Semantic Content in Face Representation: Essential for Proficient Recognition of Unfamiliar Faces by Good Recognizers.

Face recognition is adapted to achieve goals of social interactions, which rely on further processing of the semantic information of faces, beyond visual computations. Here, we explored the semantic content of face representation apart from visual component, and tested their relations to face recognition performance. Specifically, we propose that enhanced visual or semantic coding could underlie the advantage of familiar over unfamiliar faces recognition, as well as the superior recognition of skilled face recognizers.

Does Eye Gaze Uniquely Trigger Spatial Orienting to Socially Relevant Information? A Behavioral and ERP Study.

Using behavioral and event-related potential (ERP) measures, the present study examined whether eye gaze triggers a unique form of attentional orienting toward threat-relevant targets. A threatening or neutral target was presented after a non-predictive gaze or an arrow cue. In Experiment 1, reaction times indicated that eye gaze and arrow cues triggered different attention orienting towards threatening targets, which was confirmed by target-elicited P3b latency in Experiment 2.

Misaligned dynamic faces are processed holistically.

It was recently proposed that both experience-driven and object-based perceptual grouping contribute to holistic face processing. We investigated whether motion-as a common fate perceptual grouping cue-could enhance the holistic processing of misaligned faces. We manipulated alignment and motion (dynamic and static) of study and test faces in a modified complete composite task in which the congruency effect was regarded as an indicator of holistic processing.

Trait/Financial Information of Potential Male Mate Eliminates Mate-Choice Copying by Women: Trade-Off Between Social Information and Personal Information in Mate Selection.

Mate-choice copying occurs when people rely on the mate choices of others (social information) to inform their own mate decisions. The present study investigated women's strategic trade-off between such social learning and using the personal information of a potential mate. We conducted two experiments to investigate how mate-choice copying was affected by the personal information (e.

Chinese Aesthetic Mask: Three Forehead and Five Eyes-Holistic Processing and Facial Attractiveness.

Human face processing has been attributed to holistic processing. Here, we ask whether humans are sensitive to configural information when perceiving facial attractiveness. By referring to a traditional Chinese aesthetic theory-Three Forehead and Five Eyes-we generated a series of faces that differed in spacing between facial features.

Normality mediates the effect of symmetry on facial attractiveness.

Although symmetry, averageness, and sexual dimorphism are usually considered important to facial attractiveness, there are mixed findings regarding whether and how symmetry influences facial attractiveness. The present study introduced "facial normality" to explain the inconsistency of previous research. We hypothesized that symmetry only increased facial attractiveness when it improved facial normality.

The constancy of the holistic processing of unfamiliar faces: Evidence from the study-test consistency effect and the within-person motion and viewpoint invariance.

It has been well documented that static face processing is holistic. Faces contain variant (e.g.

Self-Construal Priming Affects Holistic Face Processing and Race Categorization, but Not Face Recognition.

Self-construal priming can affect an individual's cognitive processing. Participants who were primed with interdependent self-construal showed more holistic process bias than those who were primed with independent self-construal. The holistic processing of a face also differs across cultures.

Ensemble perception of facial attractiveness.

Ensemble perception, the extraction of a statistical summary of multiple instances of a feature, enables efficient processing of information. Here we investigated whether ensemble representations can be formed for facial attractiveness, a socially important complex feature. After verifying that our face stimuli produced by geometric morphing represented a valid continuum of attractiveness (Experiment 1), we asked participants to compare the average attractiveness of four faces with a single probe face.

Attentional modulation of hierarchical ensemble coding for the identities of moving faces.

Observers can accurately compute summary statistics from a set of similar objects, which is referred to as ensemble coding. Few studies have investigated whether ensemble coding can be modulated by attention (i.e.

Rhein suppresses matrix metalloproteinase production by regulating the Rac1/ROS/MAPK/AP-1 pathway in human ovarian carcinoma cells.

Matrix metalloproteinases (MMPs) are a family of calcium-dependent zinc-containing endopeptidases, which play an integral role in migration and invasion of ovarian cancer. Rac1 proteins might mostly influence cell migration and invasion by generating endogenous reactive oxygen species. Therefore, inhibiting MMPs and regulating the Rac1/ROS/MAPK/AP-1 pathway may be a new therapeutic strategy for ovarian cancer.

Identification of a conserved neutralizing linear B-cell epitope in the VP1 proteins of duck hepatitis A virus type 1 and 3.

Duck virus hepatitis (DVH), mainly caused by duck hepatitis A virus (DHAV), is a severe disease threaten to duck industry and has worldwide distribution. As the major structural protein, the VP1 protein of DHAV is able to induce neutralizing antibody in ducks. In this study, a monoclonal antibody (mAb) 4F8 against the intact DHAV-1 particles was used to identify the possible epitope in the three serotypes of DHAV.

Own-race faces capture attention faster than other-race faces: evidence from response time and the N2pc.

Studies have shown that people are better at recognizing human faces from their own-race than from other-races, an effect often termed the Own-Race Advantage. The current study investigates whether there is an Own-Race Advantage in attention and its neural correlates. Participants were asked to search for a human face among animal faces.

Interactive processing among parts, configuration, and orientation of complex objects.

The aim of the present study was to investigate whether the representation of parts and the configuration and orientation of complex objects were separate or interdependent. Participants were asked to match parts and configuration of novel 3-D objects with constant or varied features in irrelevant dimensions. The results of both Exp.

Smaller holistic processing of faces associated with face drawing experience.

The type of experience involved with an object category has been regarded as one important factor in shaping of the human object recognition system. Laboratory training studies have shown that different kinds of learning experience with the same set of novel objects resulted in different perceptual and neural changes. Whether this applies to natural real-world objects remains to be seen.

Inconsistent individual personality description eliminates the other-race effect.

The present study investigated the effect of individual semantic information displayed simultaneously with faces on the other-race effect. Arbitrary descriptions of the individual personalities of a set of faces were initially evaluated for consistency. Later, 83 naïve participants were allocated to three groups in which they saw faces and consistent, inconsistent, or neutral personality information about each face.

Processes underlying the cross-race effect: an investigation of holistic, featural, and relational processing of own-race versus other-race faces.

Adults are often better at recognising own-race than other-race faces. Unlike previous studies that reported an own-race advantage after administering a single test of either holistic processing or of featural and relational processing, we used a cross-over design and multiple tasks to assess differential processing of faces from a familiar race versus a less familiar race. Caucasian and Chinese adults performed four tasks, each with Caucasian and Chinese faces.

Repetition blindness for rotated objects.

Repetition blindness (RB) is the finding that observers often miss the repetition of an item within a rapid stream of words or objects. Recent studies have shown that RB for objects is largely unaffected by variations in viewpoint between the repeated items. In 5 experiments, we tested RB under different axes of rotation, with different types of stimuli (line drawings and shaded images, intact and split), using both novel and familiar objects.

Specificity of face processing without awareness.

The recognition memory for inverted faces is especially difficult when compared with that for non-face stimuli. This face inversion effect has often been used as a marker of face-specific holistic processing. However, whether face processing without awareness is still specific remains unknown.

Dissociating viewpoint costs in mental rotation and object recognition.

In a mental rotation task, participants must determine whether two stimuli match when one undergoes a rotation in 3-D space relative to the other. The key evidence for mental rotation is the finding of a linear increase in response times as objects are rotated farther apart. This signature increase in response times is also found in recognition of rotated objects, which has led many theorists to postulate mental rotation as a key transformational procedure in object recognition.