Perceiving the outlier in the crowd: The influence of facial identity

The accurate perception of groups with outliers can help us identify potential risks. However, it is unclear how outliers affect the perception of group emotion. To address this question, we conducted a study on group emotion perception in the context of facial identity. We presented 74 participants with pictures of crowds, and asked them to evaluate the valence ratios and intensity of the crowd by means of the Emotional Aperture Measure. The results revealed that outlier emotions were often overestimated within crowds. Moreover, we found that the emotional expression of a close friend modulated the perception of outliers. Specifically, when a close friend expressed the group emotion, participants overestimated the outlier less than when a close friend expressed the outlier emotion. These results suggest that people can detect outliers within groups, and that their perception of group emotion is influenced by close friends. Thus, we provide evidence that facial identity affects group emotion perception.

Faster social attention disengagement in individuals with higher autism traits

INTRODUCTION

Atypical visual and social attention has often been associated with clinically diagnosed autism spectrum disorder (ASD), and with the broader autism phenotype. Atypical social attention is of particular research interest given the importance of facial expressions for social communication, with faces tending to attract and hold attention in neurotypical individuals. In autism, this is not necessarily so, where there is debate about the temporal differences in the ability to disengage attention from a face.

METHOD

Thus, we have used eye-tracking to record saccadic latencies as a measure of time to disengage attention from a central task-irrelevant face before orienting to a newly presented peripheral nonsocial target during a gap-overlap task. Neurotypical participants with higher or lower autism-like traits (AT) completed the task that included central stimuli with varied expressions of facial emotion as well as an inverted face.

RESULTS

High AT participants demonstrated faster saccadic responses to detect the nonsocial target than low AT participants when disengaging attention from a face. Furthermore, faster saccadic responses were recorded when comparing disengagement from upright to inverted faces in low AT but not in high AT participants.

CONCLUSIONS

Together, these results extend findings of atypical social attention disengagement in autism and highlight how differences in attention to faces in the broader autism phenotype can lead to apparently superior task performance under certain conditions. Specifically, autism traits were linked to faster attention orienting to a nonsocial target due to the reduced attentional hold of the task irrelevant face stimuli. The absence of an inversion effect in high AT participants also reinforces the suggestion that they process upright or inverted faces similarly, unlike low AT participants for whom inverted faces are thought to be less socially engaging, thus allowing faster disengagement.

The left-side bias is not unique to own-race face processing

Humans show a clear left-side bias in face processing. A chimeric face constructed with the left side (from the viewer's perspective) of a face and its mirror image is usually rated as more resemblant to the original face than a chimeric face constructed with the right side of the same face. Previous studies have characterized the left-side bias mainly with own-race faces, but it remains unclear whether this effect is race specific or if it reflects an universal visual expertise. One hundred and five Chinese students completed two versions of a chimeric face-identification task. The results revealed a significant left-side bias for both own-race (Chinese) and other-race (Caucasian) faces, suggesting that the left-side bias reflects an universal visual expertise in face processing.

The Different Brain Mechanisms of Object and Spatial Working Memory: Voxel-Based Morphometry and Resting-State Functional Connectivity

In working memory (WM), the ability to concurrently integrate different types of information and to maintain or manipulate them promotes the flow of ongoing tasks. WM is a key component of normal human cognition. In this study, we applied a combined voxel-based morphometry (VBM) and resting-state functional connectivity (rsFC) analysis to investigate the relationship between the ability of object and spatial working memory (WM), and regional gray matter density (GMD), as well as intrinsic functional connectivity. The VBM analysis showed a positive correlation between the individual difference of object WM and GMD in the right middle occipital gyrus (MOG) and the left superior temporal gyrus (STG), which are responsible for coding object information and processing the shape of an object. The individual difference of the spatial WM was positively related to GMD in the right middle frontal gyrus (MFG) located in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (dlPFC), which confirmed that it is an important region for memory stores and maintains WM spatial representations. Further functional connectivity analysis revealed that the individual difference of object WM was significantly correlated with the rsFC of right intraparietal sulcus (IPS) - left postcentral gyrus (PostCG)/right precentral gyrus (PreCG)/left Supplementary Motor Area (SMA). While the capacity of spatial WM was significantly associated with the FC strength of the left dlPFC - left precuneus, right dlPFC - right MFG, and the left superior frontal sulcus (SFS) - left SMA/ right inferior parietal lobe (IPL). Our findings suggest that object WM is associated with the structure and functional organization of the brain regions involved in the ventral pathway (occipital - temporal regions) and the capacity of spatial WM is related to the dorsal pathway (frontal - parietal regions).

Neuroticism and Frontal EEG Asymmetry Correlated With Dynamic Facial Emotional Processing in Adolescents

The aim of this research was to investigate the link between resting frontal EEG asymmetry, neuroticism and the valence of emotional face processing in adolescents. Fifty right-handed adolescents (50% male; mean age = 14.20, SD = 1.97) were selected from schools in Mashhad. In order to investigate variables, we used BFQ-C, ADFES-BIV, and EEG. All data were analyzed using SPSS 22. The results showed that neuroticism correlates with the valences of fear, disgust, sadness, and surprise, but not with happiness, anger, and neutral faces. Furthermore, it was found that N was significantly positively correlated with mid-frontal asymmetry (F3-F4), and the lateral-frontal (F7-F8), whereas no correlation was found between N and frontal pole (Fp1-Fp2). We found significant negative correlations between the valence of fear, Fp1-Fp2, F3-F4, and F7-F8. The interaction findings revealed that neuroticism∗mid-frontal asymmetry can significantly affect the valence of fear. Therefore, neuroticism and mid-frontal EEG asymmetry may serve as a risk indicator for psychopathology.

The other-race effect does not apply to infant faces: An ERP attentional study

It is known that paedomorphic characteristics, called "baby schema" by Lorenz, trigger an orienting response in adults, are judged as attractive and stimulate parental care. On the other hand, it is known that ethnicity may influence face encoding, with an advantage in recognizing faces of their own ethnicity (called own-race effect). Some have argued that this effect holds also for infant faces, which conflicts with the "baby schema" phenomenon. The aim of the study was to investigate the possible presence of the own-race effect on infant vs. adult face processing. Seventeen Caucasian students participated to the study. Their EEG/ERPs were recorded as they watched 400 pictures of adult and infant faces of different ethnicity (half Caucasian, half non-Caucasian), and subsequently responded to a target orientation. The behavioral results showed that responses were faster when the target was preceded by a child face, which enhanced the arousal level, regardless of ethnicity. The electrophysiological results showed an enhanced anterior N2 response to infant than adult faces, and a lack of ORE effect only for infant faces. Overall, the data indicate that baby faces automatically attract the adult viewer's attention and that face ethnicity has no effect on this innate response.

Beyond the inhibition of return of attention: reduced habituation to threatening faces in schizophrenia

Attention deficits are prominent among the core symptoms of schizophrenia. A recent meta-analysis has suggested that patients with schizophrenia have a deficit in endogenous disengagement of attention. In this research, we used a standard spatial cueing paradigm to examine whether the attention deficit of such patients is due to impaired attentional disengagement or defective novelty detection/habituation processes. In a spatial cueing procedure with peripheral non-predictive cues and a detection task, we manipulated the valence of either the cue or the target (i.e., a threatening vs. scrambled face) in two separate experiments. The control group exhibited a smaller inhibition of return (IOR) effect only when the target had an emotional load, not when the cue had an emotional load. In the patient group, a larger emotional effect appeared when the threatening face was the target; by contrast, no effect of valence was observed when the threatening face was the cue: IOR was delayed or completely absent independently of valence. The present findings are in conflict with the hypothesis that IOR is due to the disengagement of attention and the subsequent inhibition to return. Instead, they seem to suggest a cost in detecting new information at a previously cued location. From this perspective, it seems that patients with schizophrenia might have a deficit in detecting new information and considering it as new in the current context.