Older news items (pre-2010) brought over from the old website

Developing expertise

How what we like defines what we know

How we categorize items is crucial to both how we perceive them and how well we remember them. Expertise in a subject is a well-established factor in categorization — experts create more specific categories. Because experts usually enjoy their areas of expertise, and because time spent on a subject should result in finer categorization, we would expect positive feelings towards an item to result in more specific categories. However, research has found that positive feelings usually result in more global processing. A new study has found that preference does indeed result in finer categorization and, more surprisingly, that this is independent of expertise. It seems that preference itself activates focused thinking that directly targets the preferred object, enabling more detailed perception and finer categorization.

Smallman, R. & Roese, N.J. 2008. Preference Invites Categorization. Psychological Science, 19 (12).

http://www.physorg.com/news152203095.html

Practice makes an expert

A comparison of expert video game players and non-players has found that gamers showed a 20% reduction in response times on a visual search test (meaning that, on average, gamers were some 100 milliseconds faster than non-gamers). Analysis showed that expert game players did not show differences in normal visual search patterns; they had simply become faster through practice.

Castel, A.D., Pratt, J. & Drummond, E. 2005. The effects of action video game experience on the time course of inhibition of return and the efficiency of visual search. Acta Psychologica, 119 (2), 217-230.

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2005-06/wuis-gbn060905.php

First steps in developing expertise

Learning to play a musical instrument involves two quite different sense media – sound and movement. Recent imaging studies have shown that professional musicians have highly developed links between these different perceptions, such that sounds activate areas of the brain that process movement, and movement such as silently tapping out musical phrases, evokes brain activity in areas involved in hearing. A new study now demonstrates that this sort of cross-linking occurs within twenty minutes of starting to learn an instrument (in this case, a piano). Novices were given ten 20 minute sessions, during which they heard musical phrases and learned to play them back on a digital piano. Those in the "map" group used pianos where five neighboring keys had appropriate notes assigned to them. The "no-map" group used pianos where the assignment of notes to the five keys was randomly shuffled after each training trial. Changes in brain activity were evident in all participants after one session, but after five sessions, the activity patterns were significantly different between the two groups. In the “map” group, motor areas of the brain were active when the participants listened to music, but this was not the case with those in the “no-map” group. The anterior region of the right hemisphere — an area previously implicated in the perception of melodic and harmonic pitch sequences — was also more active in the "map" group, suggesting it may be the area where the mental map representing the link between a note and a piano key is established.

Bangert, M. & Altenmüller, E.O. 2003. Mapping perception to action in piano practice: a longitudinal DC-EEG study. BMC Neuroscience, 4, 26.

Practicing skills in concentrated blocks not the most efficient way

While practicing several different skills in separate, concentrated blocks leads to better performance during practice, it appears that this approach is not the best method of learning for long-term retention. The temporary improvement in performance that results from blocked practice hinders learning because it allows people to overestimate how well they have learned a skill. For long-term retention, it appears that contextual-interference practice (practicing skills that are mixed with other tasks) results in better learning. This may be because such practice requires people to repeatedly retrieve the motor program corresponding to each task (repeated retrieval is a major factor in making stored memories easier to access). Such practice also requires the person to differentiate the skills in terms of their similarities and differences, which may be assumed to result in a better mental conceptualization of those skills. The fact that blocked practice leads to better short-term performance but poorer long-term learning "has great potential to fool teachers, trainers and instructors as well as students and trainees themselves."

Simon, D.A. & Bjork, R.A. 2001. Metacognition in Motor Learning. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory and Cognition, 27 (4).

About expertise

Tone language translates to perfect pitch

The first large-scale, direct-test study to be conducted on perfect pitch has found that native tone language speakers are almost nine times more likely to have the ability. The study involved two populations of music students: a group of 88 first-year students enrolled at the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing, China, all of whom spoke Mandarin, and a group of 115 first-years at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York, none of whom spoke a tone language. In both groups, the earlier an individual began music lessons, the more likely he or she was to have perfect pitch. For students who had begun musical training between ages 4 and 5, approximately 60% of the Chinese speakers tested as having perfect pitch, while only about 14% of the U.S. nontone language speakers did. For those who had begun training between 6 and 7, approximately 55% of the Chinese and 6% of the U.S. met the criterion. And for those beginning between 8 and 9, the figures were 42% of the Chinese and zero of the U.S. group. Perfect pitch is extremely rare in the U.S. and Europe, with an estimated prevalence in the general population of less than one in 10,000.

Results were presented November 17 at the meeting of the Acoustical Society of America in San Diego.
The study, with graphic figures of the results and sound files of the test, is available at http://www.aip.org/148th/deutsch.html.

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2004-11/uoc--tlt110804.php

Patterns of brain activity differ with musical training, not cultural familarity

Unlike language, which elicits different activity patterns in the brain depending on whether it is a familiar or unfamiliar language, a new imaging study has found that music of another culture produces no differences in brain activity compared to music from your own culture. The study compared responses to Western and Cantonese music, and used 6 professionally trained American musicians and 6 people with little musical training. The study did however find that 30-second excerpts in the familiar style of music were more easily remembered, and also, that training affected the pattern of brain activity.

Morrison, S.J., Demorest, S.M., Aylward, E.H., Cramer, S.C. & Maravilla, K.R. 2003. FMRI investigation of cross-cultural music comprehension, NeuroImage, 20 (1), 378-384.

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2003-10/uow-pob101403.php

Another link between music and language

New research augments earlier findings concerning the amount and distribution of gray matter in the brains of professional musicians. It now appears that musicians also have an increased volume of grey matter in the Broca's area, an area of the brain involved in the production of language. A critical factor appears to be the number of years devoted to musical training - at least for musicians under the age of 50. The research supports recent suggestions that musicians process music like an additional language.

Sluming, V., Barrick, T., Howard, M., Cezayirli, E., Mayes, A. & Roberts, N. 2002. Voxel-Based Morphometry Reveals Increased Gray Matter Density in Broca's Area in Male Symphony Orchestra Musicians, NeuroImage, 17(3), 1613-1622.

More grey matter in the auditory cortex of musicians' brains

A German study has found that a region of the auditory cortex was more active in professional musicians listening to tones of varying frequencies compared to amateur musicians and considerably more active than that of non-musicians. More surprisingly, there was a very significant difference in the amount of "grey matter" in the part of the auditory cortex called the Heschl's gyrus. The structure contained 536 to 983 cubic millimetres of grey matter in professionals, 189 to 798 cubic millimetres in amateurs, and 172 to 450 cubic millimetres in non-musicians.

Schneider, P., Scherg, M., Dosch, H.G., Specht, H.J., Gutschalk, A. & Rupp, A. 2002. Morphology of Heschl's gyrus reflects enhanced activation in the auditory cortex of musicians. Nature Neuroscience,5, 688 - 694.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/sci/tech/newsid_2044000/2044646.stm

Another interesting facet to expert memory: how professional musicians process music

A magnetic-resonance study has found that professional musicians use their left brain more than other people when listening to music. In particular, while the planum temporale was activated in all subjects listening to music (a Bach piece), in non-musicians it was the right planum temporale that was most active, while in musicians the left side dominated. The left planum temporale is thought to control language processing. It may be that musicians process music as a language.This left-hand brain activity was most pronounced in people who had started musical training at an early age, as well as in those with absolute or 'perfect' pitch (suggesting that musical traits such as absolute pitch are the result of childhood training rather than genetic predisposition).

Ohnishi, T., Matsuda, H., Asada, T., Aruga, M., Hirakata, M., Nishikawa, M., Katoh, A. & Imabayashi, E. 2001. Functional Anatomy of Musical Perception in Musicians. Cerebral Cortex, 11, 754-760.

http://www.nature.com/nsu/010816/010816-4.html

Chess experts and chess amateurs use different parts of their brain when they play

Professor Thomas Elbert, Ognjen Amidzic and colleagues at the University of Constance, Germany, used a new magnetic imaging technique to study chess players' brains in action. They found that mid-match activity in grandmasters' brains is mainly in regions thought to be involved in long-term memory - the frontal and parietal cortices. Amateur chess players relied more on the medial temporal lobe, which helps to encode new information, suggesting that they analyse situations afresh. The finding supports the idea that expertise depends on stored memory chunks that are called up when needed.

Amidzic, O., Riehle, H.J., Fehr, T., Wienbruch, C. & Elbert, T. 2001. Pattern of focal gamma bursts in chess players. Nature, 412, 603.

http://www.nature.com/nsu/010809/010809-13.html
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/sci/tech/newsid_1480000/1480365.stm

Significant brain differences between professional musicians trained at an early age and non-musicians

Research has revealed significant differences in the gray matter distribution between professional musicians trained at an early age and non-musicians. It is most likely that this is due to intensive musical training at an early age, although it is also possible that the musicians were born with these differences, which led them to pursue musical training.

Schlaug, G. & Christian, G. Paper presented May 7 at the American Academy of Neurology's 53rd Annual Meeting in Philadelphia, PA.

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2001-05/AAoN-Mtdc-0705101.php

Older news items (pre-2010) brought over from the old website

A walk in the park a day keeps mental fatigue away

Many of us who work indoors are familiar with the benefits of a walk in the fresh air, but a new study gives new insight into why, and how, it works. In two experiments, researchers found memory performance and attention spans improved by 20% after people spent an hour interacting with nature. The intriguing finding was that this effect was achieved not only by walking in the botanical gardens (versus walking along main streets of Ann Arbor), but also by looking at photos of nature (versus looking at photos of urban settings). The findings are consistent with a theory that natural environments are better at restoring attention abilities, because they provide a more coherent pattern of stimulation that requires less effort, as opposed to urban environments that are provide complex and often confusing stimulation that captures attention dramatically and requires directed attention (e.g., to avoid being hit by a car).

Berman, M.G., Jonides, J. & Kaplan, S. 2008. The Cognitive Benefits of Interacting With Nature. Psychological Science, 19 (12), 1207-1212.

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2008-12/afps-awi121808.php
http://www.physorg.com/news148663388.html

Older news items (pre-2010) brought over from the old website

Body movements can influence problem solving

There have been several studies in recent years finding that gestures can help us think, mainly by reducing working memory load. Now a study in which people were asked to tie the ends of two strings together has found that they could solve the problem more easily if they swung their arms while they thought. The strings were too far apart for a person holding one to reach the other, and there were several objects available to help solve the problem. The subjects were given eight, two-minute sessions to solve the problem, with 100 seconds devoted to finding a solution, interrupted by 20 seconds of exercise. During the exercise periods, some were told to swing their arms forward and backward, while others were told to alternately stretch their arms to the side. At the same time (to stop them consciously connecting these activities to the problem), they were told to count backwards by threes. The solution to the problem required attaching an object to one of the strings and swinging it so that it could be grasped while also holding the other string, and those in the arm-swinging group were 40% more likely to solve the problem — but, intriguingly, almost none of them were consciously aware of the connection between the exercise and the solution. The finding is another example of what is being called ‘embodied cognition’ — evidence that our bodies truly are part of our minds.

Thomas, L.E. & Lleras, A. 2009. Swinging into thought: Directed movement guides insight in problem solving. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, in press.

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2009-05/uoia-bmc051209.php

Brain's problem-solving function at work when we daydream

An imaging study has revealed that daydreaming is associated with an increase in activity in numerous brain regions, especially those regions associated with complex problem-solving. Until now it was thought that the brain's "default network" (which includes the medial prefrontal cortex, the posterior cingulate cortex and the temporoparietal junction) was the only part of the brain active when our minds wander. The new study has found that the "executive network" (including the lateral prefrontal cortex and the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex) is also active. Before this, it was thought that these networks weren’t active at the same time. It may be that mind wandering evokes a unique mental state that allows otherwise opposing networks to work in cooperation. It was also found that greater activation was associated with less awareness on the part of the subject that there mind was wandering.

Christoff, K. et al. 2009. Experience sampling during fMRI reveals default network and executive system contributions to mind wandering. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 106 (21), 8719-8724. 

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2009-05/uobc-bpf051109.php

Searching in space is like searching your mind

A study of search modes in both spatial and abstract settings has found evidence that how we look for things, such as our car keys or umbrella, could be related to how we search for more abstract needs, such as words in memory or solutions to problems. The studies compared two search modes: exploitation, where seekers stay with a place or task until they have gotten appreciable benefit from it, and exploration, where seekers move quickly from one place or one task to another, looking for a new set of resources to exploit. In the study, participants "foraged" in a computerized world, moving around until they stumbled upon a hidden supply of resources, then deciding if and when to move on, and in which direction. The scientists tracked their movements. Two different worlds ("clumpy", with fewer but richer resources, and "diffuse", with many more, but much smaller, supplies) encouraged one mode or other. The idea was to "prime" the optimal foraging strategy for each world. The volunteers then participated in a more abstract, intellectual search task -- a computerized game akin to Scrabble. It was found that although the human brain appears capable of using exploration or exploitation search modes depending on the demands of the task, it also has a tendency through "priming" to continue searching in the same way even if in a different domain, such as when switching from a spatial to an abstract task. Moreover, people who have a tendency to use one mode more in one task have a similar tendency to use that mode more in other tasks. The findings also support the view that goal-directed cognition is an evolutionary descendant of spatial-foraging behavior.

Hills, T.T., Todd, P.M.  & Goldstone, R.L. 2008. Search in External and Internal Spaces: Evidence for Generalized Cognitive Search Processes. Psychological Science, 19 (8), 802-808.

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2008-09/iu-sis090908.php

Insight into insight

A study investigating brain rhythms and their dynamics while volunteers solved verbal problems has shed light on insightful problem-solving. The findings indicate that focusing or attending too much on a topic can have a detrimental effect, and that a strong Aha! sensation involves minimal metacognitive (monitoring of one's own thoughts) processes and unconscious or, better yet, automatic, recombination of information. Interestingly, when clues were provided, it was possible to predict success or failure based on the brain state prior to the clue presentation.

Sandkühler, S. & Bhattacharya, J. 2008. Deconstructing Insight: EEG Correlates of Insightful Problem Solving. PLoS ONE 3(1): e1459. Full text available at http://www.plosone.org/doi/pone.0001459

http://www.physorg.com/news120290586.html

Older news items (pre-2010) brought over from the old website

Sleep deprivation can threaten competent decision-making

An imaging study follows research showing that sleep-deprived participants engaged in a gambling task choose higher-risk decks and exhibit reduced concern for negative consequences. The study reveals that sleep deprived adults asked to make decisions in a gambling task show higher selective activity in the nucleus accumbens (involved with the anticipation of reward), and reduced activity in the insula (involved with evaluating the emotional significance of an event). The findings help explain why we make poorer decisions when sleep deprived.

Venkatraman, V., Chuah, Y.M.L., Huettel, S.A. & Chee, M.W.L. 2007. Sleep Deprivation Elevates Expectation of Gains and Attenuates Response to Losses Following Risky Decisions. Sleep, 30 (5), 603-609.

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2007-05/aaos-jss042507.php

Exercise improves attention and decision-making among seniors

An imaging study involving adults ranging in age from 58 to 78 before and after a six-month program of aerobic exercise, found specific functional differences in the middle-frontal and superior parietal regions of the brain that changed with improved aerobic fitness. Consistent with the functions of these brain regions, those who participated in the aerobic-exercise intervention significantly improved their performance on a computer-based decision-making task. Those doing toning and stretching exercises did increase activation in some areas of the brain but not in those tied to better performance. Their performance on the task was not significantly different after the exercise program. The aerobic exercise used in the study involved gradually increasing periods of walking over three months. For the final three months of the intervention program, each subject walked briskly for 45 minutes in three sessions each week.

Colcombe, S.J., Kramer, A.F., Erickson, K.I., Scalf, P., McAuley, E., Cohen, N.J., Webb, A., Jerome, G.J., Marquez, D.X. & Elavsky, S. 2004. Cardiovascular fitness, cortical plasticity, and aging. PNAS, 101, 3316-3321. Published online before print as 10.1073/pnas.0400266101

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2004-02/uoia-esf021104.php

Older news items (pre-2010) brought over from the old website

Children recognize other children’s faces better than adults do

It is well known that people find it easier to distinguish between the faces of people from their own race, compared to those from a different race. It is also known that adults recognize the faces of other adults better than the faces of children. This may relate to holistic processing of the face (seeing the face as a whole rather than analyzing it feature by feature) — it may be that we more easily recognize faces for which we have strong holistic ‘templates’. A new study has tested to see whether the same is true for children aged 8 to 13. The study found that children had stronger holistic processing for other children than adults did. This may reflect an own-age bias, but I’d love to see what happens with teachers, or any other adults who spend much of their time with many children.

[1358] Susilo, T., Crookes K., McKone E., & Turner H.
(2009).  The Composite Task Reveals Stronger Holistic Processing in Children than Adults for Child Faces.
PLoS ONE. 4(7), e6460 - e6460.

Full text at http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0006460
http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2009/08/18/children-faces.html

Alcoholics show abnormal brain activity when processing facial expressions

Excessive chronic drinking is known to be associated with deficits in comprehending emotional information, such as recognizing different facial expressions. Now an imaging study of abstinent long-term alcoholics has found that they show decreased and abnormal activity in the amygdala and hippocampus when looking at facial expressions. They also show increased activity in the lateral prefrontal cortex, perhaps in an attempt to compensate for the failure of the limbic areas. The finding is consistent with other studies showing alcoholics invoking additional and sometimes higher-order brain systems to accomplish a relatively simple task at normal levels. The study compared 15 abstinent long-term alcoholics and 15 healthy, nonalcoholic controls, matched on socioeconomic backgrounds, age, education, and IQ.

[1044] Marinkovic, K., Oscar-Berman M., Urban T., O'Reilly C. E., Howard J. A., Sawyer K., et al.
(2009).  Alcoholism and dampened temporal limbic activation to emotional faces.
Alcoholism, Clinical and Experimental Research. 33(11), 1880 - 1892.

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2009-08/ace-edc080509.php
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2009-08/bumc-rfa081109.php

More insight into encoding of identity information

Different pictures of, say, Marilyn Monroe can evoke the same mental image — even hearing or reading her name can evoke the same concept. So how exactly does that work? A study in which pictures, spoken and written names were used has revealed that single neurons in the hippocampus and surrounding areas respond selectively to representations of the same individual regardless of the sensory cue. Moreover, this occurs very quickly, not only to very familiar people — the same process was observed with the researcher’s image and name, although he was unknown to the subject a day or two earlier. It also appears that the degree of abstraction reflects the hierarchical structure within the mediotemporal lobe.

[1141] Quiroga, Q. R., Kraskov A., Koch C., & Fried I.
(2009).  Explicit Encoding of Multimodal Percepts by Single Neurons in the Human Brain.
Current Biology. 19(15), 1308 - 1313.

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2009-07/uol-ols072009.php

Monkeys and humans use the same mechanism to recognize faces

The remarkable ability of humans to distinguish faces depends on sensitivity to unique configurations of facial features. One of the best demonstrations for this sensitivity comes from our difficulty in detecting changes in the orientation of the eyes and mouth in an inverted face — what is known as the Thatcher effect . A new study has revealed that this effect is also demonstrated among rhesus macaque monkeys, indicating that our skills in facial recognition date back 30 million years or more.

[1221] Adachi, I., Chou D. P., & Hampton R. R.
(2009).  Thatcher Effect in Monkeys Demonstrates Conservation of Face Perception across Primates.
Current Biology. 19(15), 1270 - 1273.

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2009-06/eu-yri062309.php

Face recognition may vary more than thought

We know that "face-blindness" (prosopagnosia) may afflict as many as 2%, but until now it’s been thought that either a person has ‘normal’ face recognition skills, or they have a recognition disorder. Now for the first time a new group has been identified: those who are "super-recognizers", who have a truly remarkable ability to recognize faces, even those only seen in passing many years earlier. The finding suggests that these two abnormal groups are merely the ends of a spectrum — that face recognition ability varies widely.

[1140] Russell, R., Duchaine B., & Nakayama K.
(2009).  Super-recognizers: people with extraordinary face recognition ability.
Psychonomic Bulletin & Review. 16(2), 252 - 257.

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2009-05/hu-we051909.php

Oxytocin improves human ability to recognize faces but not places

The breastfeeding hormone oxytocin has been found to increase social behaviors like trust. A new study has found that a single dose of an oxytocin nasal spray resulted in improved recognition memory for faces, but not for inanimate objects, suggesting that different mechanisms exist for social and nonsocial memory. Further analysis showed that oxytocin selectively improved the discrimination of new and familiar faces — participants with oxytocin were less likely to mistakenly characterize unfamiliar faces as familiar.

[897] Rimmele, U., Hediger K., Heinrichs M., & Klaver P.
(2009).  Oxytocin Makes a Face in Memory Familiar.
J. Neurosci.. 29(1), 38 - 42.

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2009-01/sfn-hii010509.php

Insight into 'face blindness'

An imaging study has finally managed to see a physical difference in the brains of those with congenital prosopagnosia (face blindness): reduced connectivity in the region that processes faces. Specifically, a reduction in the integrity of the white matter tracts in the ventral occipito-temporal cortex, the extent of which was related to the severity of the impairment.

[1266] Thomas, C., Avidan G., Humphreys K., Jung K-jin., Gao F., & Behrmann M.
(2009).  Reduced structural connectivity in ventral visual cortex in congenital prosopagnosia.
Nat Neurosci. 12(1), 29 - 31.

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2008-11/cmu-cms112508.php

Visual expertise marked by left-side bias

It’s been established that facial recognition involves both holistic processing (seeing the face as a whole rather than the sum of parts) and a left-side bias. The new study explores whether these effects are specific to face processing, by seeing how Chinese characters, which share many of the same features as faces, are processed by native Chinese and non-Chinese readers. It was found that non-readers tended to look at the Chinese characters more holistically, and that native Chinese readers prefer characters that are made of two left sides. These findings suggest that whether or not we use holistic processing depends on the task performed with the object and its features, and that holistic processing is not used in general visual expertise – but left-side bias is.

[1103] Hsiao, J. H., & Cottrell G. W.
(2009).  Not all visual expertise is holistic, but it may be leftist: the case of Chinese character recognition.
Psychological Science: A Journal of the American Psychological Society / APS. 20(4), 455 - 463.

http://www.physorg.com/news160145799.html

Object recognition fast and early in processing

We see through our eye and with our brain. Visual information flows from the retina through a hierarchy of visual areas in the brain until it reaches the temporal lobe, which is ultimately responsible for our visual perceptions, and also sends information back along the line, solidifying perception. This much we know, but how much processing goes on at each stage, and how important feedback is compared to ‘feedforward’, is still under exploration. A new study involving children about to undergo surgery for epilepsy (using invasive electrode techniques) reveals that feedback from the ‘smart’ temporal lobe is less important than we thought, that the brain can recognize objects under a variety of conditions very rapidly, at a very early processing stage. It appears that certain areas of the visual cortex selectively respond to specific categories of objects.

[1416] Liu, H., Agam Y., Madsen J. R., & Kreiman G.
(2009).  Timing, Timing, Timing: Fast Decoding of Object Information from Intracranial Field Potentials in Human Visual Cortex.
Neuron. 62(2), 281 - 290.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/04/090429132231.htm
http://www.physorg.com/news160229380.html
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2009-04/chb-aga042709.php

New brain region associated with face recognition

Using a new technique, researchers have found evidence for neurons that are selectively tuned for gender, ethnicity and identity cues in the cingulate gyrus, a brain area not previously associated with face processing.

[463] Ng, M., Ciaramitaro V. M., Anstis S., Boynton G. M., & Fine I.
(2006).  Selectivity for the configural cues that identify the gender, ethnicity, and identity of faces in human cortex.
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 103(51), 19552 - 19557.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/12/061212091823.htm

No specialized face area

Another study has come out casting doubt on the idea that there is an area of the brain specialized for faces. The fusiform gyrus has been dubbed the "fusiform face area", but a detailed imaging study has revealed that different patches of neurons respond to different images. However, twice as many of the patches are predisposed to faces versus inanimate objects (cars and abstract sculptures), and patches that respond to faces outnumber those that respond to four-legged animals by 50%. But patches that respond to the same images are not physically connected, implying a "face area" may not even exist.

[444] Grill-Spector, K., Sayres R., & Ress D.
(2007).  High-resolution imaging reveals highly selective nonface clusters in the fusiform face area.
Nat Neurosci. 10(1), 133 - 133.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/08/060830005949.htm

Face blindness is a common hereditary disorder

A German study has found 17 cases of the supposedly rare disorder prosopagnosia (face blindness) among 689 subjects recruited from local secondary schools and a medical school. Of the 14 subjects who consented to further interfamilial testing, all of them had at least one first degree relative who also had it. Because of the compensation strategies that sufferers learn to utilize at an early age, many of them do not realize that it is an actual disorder or even realize that other members of their family have it — which may explain why it has been thought to be so rare. The disorder is one of the few cognitive dysfunctions that has only one symptom and is inherited. It is apparently controlled by a defect in a single gene.

[1393] Kennerknecht, I., Grueter T., Welling B., Wentzek S., Horst J., Edwards S., et al.
(2006).  First report of prevalence of non-syndromic hereditary prosopagnosia (HPA).
American Journal of Medical Genetics. Part A. 140(15), 1617 - 1622.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/07/060707151549.htm

Nothing special about face recognition

A new study adds to a growing body of evidence that there is nothing special about face recognition. The researchers have found experimental support for their model of how a brain circuit for face recognition could work. The model shows how face recognition can occur simply from selective processing of shapes of facial features. Moreover, the model equally well accounted for the recognition of cars.

[373] Jiang, X., Rosen E., Zeffiro T., VanMeter J., Blanz V., & Riesenhuber M.
(2006).  Evaluation of a Shape-Based Model of Human Face Discrimination Using fMRI and Behavioral Techniques.
Neuron. 50(1), 159 - 172.

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2006-04/cp-eht033106.php

Rare learning disability particularly impacts face recognition

A study of 14 children with Nonverbal Learning Disability (NLD) has found that the children were poor at recognizing faces. NLD has been associated with difficulties in visual spatial processing, but this specific deficit with faces hasn’t been identified before. NLD affects less than 1% of the population and appears to be congenital.

[577] Liddell, G. A., & Rasmussen C.
(2005).  Memory Profile of Children with Nonverbal Learning Disability.
Learning Disablilities Research & Practice. 20(3), 137 - 141.

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2005-08/uoa-sra081005.php

Single cell recognition research finds specific neurons for concepts

An intriguing study surprises cognitive researchers by showing that individual neurons in the medial temporal lobe are able to recognize specific people and objects. It’s long been thought that concepts such as these require a network of cells, and this doesn’t deny that many cells are involved. However, this new study points to the importance of a single brain cell. The study of 8 epileptic subjects found variable responses from subjects, but within subjects, individuals showed remarkably specific responses to concepts. For example, a single neuron in the left posterior hippocampus of one subject responded to all pictures of actress Jennifer Aniston, and also to Lisa Kudrow, her co-star on the TV hit "Friends", but not to pictures of Jennifer Aniston together with actor Brad Pitt, and not, or only very weakly, to other famous and non-famous faces, landmarks, animals or objects. In another patient, pictures of actress Halle Berry activated a neuron in the right anterior hippocampus, as did a caricature of the actress, images of her in the lead role of the film "Catwoman," and a letter sequence spelling her name. The results suggest an invariant, sparse and explicit code, which might be important in the transformation of complex visual percepts into long-term and more abstract memories.

[1372] Quiroga, Q. R., Reddy L., Kreiman G., Koch C., & Fried I.
(2005).  Invariant visual representation by single neurons in the human brain.
Nature. 435(7045), 1102 - 1107.

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2005-06/uoc--scr062005.php

Evidence faces are processed like words

It has been suggested that faces and words are recognized differently, that faces are identified by wholes, whereas words and other objects are identified by parts. However, a recent study has devised a new test, that finds people use letters to recognize words and facial features to recognize faces.

[790] Martelli, M., Majaj N. J., & Pelli D. G.
(2005).  Are faces processed like words? A diagnostic test for recognition by parts.
Journal of Vision. 5(1), 

You can read this article online at http://www.journalofvision.org//5/1/6/.

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2005-03/afri-ssf030705.php

Face blindness runs in families

A study of those with prosopagnosia (face blindness) and their relatives has revealed a genetic basis to the neurological condition. An earlier questionnaire study by the same researcher (himself prosopagnosic) suggests the impairment may be more common than has been thought. The study involved 576 biology students. Nearly 2% reported face-blindness symptoms.

[2545] Grueter, M., Grueter T., Bell V., Horst J., Laskowski W., Sperling K., et al.
(2007).  Hereditary Prosopagnosia: the First Case Series.
Cortex. 43(6), 734 - 749.

http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn7174

Faces must be seen to be recognized

In an interesting new perspective on face recognition, a series of perception experiments have revealed that identifying a face depends on actually seeing it, as opposed to merely having the image of the face fall on the retina. In other words, attention is necessary.

[725] Moradi, F., Koch C., & Shimojo S.
(2005).  Face Adaptation Depends on Seeing the Face.
Neuron. 45(1), 169 - 175.

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2005-01/cp-fmb122904.php

New insight into the relationship between recognizing faces and recognizing expressions

The quest to create a computer that can recognize faces and interpret facial expressions has given new insight into how the human brain does it. A study using faces photographed with four different facial expressions (happy, angry, screaming, and neutral), with different lighting, and with and without different accessories (like sunglasses), tested how long people took to decide if two faces belonged to the same person. Another group were tested to see how fast they could identify the expressions. It was found that people were quicker to recognize faces and facial expressions that involved little muscle movement, and slower to recognize expressions that involved a lot of movement. This supports the idea that recognition of faces and recognition of facial expressions are linked – it appears, through the part of the brain that helps us understand motion.

[1288] Martínez, A. M.
(2003).  Matching expression variant faces.
Vision Research. 43(9), 1047 - 1060.

http://www.osu.edu/researchnews/archive/compvisn.htm

How the brain is wired for faces

The question of how special face recognition is — whether it is a process quite distinct from recognition of other objects, or whether we are simply highly practiced at this particular type of recognition — has been a subject of debate for some time. A new imaging study has concluded that the fusiform face area (FFA), a brain region crucially involved in face recognition, extracts configural information about faces rather than processing spatial information on the parts of faces. The study also indicated that the FFA is only involved in face recognition.

Yovel, G. & Kanwisher, N. 2004. Face Perception: Domain Specific, Not Process Specific. Neuron, 44 (5), 889–898.

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2004-12/cp-htb112304.php

How the brain recognizes a face

Face recognition involves at least three stages. An imaging study has now localized these stages to particular regions of the brain. It was found that the inferior occipital gyrus was particularly sensitive to slight physical changes in faces. The right fusiform gyrus (RFG), appeared to be involved in making a more general appraisal of the face and compares it to the brain's database of stored memories to see if it is someone familiar. The third activated region, the anterior temporal cortex (ATC), is believed to store facts about people and is thought to be an essential part of the identifying process.

Rotshtein, P., Henson, R.N.A., Treves, A., Driver, J. & Dolan, R.J. 2005. Morphing Marilyn into Maggie dissociates physical and identity face representations in the brain. Nature Neuroscience, 8, 107-113.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/health/4086319.stm

Memories of crime stories influenced by racial stereotypes

The influence of stereotypes on memory, a well-established phenomenon, has been demonstrated anew in a study concerning people's memory of news photographs. In the study, 163 college students (of whom 147 were White) examined one of four types of news stories, all about a hypothetical Black man. Two of the stories were not about crime, the third dealt with non-violent crime, while the fourth focused on violent crime. All four stories included an identical photograph of the same man. Afterwards, participants reconstructed the photograph by selecting from a series of facial features presented on a computer screen. It was found that selected features didn’t differ from the actual photograph in the non-crime conditions, but for the crime stories, more pronounced African-American features tended to be selected, particularly so for the story concerning violent crime. Participants appeared largely unaware of their associations of violent crime with the physical characteristics of African-Americans.

[675] Oliver, M B., Jackson, II R. L., Moses N. N., & Dangerfield C. L.
(2004).  The Face of Crime: Viewers' Memory of Race-Related Facial Features of Individuals Pictured in the News.
The Journal of Communication. 54(1), 88 - 104.

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2004-05/ps-rmo050504.php

Special training may help people with autism recognize faces

People with autism tend to activate object-related brain regions when they are viewing unfamiliar faces, rather than a specific face-processing region. They also tend to focus on particular features, such as a mustache or a pair of glasses. However, a new study has found that when people with autism look at a picture of a very familiar face, such as their mother's, their brain activity is similar to that of control subjects – involving the fusiform gyrus, a region in the brain's temporal lobe that is associated with face processing, rather than the inferior temporal gyrus, an area associated with objects. Use of the fusiform gyrus in recognizing faces is a process that starts early with non-autistic people, but does take time to develop (usually complete by age 12). The study indicates that the fusiform gyrus in autistic people does have the potential to function normally, but may need special training to operate properly.

Aylward, E. 2004. Functional MRI studies of face processing in adolescents and adults with autism: Role of experience. Paper presented February 14 at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Seattle.

Dawson, G. & Webb, S. 2004. Event related potentials reveal early abnormalities in face processing autism. Paper presented February 14 at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Seattle.

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2004-02/uow-stm020904.php

How faces become familiar

With faces, familiarity makes a huge difference. Even when pictures are high quality and faces are shown at the same time, we make a surprising number of mistakes when trying to decide if two pictures are of the same person – when the face is unknown to us. On the other hand, even when picture quality is very poor, we’re very good at recognising familiar faces. So how do faces become familiar to us? Recent research led by Vicki Bruce (well-known in this field) showed volunteers video sequences of people, episodes of unfamiliar soap operas, and images of familiar but previously unseen characters from radio's The Archers and voices from The Simpsons. They confirmed previous research suggesting that for unfamiliar faces, memory appears dominated by the 'external' features, but where the face is well-known it is 'internal' features such as the eyes, nose and mouth, that are more important. The shift to internal features occurred rapidly, within minutes. Speed of learning was unaffected by whether the faces were experienced as static or moving images, or with or without accompanying voices, but faces which belonged to well-known, though previously unseen, personal identities were learned more easily.

Bruce, V., Burton, M. et al. 2003. Getting To Know You – How We Learn New Faces. A research report funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC).

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2003-06/esr-hs061603.php
http://www.esrc.ac.uk/esrccontent/news/june03-5.asp

Face recognition may not be a special case

Many researchers have argued that the brain processes faces quite separately from other objects — that faces are a special class. Research has shown many ways in which face recognition does seem to be a special case, but it could be argued that the differences are due not to a separate processing system, but to people’s expertise with faces. We have, after all, plenty of evidence that babies are programmed right from the beginning to pay lots of attention to faces. A new study has endeavored to answer this question, by looking at separate and concurrent perception of faces and cars, by people who were “car buffs” and those who were not. If expert processing of these objects depends on a common mechanism (presumed to be related to the perception of objects as wholes), then car perception would be expected to interfere with concurrent face perception. Moreover, such interference should get worse, as the subjects became more expert at processing cars. This is indeed what was found. Experts were found to recognize cars holistically, but this recognition interfered with their recognition of familiar faces. While novices processed the cars piece by piece, in a slower process that did not interfere with face recognition. This study follows on from earlier research in which car fanciers and bird watchers were found to identify cars and birds, respectively, using the same area of the brain as is used in face recognition. A subsequent study found that people trained to identify novel, computer-generated objects, began to recognize them holistically (as is done in face recognition). This latest study shows that, not only is experts’ car recognition occurring in the same brain region as face recognition, but that the same neural circuits are involved.

[1318] Gauthier, I., Curran T., Curby K. M., & Collins D.
(2003).  Perceptual interference supports a non-modular account of face processing.
Nat Neurosci. 6(4), 428 - 432.

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2003-03/vu-cfe030503.php
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/03/11/health/11PERC.html

Detection of foreign faces faster than faces of your own race

A recent study tracked the time it takes for the brain to perceive the faces of people of other races as opposed to faces from the same race. The faces were mixed with images of everyday objects, and the subjects were given the distracting task of counting butterflies. The study found that the Caucasian subjects took longer to detect Caucasian faces than Asian faces. The study complements an earlier imaging study that showed that, when people are actively trying to recognize faces, they are better at recognizing members of their own race. [see Why recognizing a face is easier when the race matches our own]

[2544] Caldara, R., Thut G., Servoir P., Michel C. M., Bovet P., & Renault B.
(2003).  Face versus non-face object perception and the ‘other-race’ effect: a spatio-temporal event-related potential study.
Clinical Neurophysiology. 114(3), 515 - 528.

http://news.bmn.com/news/story?day=030108&story=1

Women better at recognizing female but not male faces

Women’s superiority in face recognition tasks appears to be due to their better recognition of female faces. There was no difference between men and women in the recognition of male faces.

[671] Lewin, C., & Herlitz A.
(2002).  Sex differences in face recognition--Women's faces make the difference.
Brain and Cognition. 50(1), 121 - 128.

Imaging confirms people knowledge processed differently

Earlier research has demonstrated that semantic knowledge for different classes of inanimate objects (e.g., tools, musical instruments, and houses) is processed in different brain regions. A new imaging study looked at knowledge about people, and found a unique pattern of brain activity was associated with person judgments, supporting the idea that person knowledge is functionally dissociable from other classes of semantic knowledge within the brain.

[766] Mitchell, J. P., Heatherton T. F., & Macrae N. C.
(2002).  Distinct neural systems subserve person and object knowledge.
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. 99(23), 15238 - 15243.

http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/abstract/99/23/15238?etoc

Identity memory area localized

An imaging study investigating brain activation when people were asked to answer yes or no to statements about themselves (e.g. 'I forget important things', 'I'm a good friend', 'I have a quick temper'), found consistent activation in the anterior medial prefrontal and posterior cingulate. This is consistent with lesion studies, and suggests that these areas of the cortex are involved in self-reflective thought.

[210] Johnson, S. C., Baxter L. C., Wilder L. S., Pipe J. G., Heiserman J. E., & Prigatano G. P.
(2002).  Neural correlates of self-reflection.
Brain. 125(8), 1808 - 1814.

http://brain.oupjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/125/8/1808

Recognizing yourself is different from recognizing other people

Recognition of familiar faces occurs largely in the right side of the brain, but new research suggests that identifying your own face occurs more in the left side of your brain. Evidence for this comes from a split-brain patient (a person whose corpus callosum – the main bridge of nerve fibers between the two hemispheres of the brain - has been severed to minimize the spread of epileptic seizure activity). The finding needs to be confirmed in studies of people with intact brains, but it suggests not only that there is a distinction between recognizing your self and recognizing other people you know well, but also that memories and knowledge about oneself may be stored largely in the left hemisphere.

[1075] Turk, D. J., Heatherton T. F., Kelley W. M., Funnell M. G., Gazzaniga M. S., & Macrae N. C.
(2002).  Mike or me? Self-recognition in a split-brain patient.
Nat Neurosci. 5(9), 841 - 842.

http://www.nature.com/neurolink/v5/n9/abs/nn907.html
http://www.sciencenews.org/20020824/fob8.asp

Differential effects of encoding strategy on brain activity patterns

Encoding and recognition of unfamiliar faces in young adults were examined using PET imaging to determine whether different encoding strategies would lead to differences in brain activity. It was found that encoding activated a primarily ventral system including bilateral temporal and fusiform regions and left prefrontal cortices, whereas recognition activated a primarily dorsal set of regions including right prefrontal and parietal areas. The type of encoding strategy produced different brain activity patterns. There was no effect of encoding strategy on brain activity during recognition. The left inferior prefrontal cortex was engaged during encoding regardless of strategy.

[566] Bernstein, L. J., Beig S., Siegenthaler A. L., & Grady C. L.
(2002).  The effect of encoding strategy on the neural correlates of memory for faces.
Neuropsychologia. 40(1), 86 - 98.

http://tinyurl.com/i87v

Babies' experience with faces leads to narrowing of perception

A theory that infants' experience in viewing faces causes their brains (in particular an area of the cerebral cortex known as the fusiform gyrus) to "tune in" to the types of faces they see most often and tune out other types, has been given support from a study showing that 6-month-old babies were significantly better than both adults and 9-month-old babies in distinguishing the faces of monkeys. All groups were able to distinguish human faces from one another.

[526] Pascalis, O., de Haan M., & Nelson C. A.
(2002).  Is Face Processing Species-Specific During the First Year of Life?.
Science. 296(5571), 1321 - 1323.

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2002-05/uom-ssi051302.php
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/health/newsid_1991000/1991705.stm
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2002-05/aaft-bbl050902.php

Different brain regions implicated in the representation of the structure and meaning of pictured objects

Imaging studies continue apace! Having established that that part of the brain known as the fusiform gyrus is important in picture naming, a new study further refines our understanding by studying the cerebral blood flow (CBF) changes in response to a picture naming task that varied on two dimensions: familiarity (or difficulty: hard vs easy) and category (tools vs animals). Results show that although familiarity effects are present in the frontal and left lateral posterior temporal cortex, they are absent from the fusiform gyrus. The authors conclude that the fusiform gyrus processes information relating to an object's structure, rather than its meaning. The blood flows suggest that it is the left posterior middle temporal gyrus that is involved in representing the object's meaning.

[691] Whatmough, C., Chertkow H., Murtha S., & Hanratty K.
(2002).  Dissociable brain regions process object meaning and object structure during picture naming.
Neuropsychologia. 40(2), 174 - 186.

Debate over how the brain deals with visual information

Neuroscientists can't agree on whether the brain uses specific regions to distinguish specific objects, or patterns of activity from different regions. The debate over how the brain deals with visual information has been re-ignited with apparently contradictory findings from two research groups. One group has pinpointed a distinct region in the brain that responds selectively to images of the human body, while another concludes that the representations of a wide range of image categories are dealt with by overlapping brain regions. (see below)

Specific brain region responds specifically to images of the human body

Cognitive neuroscientists have identified a new area of the human brain that responds specifically when people view images of the human body. They have named this region of the brain the 'extrastriate body area' or 'EBA'. The EBA can be distinguished from other known anatomical subdivisions of the visual cortex. However, the EBA is in a region of the brain called the posterior superior temporal sulcus, where other areas have been implicated in the perception of socially relevant information such as the direction that another person's eyes are gazing, the sound of human voices, or the inferred intentions of animate entities.

Brain scan patterns identify objects being viewed

National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) scientists have shown that they can tell what kind of object a person is looking at — a face, a house, a shoe, a chair — by the pattern of brain activity it evokes. Earlier NIMH fMRI studies had shown that brain areas that respond maximally to a particular category of object are consistent across different people. This new study finds that the full pattern of responses — not just the areas of maximal activation — is consistent within the same person for a given category of object. Overall, the pattern of fMRI responses predicted the category with 96% accuracy. Accuracy was l00% for faces, houses and scrambled pictures.

[683] Downing, P. E., Jiang Y., Shuman M., & Kanwisher N.
(2001).  A Cortical Area Selective for Visual Processing of the Human Body.
Science. 293(5539), 2470 - 2473.

[1239] Haxby, J. V., Gobbini I. M., Furey M. L., Ishai A., Schouten J. L., & Pietrini P.
(2001).  Distributed and Overlapping Representations of Faces and Objects in Ventral Temporal Cortex.
Science. 293(5539), 2425 - 2430.

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2001-09/niom-bsp092601.php
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/293/5539/2425

Why recognizing a face is easier when the race matches our own

We have known for a while that recognizing a face is easier when its owner's race matches our own. An imaging study now shows that greater activity in the brain's expert face-discrimination area occurs when the subject is viewing faces that belong to members of the same race as their own.

Golby, A. J., Gabrieli, J. D. E., Chiao, J. Y. & Eberhardt, J. L. 2001. Differential responses in the fusiform region to same-race and other-race faces. Nature Neuroscience, 4, 845-850.

http://www.nature.com/nsu/010802/010802-1.html

Boys' and girls' brains process faces differently

Previous research has suggested a right-hemisphere superiority in face processing, as well as adult male superiority at spatial and non-verbal skills (also associated with the right hemisphere of the brain). This study looked at face recognition and the ability to read facial expressions in young, pre-pubertal boys and girls. Boys and girls were equally good at recognizing faces and identifying expressions, but boys showed significantly greater activity in the right hemisphere, while the girls' brains were more active in the left hemisphere. It is speculated that boys tend to process faces at a global level (right hemisphere), while girls process faces at a more local level (left hemisphere). This may mean that females have an advantage in reading fine details of expression. More importantly, it may be that different treatments might be appropriate for males and females in the case of brain injury.

[2541] Everhart, E. D., Shucard J. L., Quatrin T., & Shucard D. W.
(2001).  Sex-related differences in event-related potentials, face recognition, and facial affect processing in prepubertal children.
Neuropsychology. 15(3), 329 - 341.

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2001-07/aaft-pba062801.php
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/health/newsid_1425000/1425797.stm

Children's recognition of faces

Children aged 4 to 7 were found to be able to use both configural and featural information to recognize faces. However, even when trained to proficiency on recognizing the target faces, their recognition was impaired when a superfluous hat was added to the face.

[1424] Freire, A., & Lee K.
(2001).  Face Recognition in 4- to 7-Year-Olds: Processing of Configural, Featural, and Paraphernalia Information.
Journal of Experimental Child Psychology. 80(4), 347 - 371.

Differences in face perception processing between autistic and normal adults

An imaging study compared activation patterns of adults with autism and normal control subjects during a face perception task. While autistic subjects could perform the face perception task, none of the regions supporting face processing in normals were found to be significantly active in the autistic subjects. Instead, in every autistic patient, faces maximally activated aberrant and individual-specific neural sites (e.g. frontal cortex, primary visual cortex, etc.), which was in contrast to the 100% consistency of maximal activation within the traditional fusiform face area (FFA) for every normal subject. It appears that, as compared with normal individuals, autistic individuals `see' faces utilizing different neural systems, with each patient doing so via a unique neural circuitry.

[704] Pierce, K., Muller R. - A., Ambrose J., Allen G., & Courchesne E.
(2001).  Face processing occurs outside the fusiform `face area' in autism: evidence from functional MRI.
Brain. 124(10), 2059 - 2073.

http://brain.oupjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/124/10/2059