The inversion, part-whole, and composite effects reflect distinct perceptual mechanisms with varied relationships to face recognition

Face recognition is thought to rely on specific mechanisms underlying a perceptual bias toward processing faces as undecomposable wholes. This face-specific "holistic processing" is commonly quantified using 3 measures: the inversion, part-whole, and composite effects. Consequently, many researchers assume that these 3 effects measure the same cognitive mechanism(s) and these mechanisms contribute to the wide range of individual differences seen in face recognition ability. We test these assumptions in a large sample (N = 282), with individual face recognition abilities measured by the well-validated Cambridge Face Perception Test. Our results provide little support for either assumption. The small to nonexistent correlations among inversion, part-whole, and composite effects (correlations between -.03 and .28) fail to support the first assumption. As for the second assumption, only the inversion effect moderately predicts face recognition (r = .42); face recognition was weakly correlated with the part-whole effect (r = .25) and not correlated with the composite effect (r = .04). We rule out multiple artifactual explanations for our results by using valid tasks that produce standard effects at the group level, demonstrating that our tasks exhibit psychometric properties suitable for individual differences studies, and demonstrating that other predicted correlations (e.g., between face perception measures) are robust. Our results show that inversion, part-whole, and composite effects reflect distinct perceptual mechanisms, and we argue against the use of the single, generic term holistic processing when referring to these effects. Our results also question the contribution of these mechanisms to individual differences in face recognition

Signatures of four-particle correlations associated with exciton-carrier interactions in coherent spectroscopy on bulk GaAs

Transient four-wave mixing studies of bulk GaAs under conditions of broad bandwidth excitation of primarily interband transitions have enabled four-particle correlations tied to degenerate (exciton-exciton) and nondegenerate (exciton-carrier) interactions to be studied. Real two-dimensional Fourier-transform spectroscopy (2DFTS) spectra reveal a complex response at the heavy-hole exciton emission energy that varies with the absorption energy, ranging from dispersive on the diagonal, through absorptive for low-energy interband transitions to dispersive with the opposite sign for interband transitions high above band gap. Simulations using a multilevel model augmented by many-body effects provide excellent agreement with the 2DFTS experiments and indicate that excitation-induced dephasing (EID) and excitation-induced shift (EIS) affect degenerate and nondegenerate interactions equivalently, with stronger exciton-carrier coupling relative to exciton-exciton coupling by approximately an order of magnitude. These simulations also indicate that EID effects are three times stronger than EIS in contributing to the coherent response of the semiconductor

Recent Decisions

Comments on recent decisions by Wilmer A. McLaughlin, Robert C. Enburg, Robert A. Layden, Lenton G. Sculthorp, Joseph T. Helling, John L. Globensky, Maurice J. Moriarty, Robert J. Affeldt, Louis J. Mustico, Donald John Tufts, Sidney Baker, and Edward J. VanTassel

Strategy for Dynamic Wisp Removal in James Webb Space Telescope NIRCam Images

The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) near-infrared camera (NIRCam) has been found to exhibit serious wisp-like structures in four of its eight short-wavelength detectors. The exact structure and strength of these wisps is highly variable with the position and orientation of JWST, so the use of static templates is non-optimal. Here we investigate a dynamic strategy to mitigate these wisps using long-wavelength reference images. Based on a suite of experiments where we embed a worst-case scenario median-stacked wisp into wisp-free images, we define suitable parameters for our wisp removal strategy. Using this setup we re-process wisp-affected public Prime Extragalactic Areas for Reionization and Lensing Science (PEARLS) data in the North Ecliptic Pole Time Domain Field (NEP-TDF) field, resulting in significant visual improvement in our detector frames and reduced noise in the final stacked images.Comment: 16 pages, 10 figures, submitted to PASP, comments welcom

Consumer Attitudes Toward Animal Welfare-Friendly Products and Willingness to Pay: Exploration of Mexican Market Segments

The study aim was to identify consumer segmentation based on nonhuman animal welfare (AW) attitudes and their relationship with demographic features and willingness to pay (WTP) for welfare-friendly products (WFP) in Mexico. Personal interviews were conducted with 843 Mexican consumers who stated they purchased most of the animal products in their home. Respondents were selected using a quota sampling method with age, gender, education, and origin as quota control variables. The multivariate analysis suggested there were three clusters or consumer profiles labeled "skeptical, " "concerned, " and "ethical, " which helped explain the association between AW attitudes, some demographic variables, and WTP for WFP. This study is one of the first to address consumer profiling in Latin America, and the findings could have implications for the commercialization of WFP. Hence, customers should receive information to consider welfare innovations when deciding to purchase animal products. The growth of the WFP food market establishes an element of a far more multifaceted phenomenon of sustainable consumption and support of a new paradigm called responsible marketing in emerging markets such as Mexico

Bostonia: The Boston University Alumni Magazine. Volume 32

Founded in 1900, Bostonia magazine is Boston University's main alumni publication, which covers alumni and student life, as well as university activities, events, and programs

Decreased Axon Caliber Underlies Loss of Fiber Tract Integrity, Disproportional Reductions in White Matter Volume, and Microcephaly in Angelman Syndrome Model Mice

Angelman syndrome (AS) is a debilitating neurodevelopmental disorder caused by loss of function of the maternally inherited UBE3A allele. It is currently unclear how the consequences of this genetic insult unfold to impair neurodevelopment. We reasoned that by elucidating the basis of microcephaly in AS, a highly penetrant syndromic feature with early postnatal onset, we would gain new insights into the mechanisms by which maternal UBE3A loss derails neurotypical brain growth and function. Detailed anatomical analysis of both male and female maternal Ube3a-null mice reveals that microcephaly in the AS mouse model is primarily driven by deficits in the growth of white matter tracts, which by adulthood are characterized by densely packed axons of disproportionately small caliber. Our results implicate impaired axon growth in the pathogenesis of AS and identify noninvasive structural neuroimaging as a potentially valuable tool for gauging therapeutic efficacy in the disorder

Observation of reduced thermal conductivity in a metal-organic framework due to the presence of adsorbates

Whether the presence of adsorbates increases or decreases thermal conductivity in metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) has been an open question. Here we report observations of thermal transport in the metal-organic framework HKUST-1 in the presence of various liquid adsorbates: water, methanol, and ethanol. Experimental thermoreflectance measurements were performed on single crystals and thin films, and theoretical predictions were made using molecular dynamics simulations. We find that the thermal conductivity of HKUST-1 decreases by 40 – 80% depending on the adsorbate, a result that cannot be explained by effective medium approximations. Our findings demonstrate that adsorbates introduce additional phonon scattering in HKUST-1, which particularly shortens the lifetimes of low-frequency phonon modes. As a result, the system thermal conductivity is lowered to a greater extent than the increase expected by the creation of additional heat transfer channels. Finally, we show that thermal diffusivity is even more greatly reduced than thermal conductivity by adsorption

The distribution of pond snail communities across a landscape: separating out the influence of spatial position from local habitat quality for ponds in south-east Northumberland, UK

Ponds support a rich biodiversity because the heterogeneity of individual ponds creates, at the landscape scale, a diversity of habitats for wildlife. The distribution of pond animals and plants will be influenced by both the local conditions within a pond and the spatial distribution of ponds across the landscape. Separating out the local from the spatial is difficult because the two are often linked. Pond snails are likely to be affected by both local conditions, e.g. water hardness, and spatial patterns, e.g. distance between ponds, but studies of snail communities struggle distinguishing between the two. In this study, communities of snails were recorded from 52 ponds in a biogeographically coherent landscape in north-east England. The distribution of snail communities was compared to local environments characterised by the macrophyte communities within each pond and to the spatial pattern of ponds throughout the landscape. Mantel tests were used to partial out the local versus the landscape respective influences. Snail communities became more similar in ponds that were closer together and in ponds with similar macrophyte communities as both the local and the landscape scale were important for this group of animals. Data were collected from several types of ponds, including those created on nature reserves specifically for wildlife, old field ponds (at least 150 years old) primarily created for watering livestock and subsidence ponds outside protected areas or amongst coastal dunes. No one pond type supported all the species. Larger, deeper ponds on nature reserves had the highest numbers of species within individual ponds but shallow, temporary sites on farm land supported a distinct temporary water fauna. The conservation of pond snails in this region requires a diversity of pond types rather than one idealised type and ponds scattered throughout the area at a variety of sites, not just concentrated on nature reserves