Holistic processing for other-race faces in Chinese participants occurs for upright but not inverted faces

Recent evidence suggests stronger holistic processing for own-race faces may underlie the own-race advantage in face memory. In previous studies Caucasian participants have demonstrated larger holistic processing effects for Caucasian over Asian faces. However, Asian participants have consistently shown similar sized effects for both Asian and Caucasian faces. We investigated two proposed explanations for the holistic processing of other-race faces by Asian participants: (1) greater other-race exposure, (2) a general global processing bias. Holistic processing was tested using the part-whole task. Participants were living in predominantly own-race environments and other-race contact was evaluated. Despite reporting significantly greater contact with own-race than other-race people, Chinese participants displayed strong holistic processing for both Asian and Caucasian upright faces. In addition, Chinese participants showed no evidence of holistic processing for inverted faces arguing against a general global processing bias explanation. Caucasian participants, in line with previous studies, displayed stronger holistic processing for Caucasian than Asian upright faces. For inverted faces there were no race-of-face differences. These results are used to suggest that Asians may make more general use of face-specific mechanisms than Caucasians. © 2013 Crookes, Favelle and Hayward.published_or_final_versio

Social Software: For the People, By the People

Social networking software is an emergent phenomenon of the information systems landscape whose novelty has ensured that it has largely eluded academic scrutiny. Given that social software is primarily within the province of the young at this stage, a playfully meandering exposition of its definition and quasi-philosophical ramifications will be delivered in essay form

An Improved Measure of Deaths due to COVID-19 in England and Wales

We address the question of: 'how many deaths in England and Wales are due to COVID-19?' There are two approaches to measuring COVID deaths - 'COVID associated deaths' and 'excess deaths'. An excess deaths type framework is preferable, as there is substantial measurement error in COVID associated deaths, due to issues relating to the identification of deaths that are directly attributable to COVID-19. A limitation of the current excess deaths metric (a comparison of deaths to a 5 year average for the same week), is that it attributes the entirety of the variation in mortality to COVID-19. This likely means that the metric is overstated because there are a range of other drivers of mortality. We address this by estimating novel empirical Poisson models for all-cause deaths (in totality; by age category; for males; and females) that account for other drivers including the lockdown Government policy response. The models are novel because they include COVID identifier variables (which are a variation on a dummy variable). We use these identifiers to estimate weekly deviations in COVID deaths (about the mean weekly estimate pertaining to the COVID dummy variable in our baseline model). Results from two sets of identifiers indicate that, over the periods when our weekly estimates of total COVID deaths and the current excess deaths measure differ (week ending 17th or 24th April 2020 - week ending 8th May 2020), the former is considerably below the latter - on average per week 4670 deaths (54%) lower, or 4727 deaths (63%) lower, respectively

“Just Imagine That…”: A Solution Focused Approach to Doctoral Research Supervision in Health and Social Care

Effective supervision in doctoral research is critical to successful and timely completion. However,supervision is a complex undertaking with structural as well as relational challenges for bothstudents and supervisors. This instructional paper describes an internationally applicable approach tosupervision that we have developed in the health and social care disciplines that offers structure, butis also dynamic and responsive to the needs of students and supervisors and aims to develop theresearch competency of students. Our approach called Solution Focused Research Supervision(SFRS) is based on solution focused approaches, adapted from Solution Focused Brief Therapy andquestioning techniques derived from coaching. This approach has enabled our supervision teams toeffectively develop focused research questions and decide on appropriate research methodologiesand methods. We offer the SFRS approach as a way of working that seeks to recognize and buildupon strengths, foster engagement and openness to learning as well as build trust between studentsand supervisors. The authors, from (countries deleted for peer review), are supervisors and studentswho have developed the approach and provide practical examples of its application

COVID-19 mortalities in England and Wales and the Peltzman offsetting effect

There are two approaches to measuring COVID-19 deaths–‘COVID associated deaths’ and ‘excess deaths’. An excess deaths framework is preferable, as there is measurement error in COVID associated deaths, due to issues relating to imperfect information about deaths that are directly attributable to COVID-19. The standard measure of excess deaths (comparison of deaths to a 5-year average) is subject to an omitted variables problem, as it attributes the entirety of the variation in mortality to COVID-19. We propose a method to estimate a refined measure of COVID-19 excess deaths in England and Wales that addresses the omitted impact of the first blanket lockdown. Using the counterfactual, we obtain a first stage estimate of excess deaths. In the second stage, this is decomposed into estimates of a refined measure of COVID-19 excess deaths and the excess mortality impact of lockdown. Our results suggest: (i) a refined estimate of mean weekly COVID-19 excess deaths that is 63% of standard excess deaths; and (ii) a positive net excess mortality impact of the lockdown. We make a case that (ii) is due to the Peltzman offsetting effect, i.e. the intended mortality impact of the lockdown was more than offset by the unintended impact

Importance of the inverted control in measuring holistic face processing with the composite effect and part-whole effect

Holistic coding for faces is shown in several illusions that demonstrate integration of the percept across the entire face. The illusions occur upright but, crucially, not inverted. Converting the illusions into experimental tasks that measure their strength - and thus index degree of holistic coding - is often considered straightforward yet in fact relies on a hidden assumption, namely that there is no contribution to the experimental measure from secondary cognitive factors. For the composite effect, a relevant secondary factor is size of the spotlight of visuospatial attention.The composite task assumes this spotlight can be easily restricted to the target half (e.g., top-half) of the compound face stimulus. Yet, if this assumption were not true then a large spotlight, in the absence of holistic perception, could produce a false composite effect, present even for inverted faces and contributing partially to the score for upright faces.We reviewevidence that various factors can influence spotlight size: race/culture (Asians often prefer a more global distribution of attention than Caucasians); sex (females can be more global); appearance of the join or gap between face halves; and location of the eyes, which typically attract attention. Results from five experiments then show inverted faces can sometimes produce large false composite effects, and imply that whether this happens or not depends on complex interactions between causal factors. We also report, for both identity and expression, that only top-half face targets (containing eyes) produce valid composite measures. A sixth experiment demonstrates an example of a false inverted part-whole effect, where encoding-specificity is the secondary cognitive factor.We conclude the inverted face control should be tested in all composite and part-whole studies, and an effect for upright faces should be interpreted as a pure measure of holistic processing only when the experimental design produces no effect inverted. This Document is Protected by copyright and was first published by Frontiers. All rights reserved. it is reproduced with permissio

Clinical simulation in Australia and New Zealand: Through the lens of an advisory group

Across Australia, innovations in simulation to enhance learning in nursing have been occurring for three decades and nursing is, and needs to be, a leading player in simulation knowledge diffusion. However, expertise is unevenly distributed across health services and education providers. Rather than build on the expertise and achievements of others, there is a tendency for resource duplication and for trial and error problem solving, in part related to a failure to communicate achievements for the benefits of the professional collective. For nursing to become a leader in the use of simulation and drive ongoing development, as well as conducting high quality research and evaluation, academics need to collaborate, aggregate best practice in simulation learning, and disseminate that knowledge to educators working in health services and higher education sectors across the whole of Australia and New Zealand. To achieve this strategic intent, capacity development principles and committed action are necessary. In mid 2010 the opportunity to bring together nurse educators with simulation learning expertise within Australia and New Zealand became a reality. The Council of Deans of Nursing and Midwifery (CDNM) Australia and New Zealand decided to establish an expert reference group to reflect on the state of Australian nursing simulation, to pool expertise and to plan ways to share best practice knowledge on simulation more widely. This paper reflects on the achievements of the first 18 months since the group's establishment and considers future directions for the enhancement of simulation learning practice, research and development in Australian nursing

Measurements of integral muon intensity at large zenith angles

High-statistics data on near-horizontal muons collected with Russian-Italian coordinate detector DECOR are analyzed. Precise measurements of muon angular distributions in zenith angle interval from 60 to 90 degrees have been performed. In total, more than 20 million muons are selected. Dependences of the absolute integral muon intensity on zenith angle for several threshold energies ranging from 1.7 GeV to 7.2 GeV are derived. Results for this region of zenith angles and threshold energies have been obtained for the first time. The dependence of integral intensity on zenith angle and threshold energy is well fitted by a simple analytical formula.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures, 1 tabl

First report of generalized face processing difficulties in möbius sequence.

Reverse simulation models of facial expression recognition suggest that we recognize the emotions of others by running implicit motor programmes responsible for the production of that expression. Previous work has tested this theory by examining facial expression recognition in participants with Möbius sequence, a condition characterized by congenital bilateral facial paralysis. However, a mixed pattern of findings has emerged, and it has not yet been tested whether these individuals can imagine facial expressions, a process also hypothesized to be underpinned by proprioceptive feedback from the face. We investigated this issue by examining expression recognition and imagery in six participants with Möbius sequence, and also carried out tests assessing facial identity and object recognition, as well as basic visual processing. While five of the six participants presented with expression recognition impairments, only one was impaired at the imagery of facial expressions. Further, five participants presented with other difficulties in the recognition of facial identity or objects, or in lower-level visual processing. We discuss the implications of our findings for the reverse simulation model, and suggest that facial identity recognition impairments may be more severe in the condition than has previously been noted