions involved different underlying brain networks active at different times

Facial expression discrimination varies with presentation time but not with fixation on features: A backward masking study using eye-tracking

This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in Cognition and Emotion on 23 Sep 2013, available online: http://www.tandfonline.com/10.1080/02699931.2013.812557.The current study investigated the effects of presentation time and fixation to expression-specific diagnostic features on emotion discrimination performance, in a backward masking task. While no differences were found when stimuli were presented for 16.67 ms, differences between facial emotions emerged beyond the happy-superiority effect at presentation times as early as 50 ms. Happy expressions were best discriminated, followed by neutral and disgusted, then surprised, and finally fearful expressions presented for 50 and 100 ms. While performance was not improved by the use of expression-specific diagnostic facial features, performance increased with presentation time for all emotions. Results support the idea of an integration of facial features (holistic processing) varying as a function of emotion and presentation time.This study was supported by the Canadian Institutes for Health Research (CIHR)the Canada Foundation for Innovation (CFI)the Ontario Research Fund (ORF)and the Canada Research Chair (CRC) program to RJI

Neural processing of fearful and happy facial expressions during emotion-relevant and emotion-irrelevant tasks: A fixation-to-feature approach

The final publication is available at Elsevier via http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.biopsycho.2016.07.013. © 2016. This manuscript version is made available under the CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 license http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/Research suggests an important role of the eyes and mouth for discriminating facial expressions of emotion. A gaze-contingent procedure was used to test the impact of fixation to facial features on the neural response to fearful, happy and neutral facial expressions in an emotion discrimination (Exp.1) and an oddball detection (Exp.2) task. The N170 was the only eye-sensitive ERP component, and this sensitivity did not vary across facial expressions. In both tasks, compared to neutral faces, responses to happy expressions were seen as early as 100-120ms occipitally, while responses to fearful expressions started around 150ms, on or after the N170, at both occipital and lateral-posterior sites. Analyses of scalp topographies revealed different distributions of these two emotion effects across most of the epoch. Emotion processing interacted with fixation location at different times between tasks. Results suggest a role of both the eyes and mouth in the neural processing of fearful expressions and of the mouth in the processing of happy expressions, before 350ms.This research was supported by grants from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC Discovery Grant #418431)the Ontario government (Early Researcher Award, ER11-08-172)the Canada Foundation for Innovation (CFI, #213322)and the Canada Research Chair (CRC, #213322 and #230407) program to RJIas well as by a doctoral NSERC grant to KNNT (PGS D Grant # 210825634)

Backward recall and benchmark effects of working memory

Working memory was designed to explain four benchmark memory effects: the word length effect, the irrelevant speech effect, the acoustic confusion effect, and the concurrent articulation effect. However, almost all research thus far has used tests that emphasize forward recall. In four experiments, we examine whether each effect is observable when the items are recalled in reverse order. Subjects did not know which recall direction would be required until the time of test, ensuring that encoding processes would be identical for both recall directions. Contrary to predictions of both the primacy model and the feature model, the benchmark memory effect was either absent or greatly attenuated with backward recall, despite being present with forward recall. Direction of recall had no effect on the more difficult conditions (e.g., long words, similar-sounding items, items presented with irrelevant speech, and items studied with concurrent articulation). Several factors not considered by the primacy and feature models are noted, and a possible explanation within the framework of the SIMPLE model is briefly presented

Attention orienting by gaze and facial expressions across development

This article may not exactly replicate the final version published in the APA journal ©. It is not the copy of record. To view the final vesion go to http://psycnet.apa.org/doi/10.1037/a0030463.Processing of facial expressions has been shown to potentiate orienting of attention toward the direction signaled by gaze in adults, an important social-cognitive function. However, little is known about how this social attention skill develops. This study is the first to examine the developmental trajectory of the gaze orienting effect (GOE), its modulations by facial expressions, and its links with theory of mind (ToM) abilities. Dynamic emotional stimuli were presented to 222 participants (7-25 years old) with normal trait anxiety using a gaze-cuing paradigm. The GOE was found as early as 7 years of age and decreased linearly until 12-13 years, at which point adult levels were reached. Both fearful and surprised expressions enhanced the GOE compared with neutral expressions. The GOE for fearful faces was also larger than for joyful and angry expressions. These effects did not interact with age and were not driven by intertrial variance. Importantly, the GOE did not correlate with ToM abilities as assessed by the "Reading the Mind in the Eyes" test. The implication of these findings for clinical and typically developing populations is discussed

From Brown-Peterson to continual distractor via operation span: A SIMPLE account of complex span

Three memory tasks—Brown-Peterson, complex span, and continual distractor—all alternate presentation of a to-be-remembered item and a distractor activity, but each task is associated with a different memory system, short-term memory, working memory, and long-term memory, respectively. SIMPLE, a relative local distinctiveness model, has previously been fit to data from both the Brown-Peterson and continual distractor tasks; here we use the same version of the model to fit data from a complex span task. Despite the many differences between the tasks, including unpredictable list length, SIMPLE fit the data well. Because SIMPLE posits a single memory system, these results constitute yet another demonstration that performance on tasks originally thought to tap different memory systems can be explained without invoking multiple memory systems

Effects of task demands on the early neural processing of fearful and happy facial expressions

The final publication is available at Elsevier via http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.brainres.2017.03.013 © 2017. This manuscript version is made available under the CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 license http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/Task demands shape how we process environmental stimuli but their impact on the early neural processing of facial expressions remains unclear. In a within-subject design, ERPs were recorded to the same fearful, happy and neutral facial expressions presented during a gender discrimination, an explicit emotion discrimination and an oddball detection tasks, the most studied tasks in the field. Using an eye tracker, fixation on the face nose was enforced using a gaze-contingent presentation. Task demands modulated amplitudes from 200 to 350ms at occipito-temporal sites spanning the EPN component. Amplitudes were more negative for fearful than neutral expressions starting on N170 from 150 to 350ms, with a temporo-occipital distribution, whereas no clear effect of happy expressions was seen. Task and emotion effects never interacted in any time window or for the ERP components analyzed (P1, N170, EPN). Thus, whether emotion is explicitly discriminated or irrelevant for the task at hand, neural correlates of fearful and happy facial expressions seem immune to these task demands during the first 350ms of visual processing.Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC Discovery Grant #418431)Ontario government (Early Researcher Award, ER11-08-172)Canada Foundation for Innovation (CFI, #213322)Canada Research Chair (CRC, #213322; #230407)Doctoral NSERC grant (CGS D Grant # 210825634

Single-probe serial position recall: evidence of modularity for olfactory, visual and auditory short-term memory

The present study examined and compared order memory for a list of sequentially presented odours, unfamiliar-faces and pure-tone. Employing single-probe serial position recall and following a correction for a response bias, qualitatively different serial position functions were observed across stimuli. Participants demonstrated an ability to perform absolute order memory judgments for odours. Furthermore, odours produced an absence of serial position effects, unfamiliar-faces produced both primacy and recency and pure-tones produced recency but not primacy. Such a finding is contrary to the proposal by Ward, Avons and Melling (2005) that the serial position function is task, rather than modality, dependent. In contrast, the observed functions support a modular conceptualisation of short-term memory (e.g. Andrade and Donaldson, 2007; Baddeley and Hitch, 1974), whereby separate modality-specific memorial systems operate. An alternative amodal interpretation is also discussed wherein serial position function disparities are accommodated via differences in the psychological distinctiveness of stimuli (Hay, Smyth, Hitch and Horton, 2007)

The medium-term sustainability of organisational innovations in the national health service

Background: There is a growing recognition of the importance of introducing new ways of working into the UK's National Health Service (NHS) and other health systems, in order to ensure that patient care is provided as effectively and efficiently as possible. Researchers have examined the challenges of introducing new ways of working-'organisational innovations'-into complex organisations such as the NHS, and this has given rise to a much better understanding of how this takes place-and why seemingly good ideas do not always result in changes in practice. However, there has been less research on the medium-and longer-term outcomes for organisational innovations and on the question of how new ways of working, introduced by frontline clinicians and managers, are sustained and become established in day-to-day practice. Clearly, this question of sustainability is crucial if the gains in patient care that derive from organisational innovations are to be maintained, rather than lost to what the NHS Institute has called the 'improvement-evaporation effect'. Methods: The study will involve research in four case-study sites around England, each of which was successful in sustaining its new model of service provision beyond an initial period of pilot funding for new genetics services provided by the Department of Health. Building on findings relating to the introduction and sustainability of these services already gained from an earlier study, the research will use qualitative methods-in-depth interviews, observation of key meetings, and analysis of relevant documents-to understand the longer-term challenges involved in each case and how these were surmounted. The research will provide lessons for those seeking to sustain their own organisational innovations in wide-ranging clinical areas and for those designing the systems and organisations that make up the NHS, to make them more receptive contexts for the sustainment of innovation. Discussion: Through comparison and contrast across four sites, each involving different organisational innovations, different forms of leadership, and different organisational contexts to contend with, the findings of the study will have wide relevance. The research will produce outputs that are useful for managers and clinicians responsible for organisational innovation, policy makers and senior managers, and academics

The influence of fictional narrative experience on work outcomes:a conceptual analysis and research model

Fictional narrative experience is assumed to have a profound impact on human behavior, but the possible outcomes and the processes through which fictional narrative experience influence behaviors have rarely been studied. This paper introduces a model of the consequences of fictional narrative experience through transportation and transformation processes. We discuss a framework for understanding the effects of fictional narrative experience, distinguishing affective and behavioral effects, and temporality of effects (short-term or persistent). Exemplary outcomes of fictional narrative experience are presented, including recovery, creativity and interpersonal behavior. Finally, we propose that the effects of fictional narrative experience are dependent upon a person’s frame of reference, as well the extent to which a reader can identify with the main characters, the perceived usefulness of a narrative, and degree of verisimilitude in the narrative