Configural face processing: a meta-analytic survey.

In the field of face processing, the configural hypothesis is defended by many researchers. It is often claimed that this thesis is robustly supported by a large number of experiments exploring the face-inversion effect, the composite face effect, the face superiority effect, and the negative face effect. However, this claim is generally based on a rudimentary and approximate vote-counting approach.

Deficit in negative emotional information processing in schizophrenia: does it occur in all patients?

The nature of the impairment in the processing of emotional information in schizophrenia is still being debated. Some authors reported that schizophrenia patients would show deficits in the treatment processing of negative emotional information without a negative bias, as observed in controls, when in a combined emotional situation including positive/negative information. Eighteen subjects with paranoid schizophrenia in remission with a low level of negative symptoms and 18 control subjects were exposed to 108 pairs of pictures (International Affective Picture System) depicting different emotions (N = negative, P = positive, n = neutral) from six different combinations: N/N, P/P, n/n, P/N, P/n, and N/n.

Cross-modal interactions between human faces and voices involved in person recognition.

Faces and voices are key features of human recognition but the way the brain links them together is still unknown. In this study, we measured brain activity using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) while participants were recognizing previously learned static faces, voices and voice-static face associations. Using a subtraction method between bimodal and unimodal conditions, we observed that voice-face associations activated both unimodal visual and auditory areas, and specific multimodal regions located in the left angular gyrus and the right hippocampus.

Is two better than one? A cross-modal oddball paradigm reveals greater sensitivity of the P300 to emotional face-voice associations.

Objective: Studies exploring neurophysiological correlates of main psychiatric disorders have commonly used event-related potentials (ERP) during a visual or an auditory oddball task. The main results concern modulations of the P3b amplitude and/or latency. The present study aims to increase the clinical sensitivity of these P3b modulations by using a more ecological oddball design, using synchronized pairs of audio-visual emotional stimuli.

The associative processes involved in faces-proper names versus animals-common names binding: a comparative ERP study.

Recognizing people involves creating and retrieving links between distinct representations such as faces and names. In previous research we have shown that the retrieval of face/name associations produced cerebral activities lateralized in the left hemisphere and spreading from posterior to anterior sites after about 300ms. The present ERP study was performed to compare the specific electrophysiological activities elicited by the retrieval of face/proper name (FP) and animal/common name (AC) associations.

Vertical-horizontal illusion present for sighted but not early blind humans using auditory substitution of vision.

This experiment was undertaken to investigate the effect of sensory modality (vision vs. audition) and of visual status (early blind vs. sighted) on susceptibility to the vertical-horizontal illusion.

A configural effect in visual short-term memory for features from different parts of an object.

Previous studies have shown that change detection performance is improved when the visual display holds features (e.g., a colour and an orientation) that are grouped into different parts of the same object compared to when they are all spatially separated (Xu, 2002a, 2002b).

Effect of face familiarity on age decision.

The present experiment was planned to check whether the extraction of apparent age is affected by face identity (familiarity) or not. According to the traditional view, age estimation should be carried out independently of face identity, because it is one of the visually derived semantic codes (like gender and ethnicity). However, little is known about its underlying mechanisms.

Improved selective and divided spatial attention in early blind subjects.

Spatial attention paradigms using auditory or tactile stimulation were used to explore neural and behavioral reorganization in early blind subjects. Although it is commonly assumed that blind subjects outperform sighted subjects in such tasks, the empirical data to confirm this remain controversial. Moreover, previous studies have often confounded factors of sensory acuity with those of attention.

Exploring the functional architecture of person recognition system with event-related potentials in a within- and cross-domain self-priming of faces.

In this paper, we explored the functional properties of person recognition system by investigating the onset, magnitude, and scalp distribution of within- and cross-domain self-priming effects on event-related potentials (ERPs). Recognition of degraded pictures of famous people was enhanced by a prior exposure to the same person's face (within-domain self-priming) or name (cross-domain self-priming) as compared to those preceded by neutral or unrelated primes. The ERP results showed first that the amplitude of the N170 component to famous face targets was modulated by within- and cross-domain self-priming, suggesting not only that the N170 component can be affected by top-down influences but also that this top-down effect crosses domains.

Involuntary orientation of attention to unattended deviant nociceptive stimuli is modulated by concomitant visual task difficulty. Evidence from laser evoked potentials.

Objective: Recent laser evoked potential (LEP) studies showed that unattended rare intensity-deviant nociceptive stimuli enhance the LEP vertex positivity P2 ('P400 effect'). It was hypothesized to reflect an involuntary switch of attention to nociceptive events. If true the P400 effect (1) should be produced when attention is focused on a task in another sensory modality (primary task), and (2) should be modulated by the primary task difficulty.

Categorical perception of faces and facial expressions: the age factor.

Effects of normal aging on categorical perception (CP) of facial identities and facial emotional expressions were investigated. The stimuli were morphs of three identities and of three expressions. In Experiment 1, 38 healthy participants (22 to 79 years old; three age groups) had to identify morphed identities (three continua) and expressions (three continua) varying with respect to their distance from the original photographs.

Effects of sertraline on depressive symptoms and attentional and executive functions in major depression.

Reports on the severity and reversibility of cognitive disturbances in major depression in the literature diverge due to methodological biases. The present study, using a precise methodology, examined attention and executive functions in 20 relatively young, depressed patients presenting a first or second episode of unipolar major depression without psychotic or melancholic characteristics and all being treated with the same psychopharmacological treatment (sertraline) to investigate the changes in potential attentional and executive loss during a subacute period of treatment of 7 weeks. We compared their performance with a group of 26 control subjects who were administered the same cognitive tests.

Ethnic categorisation of faces is not independent of face identity.

Is the extraction of a visually derived semantic code from faces (ethnicity) affected by face identity (familiarity) or not? The traditional view considers that this operation is made independently of face identity, and in parallel with the recognition of identity. However, some recent studies cast doubt on this parallel thesis regarding other visually derived semantic codes, namely: facial expression, facial speech, apparent age, and gender. Twenty-eight Caucasian participants were enrolled in an 'ethnic-decision' task on morphed faces made of an Asiatic source face and a Caucasian source face, in the proportion of 70%-30%.

Stepwise emergence of the face-sensitive N170 event-related potential component.

The present study used a parametric design to characterize early event-related potentials (ERP) to face stimuli embedded in gradually decreasing random noise levels. For both N170 and the vertex positive potential (VPP) there was a linear increase in amplitude and decrease in latency with decreasing levels of noise. In contrast, the earlier visual P1 component was stable across noise levels.

Is the N170 for faces cognitively penetrable? Evidence from repetition priming of Mooney faces of familiar and unfamiliar persons.

Impoverished images of faces, two-tone Mooney faces, severely impair the ability to recognize to whom the face pertains. However, previously seeing the corresponding face in a clear format helps fame-judgments to Mooney faces. In the present experiment, we sought to demonstrate that enhancement in the perceptual encoding of Mooney faces results from top-down effects, due to previous activation of familiar face representation.

Nociceptive processing in the human brain of infrequent task-relevant and task-irrelevant noxious stimuli. A study with event-related potentials evoked by CO2 laser radiant heat stimuli.

Laser evoked potentials (LEPs) are nociceptive-related brain responses to activation of cutaneous nociceptors by laser radiant heat stimuli. We previously showed that LEP amplitude during the P2 period (approximately 400 ms) was increased by rare noxious stimuli, inside and outside the focus of spatial attention. It was postulated that this effect reflected a P3a response indexing an involuntary shift of attention.

Aging and the locus of the global precedence effect: a short review and new empirical data.

Precedence of the global over the local level in visual perception is well established by the use of compound, or hierarchical, stimuli. However, (a) virtually nothing is known concerning the fate of global precedence with normal aging, and (b) there is still a debate about the early versus late perceptual locus of the effect. The present study was planned to investigate both topics.

Differential involvement of episodic and face representations in ERP repetition effects.

The purpose of this study was to disentangle the contribution of episodic-perceptual from pre-existing memory representations of faces to repetition effects. ERPs were recorded to first and second presentations of same and different photos of famous and unfamiliar faces, in an incidental task where occasional non-targets had to be detected. Repetition of same and different photos of famous faces resulted in an N400 amplitude decrement.

Electrophysiological correlates of attentional orientation in humans to strong intensity deviant nociceptive stimuli, inside and outside the focus of spatial attention.

Laser evoked potentials (LEPs) are electrical brain responses to nociceptive heat stimuli. In a recent study [Legrain, V., Guérit, J.

Measurement of the perception of facially expressed emotions by a computerized device: method of analysis and research for the integration of emotions (MARIE).

Current computerized tools allow detailed exploration of the structure and functioning of the "black box," i.e., human cognitive and affective systems as well as thought.

Attentional modulation of the nociceptive processing into the human brain: selective spatial attention, probability of stimulus occurrence, and target detection effects on laser evoked potentials.

Laser evoked potentials (LEPs) are brain responses to activation of skin nociceptors by laser heat stimuli. LEPs consist of three components: N1, N2, and P2. Previous reports have suggested that in contrast to earlier activities (N1), LEPs responses after 230-250 ms (N2-P2) are modulated by attention to painful laser stimuli.