Understanding person acquisition using an interactive activation and competition network

Face perception is one of the most developed visual skills that humans display, and recent work has attempted to examine the mechanisms involved in face perception through noting how neural networks achieve the same performance. The purpose of the present paper is to extend this approach to look not just at human face recognition, but also at human face acquisition. Experiment 1 presents empirical data to describe the acquisition over time of appropriate representations for newly encountered faces. These results are compared with those of Simulation 1, in which a modified IAC network capable of modelling the acquisition process is generated. Experiment 2 and Simulation 2 explore the mechanisms of learning further, and it is demonstrated that the acquisition of a set of associated new facts is easier than the acquisition of individual facts in isolation of one another. This is explained in terms of the advantage gained from additional inputs and mutual reinforcement of developing links within an interactive neural network system. <br/

Evaluations of People Depicted With Facial Disfigurement Compared to Those With Mobility Impairment

There are few extant studies of stereotyping of people with facial disfigurement. In the present study, two experiments (both within-participants) showed positive evaluations of people depicted as wheelchair users and, from the same participants, negative evaluations of people with facial disfigurements, compared to controls. The results of Experiment 2 suggested that implicit affective attitudes were more negative toward people with facial disfigurement than wheelchair users and were correlated with evaluation negativity. Social norms were perceived to permit more discrimination against people with facial disfigurement than against wheelchair users. These factors could help to explain the evaluative differences between the two disadvantaged groups

Rate Effects on Timing, Key Velocity, and Finger Kinematics in Piano Performance

We examined the effect of rate on finger kinematics in goal-directed actions of pianists. In addition, we evaluated whether movement kinematics can be treated as an indicator of personal identity. Pianists' finger movements were recorded with a motion capture system while they performed melodies from memory at different rates. Pianists' peak finger heights above the keys preceding keystrokes increased as tempo increased, and were attained about one tone before keypress. These rate effects were not simply due to a strategy to increase key velocity (associated with tone intensity) of the corresponding keystroke. Greater finger heights may compensate via greater tactile feedback for a speed-accuracy tradeoff that underlies the tendency toward larger temporal variability at faster tempi. This would allow pianists to maintain high temporal accuracy when playing at fast rates. In addition, finger velocity and accelerations as pianists' fingers approached keys were sufficiently unique to allow pianists' identification with a neural-network classifier. Classification success was higher in pianists with more extensive musical training. Pianists' movement “signatures” may reflect unique goal-directed movement kinematic patterns, leading to individualistic sound

Is That Me or My Twin? Lack of Self-Face Recognition Advantage in Identical Twins

Despite the increasing interest in twin studies and the stunning amount of research on face recognition, the ability of adult identical twins to discriminate their own faces from those of their co-twins has been scarcely investigated. One’s own face is the most distinctive feature of the bodily self, and people typically show a clear advantage in recognizing their own face even more than other very familiar identities. Given the very high level of resemblance of their faces, monozygotic twins represent a unique model for exploring self-face processing. Herein we examined the ability of monozygotic twins to distinguish their own face from the face of their co-twin and of a highly familiar individual. Results show that twins equally recognize their own face and their twin’s face. This lack of self-face advantage was negatively predicted by how much they felt physically similar to their co-twin and by their anxious or avoidant attachment style. We speculate that in monozygotic twins, the visual representation of the self-face overlaps with that of the co-twin. Thus, to distinguish the self from the co-twin, monozygotic twins have to rely much more than control participants on the multisensory integration processes upon which the sense of bodily self is based. Moreover, in keeping with the notion that attachment style influences perception of self and significant others, we propose that the observed self/co-twin confusion may depend upon insecure attachment

Soft biometrics; human identification using comparative descriptions

Soft biometrics are a new form of biometric identification which use physical or behavioral traits that can be naturally described by humans. Unlike other biometric approaches, this allows identification based solely on verbal descriptions, bridging the semantic gap between biometrics and human description. To permit soft biometric identification the description must be accurate, yet conventional human descriptions comprising of absolute labels and estimations are often unreliable. A novel method of obtaining human descriptions will be introduced which utilizes comparative categorical labels to describe differences between subjects. This innovative approach has been shown to address many problems associated with absolute categorical labels - most critically, the descriptions contain more objective information and have increased discriminatory capabilities. Relative measurements of the subjects&amp;#8217; traits can be inferred from comparative human descriptions using the Elo rating system. The resulting soft biometric signatures have been demonstrated to be robust and allow accurate recognition of subjects. Relative measurements can also be obtained from other forms of human representation. This is demonstrated using a support vector machine to determine relative measurements from gait biometric signatures - allowing retrieval of subjects from video footage by using human comparisons, bridging the semantic gap

Visual analysis of gait as a cue to identity

For humans, the ability to discriminate between, and to identify, others is paramount. The most obvious way this is accomplished is by means of face recognition. However, this is not the only method available. The present article reports on two experiments designed to see whether gait can be used as a reliable cue to identity. Experiment One showed that the human visual system was sophisticated enough to learn to identify six individuals on the basis of their gait signature under conditions of simulated daylight, simulated dusk and point‐light displays. It thus appeared that gait‐related judgements could be made, and furthermore, that these judgements were possible without reliance on shape information. Experiment Two suggested that even under adverse viewing conditions involving a single brief exposure, humans could identify a target from a ‘walking identity parade’ at greater than chance levels. These results emerged regardless of the lighting conditions, and were largely independent of the gender of the target walker. As such, the present results suggest that gait could be used as a reliable means of discriminating between individuals, and the importance of such an identity cue, in conditions in which the face is obscured, are discussed

Assessment of the Mackay apparatus for testing oil-spill dispersants

SIGLELD:7628.85(WSL-LR--443(OP)) / BLDSC - British Library Document Supply CentreGBUnited Kingdo

Perception of biomechanical motion in children with autism

Perceptual abnormalities are a common feature of the autobiographical accounts of individuals with autism. These include fragmented perception and intense experience of normally unnoticed aspects of the environment, and have been attributed to a weak drive for central coherence. However, it is only recently that these peculiarities have started to be systematically explored as non-triad features of autism. The aim of the present research was to investigate perceptual discrimination between matched autistic (n = 20), learning disabled (n = 25) and normal (n = 25) control groups using a standardized perception measure (i.e. the Children’s Embedded Figures Test) and an experimental stimulus using point light display depicting biomechanical motion to measure lower levels of processing. The present paper describes the results obtained using this experimental design and summarizes the implications for clinical research targeting early and pre-verbal diagnosis of autism using point light stimuli and habituation paradigms