Configurational information in face perception.

A new facial composites technique is demonstrated, in which photographs of the top and bottom halves of different familiar faces fuse to form unfamiliar faces when aligned with each other. The perception of a novel configuration in such composite stimuli is sufficiently convincing to interfere with identification of the constituent parts (experiment 1), but this effect disappears when stimuli are inverted (experiment 2). Difficulty in identifying the parts of upright composites is found even for stimuli made from parts of unfamiliar faces that have only ever been encountered as face fragments (experiment 3).

Survey of the late consequences of polio in Edinburgh and the Lothians.

Objective: This study aimed to identify the nature and frequency of new symptoms and associated disabilities experienced by people who suffered poliomyelitis many years ago, and their access to hospital services.

Design: Postal survey regarding symptoms, disability (Office of Population Censuses & Surveys (OPCS) disability questionnaire), and experience of services.

Subjects & Setting: People known to the British Polio Fellowship and the regional rehabilitation service who had previously had polio and were resident in Edinburgh and the Lothians.

Relatives' reports of long term problems following traumatic brain injury or subarachnoid haemorrhage.

Purpose: To describe and compare the late outcome of traumatic brain injury (TBI) and subarachnoid haemorrhage (SAH) in terms of the carers' perspectives, and their symptoms' profiles.

Method: Postal survey to surviving patients who had been discharged from a Regional Neurosurgical Unit five to seven years previously. There were 288 patients identified retrospectively from hospital records, of whom 209 (126 TBI and 83 SAH) were alive and traced at follow-up.

Reliability of the relative's questionnaire for assessment of outcome after brain injury.

Purpose: The relative's questionnaire (RQ) was developed to assess outcome after brain injury. The present study investigated its test-retest reliability when used in a postal survey.

Method: Hospital records were used to identify and contact 288 surviving patients treated for brain injury five to seven years earlier.

Simple assessment of outcome after acute brain injury using the Glasgow Outcome Scale.

To evaluate alternative methods of determining Glasgow Outcome Scale scores, a postal survey was made of 288 general practitioners and 128 relatives of patients who had sustained acute brain injuries 5-7 years previously. The Glasgow Outcome Scale score from the general practitioner and relative were compared with that calculated from questionnaire information by an experienced rater. There was poor agreement between general practitioner and rater (K = 0.

The Functional Assessment Measure (FIM + FAM) as part of the hospital discharge summary after brain injury rehabilitation.

Objective: To assess the value of providing Functional Assessment Measure (FIM + FAM) data as part of the hospital discharge information after brain injury rehabilitation.

Design: Postal survey of general practitioners (GPs) and consultants.

Subjects: Consecutive discharges (n = 117) from an early brain injury rehabilitation unit over one year.

Use of the functional assessment measure (FIM+FAM) in head injury rehabilitation: a psychometric analysis.

Objectives: The drive to measure outcome during rehabilitation after brain injury has led to the increased use of the functional assessment measure (FIM+FAM), a 30 item, seven level ordinal scale. The objectives of the study were to determine the psychometric structure, internal consistency, and other characteristics of the measure.

Methods: Psychometric analyses including both traditional principal components analysis and Rasch analysis were carried out on FIM+FAM data from 2268 assessments in 965 patients from 11 brain injury rehabilitation programmes.

Cognitive and psychosocial outcome following moderate or severe traumatic brain injury.

The outcome of 96 consecutive adult patients with moderate to severe head injury was sequentially measured at 6, 12 and 24 months post-injury. In addition to global outcome using the Glasgow Outcome Scale (GOS) and a battery of neuropsychological tests of cognitive function, the Head Injury Symptom Checklist (HISC) and Relative's Questionnaire (RQ) were used. Although poorer GOS scores and severe cognitive impairments were typically associated with greater severity of initial injury, relatives reported similar functional problems irrespective of injury severity.

Persisting symptoms and carers' views of outcome after subarachnoid haemorrhage.

Objective: To report the outcome of aneurysmal subarachnoid haemorrhage (SAH) in terms of subjective symptoms and carers' perspective over a period of two years.

Design: Forty-four consecutive patients admitted to a Regional Neurosurgical Unit and who survived aneurysmal SAH were invited for outpatient assessment at 6, 12 and 24 months post haemorrhage.

Measures: The Glasgow Outcome Scale (GOS) was used to measure global outcome; the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HAD) to screen for affective symptoms; the Head Injury Symptom Checklist (HISC) to detect symptoms commonly reported after head trauma; and information was collected from a close friend or relative of the patient using the Relative's Questionnaire (RQ).

The Edinburgh Extended Glasgow Outcome Scale (EEGOS): rationale and pilot studies.

The Glasgow Outcome Scale (GOS) is the most widely used outcome measure in head injury research. However, it is a global and relatively insensitive measure, precluding any description of the types of impairments that lead to the disability. The Edinburgh Extended Glasgow Outcome Scale (EEGOS) was devised as a new outcome measure that retains the advantages of the existing GOS but allows comparison of patterns of recovery in different areas of function; behavioural, cognitive and physical.

Impaired auditory recognition of fear and anger following bilateral amygdala lesions.

The amygdalar complex is a medial temporal lobe structure in the brain which is widely considered to be involved in the neural substrates of emotion. Selective bilateral damage to the human amygdala is rare, offering a unique insight into its functions. There is impairment of social perception after amygdala damage, with defective recognition of facial expressions of emotion.

Facial expression processing after amygdalotomy.

Facial expression processing impairments were studied in D.R., a 51-year-old woman with a partial bilateral amygdalotomy.

Face processing impairments after amygdalotomy.

We report an investigation of face processing impairments in D.R., a 51-year-old woman with a partial bilateral amygdalotomy.

The nature of semantic priming effects in the recognition of familiar people.

We report a series of experiments examining the nature of semantic priming effects in the recognition of familiar people. Experiment 1 showed that facilitation of the recognition of familiar target faces by related face primes occurs within the recognition system, since there is no equivalent priming when subjects are asked only to determine the sex of the target faces, rather than to recognize them as familiar. Experiments 2 and 3 examined the basis of the facilitatory effect of related primes, and showed that both for familiarity decision (Expt 2 and Expt 3) and face naming (Expt 3) tasks it is primarily based on close association of the prime and target people, rather than common membership of a semantic category.

Recognition impairments and face imagery.

We investigated face imagery for H.J.A.

Reduplication of visual stimuli.

Investigation of P.T., a man who experienced reduplicative delusions, revealed significant impairments on tests of recognition memory for faces and understanding of emotional facial expressions.

Sequential Cotard and Capgras delusions.

We report sequential Cotard and Capgras delusions in the same patient, KH, and offer a simple hypothesis to account for this link. The Cotard delusion occurred when KH was depressed and the Capgras delusion arose in the context of persecutory delusions. We suggest that the Cotard and Capgras delusions reflect different interpretations of similar anomalous experiences, and that the persecutory delusions and suspiciousness that are often noted in Capgras cases contribute to the patients' mistaking a change in themselves for a change in others ('they are impostors'), whereas people who are depressed exaggerate the negative effects of the same change whilst correctly attributing it to themselves ('I am dead').

Face-processing impairments and the Capgras delusion.

Investigations of two cases of the Capgras delusion found that both patients showed face-processing impairments encompassing identification of familiar faces, recognition of emotional facial expressions, and matching of unfamiliar faces. In neither case was there any impairment of recognition memory for words. These findings are consistent with the idea that the basis of the Capgras delusion lies in damage to neuro-anatomical pathways responsible for appropriate emotional reactions to familiar visual stimuli.

Voice recognition impairment in a blind Capgras patient.

We report a case of a blind woman, M.N., who experienced the Capgras delusion.

Cotard delusion after brain injury.

A right-handed young man with contusions affecting temporo-parietal areas of the right cerebral hemisphere and some bilateral frontal lobe damage became convinced that he was dead (the Cotard delusion), and experienced difficulties in recognizing familiar faces, buildings and places, as well as feelings of derealization. Neuropsychological investigation while these symptoms were resolving revealed impairment on face processing tests. We suggest that these impairments contributed to his Cotard delusion by heightening feelings of unreality, and that the underlying pathophysiology and neuropsychology of the Cotard delusion may be related to other problems involving delusional misidentification.

Neglect and visual recognition.

B.Q., a right-handed woman who had suffered a stroke affecting the right parietal region, showed visuospatial neglect and problems in recognizing seen objects and faces.

Implicit access to semantic information.

Three experiments investigating the patient M.S.'s semantic memory are reported.