When two faces are not better than one: Serial limited-capacity processing with redundant-target faces

Measuring the Contributions of Perceptual and Attentional Processes in the Complete Composite Face Paradigm

Theories of holistic face processing vary widely with respect to conceptualizations, paradigms, and stimuli. These divergences have left several theoretical questions unresolved. Namely, the role of attention in face perception is understudied. To rectify this gap in the literature, we combined the complete composite face task (allowing for predictions of multiple theoretical conceptualizations and connecting with a large body of research) with a secondary auditory discrimination task at encoding (to avoid a visual perceptual bottleneck). Participants studied upright, intact faces within a continuous recognition paradigm, which intermixes study and test trials at multiple retention intervals. Within subjects, participants studied faces under full or divided attention. Test faces varied with respect to alignment, congruence, and retention intervals. Overall, we observed the predicted beneficial outcomes of holistic processing (e.g., higher discriminability for Congruent, Aligned faces relative to Congruent, Misaligned faces) that persisted across retention intervals and attention. However, we did not observe the predicted detrimental outcomes of holistic processing (e.g., higher discriminability for Incongruent, Misaligned faces relative to Incongruent, Aligned faces). Because the continuous recognition paradigm exerts particularly strong demands on attention, we interpret these findings through the lens of resource dependency and domain specificity.

Quantifying Entropy in Response Times (RT) Distributions Using the Cumulative Residual Entropy (CRE) Function

Response times (RT) distributions are routinely used by psychologists and neuroscientists in the assessment and modeling of human behavior and cognition. The statistical properties of RT distributions are valuable in uncovering unobservable psychological mechanisms. A potentially important statistical aspect of RT distributions is their entropy. However, to date, no valid measure of entropy on RT distributions has been developed, mainly because available extensions of discrete entropy measures to continuous distributions were fraught with problems and inconsistencies. The present work takes advantage of the cumulative residual entropy (CRE) function-a well-known differential entropy measure that can circumvent those problems. Applications of the CRE to RT distributions are presented along with concrete examples and simulations. In addition, a novel measure of instantaneous CRE is developed that captures the rate of entropy reduction (or information gain) from a stimulus as a function of processing time. Taken together, the new measures of entropy in RT distributions proposed here allow for stronger statistical inferences, as well as motivated theoretical interpretations of psychological constructs such as mental effort and processing efficiency.

The importance of an exaggerated attention bottleneck for understanding psychopathy

The psychopath has long captured the imagination. A name such as Ted Bundy evokes a morbid curiosity. The crimes committed by Bundy are so cruel that it is hard to imagine how someone could do such things. In this review we discuss evidence that exaggeration in an attention bottleneck is one mechanism that makes it possible for psychopathic individuals to be adept at focusing on a single stimulus feature or goal but struggle to process multiple streams of information simultaneously. This exaggeration may partly explain the behavioral, affective, and social deficits that are apparent among psychopathic individuals. Further research on this attentional mechanism may promote a science that adequately captures the complexity of psychopathic behavior and offers new avenues for intervention.

Understanding the Impact of Face Masks on the Processing of Facial Identity, Emotion, Age, and Gender

The COVID-19 pandemic has introduced new challenges for governments and individuals. Unprecedented efforts at reducing virus transmission launched a novel arena for human face recognition in which faces are partially occluded with masks. Previous studies have shown that masks decrease accuracy of face identity and emotion recognition. The current study focuses on the impact of masks on the speed of processing of these and other important social dimensions. Here we provide a systematic assessment of the impact of COVID-19 masks on facial identity, emotion, gender, and age. Four experiments (N = 116) were conducted in which participants categorized faces on a predefined dimension (e.g., emotion). Both speed and accuracy were measured. The results revealed that masks hindered the perception of virtually all tested facial dimensions (i.e., emotion, gender, age, and identity), interfering with normal speed and accuracy of categorization. We also found that the unwarranted effects of masks were not due to holistic processes, because the Face Inversion Effect (FIE) was generally not larger with unmasked compared with masked faces. Moreover, we found that the impact of masks is not automatic and that under some contexts observers can control at least part of their detrimental effects.