Are You In or Are You Out? The Importance of Group Saliency in Own-Group Biases in Face Recognition.

Previous research has demonstrated several own-group biases (OGBs) in face recognition, but why they occur is unclear. Social-cognitive accounts suggest they stem from differential attention and facial processing, following the categorisation of a face as belonging to an "in" or "out" group. Three studies explored whether OGBs can be produced by mere categorisation at encoding and investigated the role of in-group membership saliency on face recognition. Participants saw 40 facial images fictionally grouped according to in-/out-group status. Studies 1 and 2 used university membership as the grouping variable and found no evidence of an OGB, and no relationship between OGB magnitude and salience of group membership. Study 3 used the same design as Study 2, but with a highly salient group characteristic: participants' stance on the U.K. Referendum (i.e., whether they were "Leave" or "Remain" supporters). In this case, an asymmetrical OGB was found, with only Remain voters demonstrating an OGB. Furthermore, a relationship between OGB magnitude and attitude toward the Referendum result was found. Overall, our results suggest that social categorisation and membership saliency alone may not be enough to moderate in- and out-group face recognition. However, when sufficiently polarised groups are used as in-/out-group categories, OGBs may occur.

Autonomic profile under hypnosis as assessed by heart rate variability and spectral analysis.

To test the hypothesis of a sympathovagal balance shift towards an enhanced vagal tone under the condition of a standardized hypnosis, we used the assessment of heart rate variability including spectral analysis in 10 healthy subjects (5 female, 5 male, age ranging from 27 to 42 years). We compared the subjects under baseline condition (resting) and under hypnosis, measured on a different day, for a measuring period of five minutes for each condition. The result was reduced total power in the low frequency band (0.01-0.05 Hz) reflecting sympathetic activity. Also, the ratio of low to high frequency power (LFIHF) was reduced when under hypnosis. This reduction was due to a reduced LF component, but only a slightly reduced mid frequency component. With considerable variability, we also found activated mid frequency bands (0.05-0.15Hz) under hypnosis, likely reflecting baroreceptor activity. We conclude that the autonomic status in hypnosis is associated with a change towards reduced low frequency activity, but not necessarily with enhanced high frequency activity.

Developmental changes in the effect of inversion: using a picture book to investigate face recognition.

A novel child-oriented procedure was used to examine the face-recognition abilities of children as young as 2 years. A recognition task was embedded in a picture book containing a story about two boys and a witch. The story and the task were designed to be entertaining for children of a wide age range. In eight trials, the children were asked to pick out one of the boys from amongst eight distractors as quickly as possible. Response-time data to both upright and inverted conditions were analysed. The results revealed that children aged 6 years onwards showed the classic inversion effect. By contrast, the youngest children, aged 2 to 4 years, were faster at recognising the target face in the inverted condition than in the upright condition. Several possible explanations for this 'inverted inversion effect' are discussed.

Featural and configurational processes in the recognition of faces of different familiarity.

Previous research suggests that face recognition may involve both configurational and piecemeal (featural) processing. To explore the relationship between these processing modes, we examined the patterns of recognition impairment produced by blurring, inversion, and scrambling, both singly and in various combinations. Two tasks were used: recognition of unfamiliar faces (seen once before) and recognition of highly familiar faces (celebrities). The results provide further support for a configurational-featural distinction. Recognition performance remained well above chance if faces were blurred, scrambled, inverted, or simultaneously inverted and scrambled: each of these manipulations disrupts either configurational or piecemeal processing, leaving the other mode available as a route to recognition. However, blurred/scrambled and blurred/inverted faces were recognised at or near chance levels, presumably because both configurational processing and featural processing were disrupted. Similar patterns of effects were found for both familiar and unfamiliar faces, suggesting that the relationship between configurational and featural processing is qualitatively similar in both cases.

Evidence for holistic processing of faces viewed as photographic negatives.

Inversion and photographic negation both impair face recognition. Inversion seems to disrupt processing of the spatial relationship between facial features ('relational' processing) which normally occurs with upright faces and which facilitates their recognition. It remains unclear why negation affects recognition. To find out if negation impairs relational processing, we investigated whether negative faces are subject to the 'chimeric-face effect'. Recognition of the top half of a composite face (constructed from top and bottom halves of different faces) is difficult when the face is upright, but not when it is inverted. To perform this task successfully, the bottom half of the face has to be disregarded, but the relational processing which normally occurs with upright faces makes this difficult. Inversion reduces relational processing and thus facilitates performance on this particular task. In our experiments, subjects saw pairs of chimeric faces and had to decide whether or not the top halves were identical. On half the trials the two chimeras had identical tops; on the remaining trials the top halves were different. (The bottom halves were always different.) All permutations of orientation (upright or inverted) and luminance (normal or negative) were used. In experiment 1, each pair of 'identical' top halves were the same in all respects. Experiment 2 used differently oriented views of the same person, to preclude matches being based on incidental features of the images rather than the faces displayed within them. In both experiments, similar chimeric-face effects were obtained with both positive and negative faces, implying that negative faces evoke some form of relational processing. It is argued that there may be more than one kind of relational processing involved in face recognition: the 'chimeric-face effect' may reflect an initial 'holistic' processing which binds facial features into a 'Gestalt', rather than being a demonstration of the configurational processing involved in individual recognition.

The influence of feature-based information in the age processing of unfamiliar faces.

The influence of the internal features (eyes, nose, and mouth) in the age processing of unfamiliar faces was examined. Younger and older versions of the faces of six individuals (covering three different age ranges, from infancy to maturity) were used as donor stimuli. For each individual in turn, the effects on age estimates of placing older features in the younger face version (or vice versa) were investigated. Age estimates were heavily influenced by the age of the internal facial features. Experiment 2 replicated these effects with a larger number of faces within a narrower age range (after growth is complete and before major skin changes have occurred). Taken together, these two experiments show that the internal facial features may be influential in conveying age information to the perceiver. However, the mechanisms by which features exert their influence remain difficult to determine: although age estimates might be based on local information from the features themselves, an alternative possibility is that featural changes indirectly influence age estimates by altering the global three-dimensional shape of the head.

Recognising the ageing face: the role of age in face processing.

The effect of age-induced changes on face recognition were investigated as a means of exploring the role of age in the encoding of new facial memories. The ability of participants to recognise each of six previously learnt faces was tested with versions which were either identical to the learnt faces, the same age (but different in pose and expression), or younger or older in age. Participants were able to cope well with facial changes induced by ageing: their performance with older, but not younger, versions was comparable to that with faces which differed only in pose and expression. Since the large majority of different age versions were recognised successfully, it can be concluded that the process of recognition does not require an exact match in age characteristics between the stored representation of a face and the face currently in view. As the age-related changes explored here were those that occur during the period of growth, this in turn implies that the underlying structural physical properties of the face are (in addition to pose and facial expression) invariant to a certain extent.

Decay and interference effects in visuospatial short-term memory.

The method of constant stimuli was used to examine the accuracy with which two-dimensional spatial information can be represented in mental images. In experiment 1, subjects had to decide which of two successively presented two-dot separations was wider. Over the range of interstimulus intervals employed (0 to 30s), there was a linear relationship between interstimulus interval and spatial interval thresholds. In experiment 2 subjects' abilities to represent accurately more than one spatial interval at a time was investigated. Three dot pairs were presented, but only two pairs were to be compared, the third being completely irrelevant to the task. This manipulation doubled thresholds (relative to a two-dot-pair control condition), whether or not subjects were obliged to attend to the irrelevant dots. Overall, the results suggest that mental representations of spatial information may be temporally durable, but only in the absence of extraneous stimuli. The latter not only disrupt memory for spatial information, but appear to have obligatory access to it.

The influence of perceptual 'set' on the detection of motorcyclists using daytime headlights.

Voluntary daytime headlight use by the majority of motorcyclists might endanger those not using lights: it has been suggested that drivers might scan for lights rather than for motorcyclists per se. Two experiments are described that attempted to investigate this issue in the laboratory. Subjects had to decide as rapidly as possible whether or not a motorcyclist was present in each of a series of slides depicting traffic. Experiment 1 showed that headlight-using motorcyclists were more quickly detected than unlit motorcyclists, especially when they were far away. However, repeated exposure to headlight-using motorcyclists significantly delayed detection of an unlit motorcyclist. Experiment 2 showed that this delayed-detection effect occurred when only 60% of the motorcyclists shown were using their headlight. Under laboratory conditions, at least, subjects readily appear to develop a 'set' for responding on the basis of headlight-use, even when this is an unreliable guide to the motorcyclists' presence.

Factors influencing the accuracy of age estimates of unfamiliar faces.

Factors affecting the accuracy with which adults could assess the age of unfamiliar male faces aged between 5 and 70 years were examined. In the first experiment twenty-five 'young' adult subjects, aged 16-25, and twenty-five 'old' adults, aged 51-60, were used. Each subject saw five versions of three different faces: these consisted of an original version of each face and four manipulated versions of it. The manipulations consisted of mirror reversal, pseudo-cardioidal strain, thresholding, and elimination of all but the internal features of the face. The second experiment was similar except that a between-subjects design was used: each subject saw three faces for each age category of target face, but was exposed to only a single type of manipulation (plus a set of 'original' faces which were identical for all groups, so that the comparability of the different groups in age estimation could be checked). Results from both experiments were similar. Age estimates for unmanipulated 'original' faces were highly accurate, although subjects were most accurate with target faces that were within their own age range. Results for the manipulated faces implied that the importance of cardioidal strain as a necessary and sufficient cue to age may have been overestimated in previous reports: subjects' age estimates were accurate when cardioidal strain was absent from the stimulus, and poor when cardioidal strain was the only cue available.

[The depressive syndrome]. / Das depressive Syndrom.

Depression is not like depression. For that it is important to divide the various impairs of emotional life: mood fluctuations--sorrow reactions--depressions. This provides specific knowledge about the versatile and so often misleading depressive syndrome--and not only at the doctors, but also at the concerned and especially the relatives, even friends, colleagues, neighbours and so on. Only this way it is possible to shorten the, within tormenting, time between the beginning of the depression and the first consultation of a doctor.

Facial aesthetics: babies prefer attractiveness to symmetry.

The visual preferences of human infants for faces that varied in their attractiveness and in their symmetry about the midline were explored. The aim was to establish whether infants' visual preference for attractive faces may be mediated by the vertical symmetry of the face. Chimeric faces, made from photographs of attractive and unattractive female faces, were produced by computer graphics. Babies looked longer at normal and at chimeric attractive faces than at normal and at chimeric unattractive faces. There were no developmental differences between the younger and older infants: all preferred to look at the attractive faces. Infants as young as 4 months showed similarity with adults in the 'aesthetic perception' of attractiveness and this preference was not based on the vertical symmetry of the face.

Configurational factors in the perception of unfamiliar faces.

Young et al (1987) have demonstrated that the juxtaposition of top and bottom halves of different faces produces a powerful impression of a novel face. It is difficult to isolate perceptually either half of the 'new' face. Inversion of the stimulus, however, makes this task easier. Upright chimeric faces appear to evoke strong and automatic configurational processing mechanisms which interfere with selective piecemeal processing. In this paper three experiments are described in which a matching paradigm was used to show that Young et al's findings apply to unfamiliar as well as to familiar faces. The results highlight the way in which minor procedural differences may alter the way in which subjects perform face-recognition tasks.

[Course of bacterial infections in high-dose therapy with clozapine]. / Verlauf bakterieller Infektionen während hochdosieter Therapie mit Clozapin.

The influence of neuroleptic drugs on body temperature regulation is well established. Even with atypical neuroleptic drugs such as clozapine, hyperthermia has been observed as well as the malignant neuroleptic syndrome. It is likely that the influence of clozapine affects the immune response. A case is reported in which afebrile angina tonsillaris and endocarditis developed, as a result of high-dosage therapy with clozapine over several years. Besides the special features of the course, differential diagnosis, therapy and possible influence on the body temperature and the immune response are discussed.

[Endo-neurotic depression. Necessity and irritation of a diagnostic concept]. / Die endo-neurotische Depression. Notwendigkeit und Argernis einer begrifflichen Aussage.

The traditional system of diagnosis which differentiates clearly between endogenous depression on the one hand and psychogenic depression on the other, results in an dichotomy that limits our thinking and perception. This limitation is an obstacle to an open-minded realisation of the multidimensional cause-effect links underlying depressive syndromes. The historical development is outlined and the descriptive-psychiatrical and psychoanalytical-psychodynamical theoretical aspects are described. There is a definite need for an unequivocal terminology that covers both clinical observations and therapeutic assessments. The term endo-neurotic as a logical development of Weitbrecht's endo-reactive concept represents a verbal diagnostic instrument enabling the characterisation of a typical group among a multitude of "multilayered" depressions. Endogenous and neurotic factors carry the same weight in such depressions, and the phasewise course of the disease does not permit the patient to be classified as purely "somatic" or purely "mental" or "psychological". If endogenous phases having a triggering effect on depression fail to occur during psychotherapy, this may be due to minor penetration by either endogenous or psychogenic factors. A clinical case report shows how intensive psychotherapy of neurotic mechanisms increasingly improves the management of situations that were formerly critical in respect of triggering depressions. The patient feels that this is really so, and the therapist gains confidence that his therapy is progressing in the right direction. Of course such an experience cannot be proven by statistics. This highlights the well-known discrepancy between idiographic and nomothetic methods. Progress could be achieved by "cutting more finely", i. e. by a terminology that is more differentiated and eliminates the compulsion to arrive at a rough diagnosis which disregards the finer gradations of the colours that make up the entire picture. Thus the term endo-neurotic could be useful to define a certain part of the diagnostic spectrum of depression with greater clarity.

[Personality, motivation and affect as modulating factors in suicidal behavior of depressed women]. / Persönlichkeit, Motivation und Affektivität als modulierende Faktoren suizidalen Verhaltens bei depressiven Frauen.

From a psychological point of view, we would expect that motivational rather than biological dysfunctions mediate initiation of violent and non-violent suicidal actions. To prove this assumption we classified depressed women in four groups according to their suicidal behaviour and matched them to age: suicide ideators, violent suicide attempters, non-violent suicide attempters, non-suicidal depressed controls. We then tested group differences in respect of aggression, impulsivity, introversion, affective lability, anxiety, depression and electrodermal activity (EDA). To take a closer look at motivational dysfunctions, we implemented the Action Control Scale (corresponding to Kuhls theory of action and state orientation), since we regard chronic state orientation as a risk factor for suicidal behaviour. Results show few differences in violent attempters compared with controls. In contrast to non-violent attempters, they show a greater tendency to achievement and action oriented behaviour being less introverted. Non-violent attempters, however, show most significant differences to their controls: Corresponding to a high state orientation, they are more depressed, anxious, less stable in respect of affectiveness, and more introverted, with low scores in aggression and contentedness in life. In contrast to some other studies, nonreactivity in the electrodermal system dominates in all groups. Results demonstrate that motivational dysfunctions like state orientation allow better prediction and understanding of violent or non-violent suicidal behaviour in depressed women than does electrodermal reactivity.

[Psychosocial factors and follow-up of depressive disease]. / Psychosoziale Faktoren und Verlauf depressiver Erkrankungen.

In a one-year follow-up study 187 inpatients were studied using structured and semistructured interviews (Diagnostic Interview Schedule, Münchner Ereignisliste, Social Interview Schedule). In order to predict the course of depression we focused on psychosocial factors and their influence on the course of depression. The severity of depression at discharge and negative life events during the follow-up period could be identified as the main influence factors. Results suggest reciprocal influence between illness and social conditions, especially illness and marital relations. Marital dysfunctioning at follow-up was reported significantly more often by patients with unfavourable outcome, whereas patients who recovered did not differ from the control group in their marital conditions. The results suppose the value of social variables in the prediction of the course of illness. A few implications on these findings for therapeutic process are discussed.

[Electrodermal hypoactivity in depression: psychobiological marker or differential psychophysiologic disposition?]. / Elektrodermale Hypoaktivität bei Depression: psychobiologischer Marker oder differentiell-psychophysiologische Disposition?

Research about the dominating hypoactivity in electrodermal system in affective disorders led to the assumption that electrodermal activity (EDA) could be an important biopsychological trait in the etiology of depression. However, experimental results are contradictory. Some studies find nosological validity, other studies an influence of psychomotor status on EDA or correlations to clinical improvement, etc. Most of these results are based on laboratory conditions (habituation experiment with tones). The person-situation-environment interaction and their dynamic process regulation on electrodermal activity are neglected. Also lacking is a comparable description of nosology, psychomotor status and experimental design. After discussing the neuropsychological background of the habituation paradigm which led to the "traditional" assumptions of the correlation between electrodermal activity and depression, results of different samples are shown tested over years using always the same classification and experimental methods. None of our assumptions could be verified. Although low levels in SCL dominate, we could not find results of high sensitivity and specificity in contrast to controls. However we found differences in other, more complex experiments containing personality traits and reactions to emotional words. In a multi-level process-oriented stress paradigm of the success/failure type we found a delay in regeneration of psychological and electrodermal measures after failure. This results demonstrate that investigation in electrodermal activity needs more complex and process-oriented experimental designs. EDA probably has not the quality of a biological marker, but seen in the context of person and situation factors it differentiates depressed states.

Suicidal behaviour and electrodermal activity in depressive inpatients.

Within the context of a habituation experiment, the electrodermal activity (EDA) of suicidal depressed patients was measured. Twenty-four patients had a suicide attempt in their most recent history; these attempts were divided into attempts with violent or nonviolent methods. All the patients who had used a violent method habituated quickly, as was the case for 4 of 5 patients who committed suicide in the year following the experiment. Just as many patients who used nonviolent methods habituated quickly or slowly. There was no indication that age, sex or medication had any influence. For 18 of these 24 patients, comparable groups, in terms of age and sex distribution, were formed containing either nonsuicidal depressed patients or patients with suicidal thoughts. No differences between groups concerning any of the EDA variables could be found. In accordance with these results, EDA cannot be considered to be a valid predictor for suicide-proneness. The relations between violent suicide attempts and nonreactivity should, however, be further examined and the group of nonreactive patients in EDA should be treated as a risk group for clinical reasons.