A critical role of holistic processing in face gender perception

Whether face gender perception is processed by encoding holistic (whole) or featural (parts) information is a controversial issue. Although neuroimaging studies have identified brain regions related to face gender perception, the temporal dynamics of this process remain under debate. Here, we identified the mechanism and temporal dynamics of face gender perception. We used stereoscopic depth manipulation to create two conditions: the front and behind condition. In the front condition, facial patches were presented stereoscopically in front of the occluder and participants perceived them as disjoint parts (featural cues). In the behind condition, facial patches were presented stereoscopically behind the occluder and were amodally completed and unified in a coherent face (holistic cues). We performed three behavioral experiments and one electroencephalography experiment, and compared the results of the front and behind conditions. We found faster RT in the behind condition compared with the front, and observed priming effects and aftereffects only in the behind condition. Moreover, the EEG experiment revealed that face gender perception is processed in the relatively late phase of visual recognition (200-285 ms). Our results indicate that holistic information is critical for face gender perception, and that this process occurs with a relatively late latency

Control of the glass-liquid transition temperature in YBa2Cu3O7-x films

Magnetic field dependences of the glass-liquid transition temperature (Tg) were studied in YBa2Cu3O7−x films containing various types of nanoinclusions. The vortex configuration entangled or straight and pinning strength for each vortex are crucial to the behaviors of Tg. c-axis correlated pinning centers optimize these factors and achieve the upper limit of Tg, which is determined by loss of line tension of vortices, if they are elongated through a thickness of a sample. By optimizing pinning centers, critical temperature, and a matching field, a Tg value of 77 K can be obtained in YBa2Cu3O7−x in a magnetic field as high as 27 T