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Cognitive Neuropsychology Mar 2023Subjects often look towards to previous location of a stimulus related to a task even when that stimulus is no longer visible. In this study we asked whether this effect...
Subjects often look towards to previous location of a stimulus related to a task even when that stimulus is no longer visible. In this study we asked whether this effect would be preserved or reduced in subjects with developmental prosopagnosia. Participants learned faces presented in video-clips and then saw a brief montage of four faces, which was replaced by a screen with empty boxes, at which time they indicated whether the learned face had been present in the montage. Control subjects were more likely to look at the blank location where the learned face had appeared, on both hit and miss trials, though the effect was larger on hit trials. Prosopagnosic subjects showed a reduced effect, though still better on hit than on miss trials. We conclude that explicit accuracy and our implicit looking at nothing effect are parallel effects reflecting the strength of the neural activity underlying face recognition.
PubMed: 37612792
DOI: 10.1080/02643294.2023.2250510 -
Substance Use & Misuse 2023: Risky alcohol use is related to a variety of cognitive impairments, including memory and visuo-perceptual difficulties. Remarkably, no prior work has assessed whether...
: Risky alcohol use is related to a variety of cognitive impairments, including memory and visuo-perceptual difficulties. Remarkably, no prior work has assessed whether usage of alcohol can predict difficulties perceiving facial identity. : Therefore, this study aimed to investigate whether riskier alcohol consumption predicted impairments in face perception and self-reported difficulties in face recognition. : Participants ( = 239, male = 77) were over 18 years old and had normal or corrected-to-normal vision. Alcohol use was assessed using the Alcohol Use Disorder Identification Test (AUDIT), while face recognition difficulties were determined by the 20-item Prosopagnosia Index questionnaire (PI20). A subsample of participants ( = 126, male = 51) completed the Cambridge Face Perception task (CFPT) to assess their face perception ability. Multiple linear regressions showed significant models of prediction on both face perception and face recognition when considering AUDIT score and age as predictors. : This study suggested, for the first time, that risky alcohol use predicts both poorer visuo-perceptual processing for faces and self-reported difficulties in face recognition.
Topics: Humans; Male; Adolescent; Facial Recognition; Prosopagnosia; Surveys and Questionnaires; Self Report; Alcohol Drinking
PubMed: 37602741
DOI: 10.1080/10826084.2023.2247059 -
Cortex; a Journal Devoted To the Study... Oct 2023People with aphantasia have a markedly impaired ability to form visual images in the mind's eye. Here, by testing people with and without aphantasia, we examine the...
People with aphantasia have a markedly impaired ability to form visual images in the mind's eye. Here, by testing people with and without aphantasia, we examine the relationship between visual imagery and face processing. We show that aphantasics have weaker face recognition than people with visual imagery, using both self-report (Prosopagnosia Index) and behavioural measures (Cambridge Face Memory Test). However, aphantasics nonetheless have a fully intact ability to construct facial composites from memory (i.e., composites produced using EFIT6 by aphantasics and imagers were rated as equally accurate in terms of their resemblance to a target face). Additionally, we show that aphantasics were less able than imagers to see the resemblance between composites and a target face, suggestive of potential issues with face matching (perception). Finally, we show that holistic and featural methods of composite construction using EFIT6 produce equally accurate composites. Our results suggest that face recognition, but not face composite construction, is facilitated by the ability to represent visual properties as 'pictures in the mind'. Our findings have implications for the study of aphantasia, and also for forensic settings, where face composite systems are commonly used to aid criminal investigations.
Topics: Humans; Facial Recognition; Imagery, Psychotherapy; Prosopagnosia; Recognition, Psychology; Self Report; Visual Perception
PubMed: 37597266
DOI: 10.1016/j.cortex.2023.06.015 -
Journal of Alzheimer's Disease : JAD 2023Shadowing is a person-following behavior, commonly observed in dementia (e.g., Alzheimer's disease). It may be caused by neuropsychological impairments associated with...
Shadowing is a person-following behavior, commonly observed in dementia (e.g., Alzheimer's disease). It may be caused by neuropsychological impairments associated with posterior brain lesions, as Kudo et al. described it in a patient with posterior cortical atrophy and no frontal signs. These authors have suggested that shadowing may arise from the combination of visuospatial impairments, aphasia, apraxia, and prosopagnosia. However, how these symptoms may contribute to shadowing remains unclear. It is suggested that the combination of visuospatial impairments, body representation disorders, and apraxia, may result in complete loss of spatial representations and hence, shadowing behavior.
Topics: Humans; Body Image; Apraxias; Alzheimer Disease; Aphasia; Neuropsychological Tests
PubMed: 37545244
DOI: 10.3233/JAD-230731 -
Clinical Pediatrics Jun 2024
Topics: Humans; Aphasia; Headache; Prosopagnosia; Young Adult; Male; Female; Acute Disease; Diagnosis, Differential
PubMed: 37497923
DOI: 10.1177/00099228231190226 -
PeerJ 2023Developmental prosopagnosia is a relatively common visuo-cognitive condition, characterised by impaired facial identity recognition. Impairment severity appears to...
Developmental prosopagnosia is a relatively common visuo-cognitive condition, characterised by impaired facial identity recognition. Impairment severity appears to reside on a continuum, however, it is unknown whether instances of milder deficits reflect the successful use of spontaneous (typical) face recognition strategies, or the application of extraneous compensatory cues to recognition. Here, we explore this issue in two studies. First, 23 adults with developmental prosopagnosia were asked about their use of spontaneous versus compensatory face recognition techniques in everyday life, using a series of closed- and open-ended questions. Second, the same participants performed a computerised famous face recognition task where they were asked to provide reasons why they could make any successful identifications. Findings from both studies suggest that people with developmental prosopagnosia can successfully, and quite frequently, use compensatory strategies to recognition, and that these cues support the majority of instances of preserved familiar face recognition. In contrast, 16 of the 23 participants were able to spontaneously recognise familiar faces on at least some occasions, but there were vast individual differences in frequencies of success. These findings have important implications for our conceptualisation of the condition, as well as for diagnostic practice.
Topics: Adult; Humans; Cues; Facial Recognition; Prosopagnosia; Recognition, Psychology; Male; Female; Middle Aged
PubMed: 37483961
DOI: 10.7717/peerj.15497 -
Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics Oct 2023Face recognition deficits occur in diseases such as prosopagnosia, autism, Alzheimer's disease, and dementias. The objective of this study was to evaluate whether...
Face recognition deficits occur in diseases such as prosopagnosia, autism, Alzheimer's disease, and dementias. The objective of this study was to evaluate whether degrading the architecture of artificial intelligence (AI) face recognition algorithms can model deficits in diseases. Two established face recognition models, convolutional-classification neural network (C-CNN) and Siamese network (SN), were trained on the FEI faces data set (~ 14 images/person for 200 persons). The trained networks were perturbed by reducing weights (weakening) and node count (lesioning) to emulate brain tissue dysfunction and lesions, respectively. Accuracy assessments were used as surrogates for face recognition deficits. The findings were compared with clinical outcomes from the Alzheimer's Disease Neuroimaging Initiative (ADNI) data set. Face recognition accuracy decreased gradually for weakening factors less than 0.55 for C-CNN, and 0.85 for SN. Rapid accuracy loss occurred at higher values. C-CNN accuracy was similarly affected by weakening any convolutional layer whereas SN accuracy was more sensitive to weakening of the first convolutional layer. SN accuracy declined gradually with a rapid drop when nearly all nodes were lesioned. C-CNN accuracy declined rapidly when as few as 10% of nodes were lesioned. CNN and SN were more sensitive to lesioning of the first convolutional layer. Overall, SN was more robust than C-CNN, and the findings from SN experiments were concordant with ADNI results. As predicted from modeling, brain network failure quotient was related to key clinical outcome measures for cognition and functioning. Perturbation of AI networks is a promising method for modeling disease progression effects on complex cognitive outcomes.
Topics: Humans; Artificial Intelligence; Alzheimer Disease; Neurodegenerative Diseases; Facial Recognition; Neural Networks, Computer
PubMed: 37394678
DOI: 10.1002/cpt.2987 -
Cortex; a Journal Devoted To the Study... Sep 2023Cross-condition comparisons on neurodevelopmental conditions are central in neurodiversity research. In the realm of visual perception, the performance of participants...
Cross-condition comparisons on neurodevelopmental conditions are central in neurodiversity research. In the realm of visual perception, the performance of participants with different category-specific disorders such as developmental prosopagnosia (problems with faces) and dyslexia (problems with words) have contributed to understanding of perceptual processes involved in word and face recognition. Alterations in face and word recognition are present in several neurodiverse populations, and improved knowledge about their relationship may increase our understanding of this variability of impairment. The present study investigates organizing principles of visual object processing and their implications for developmental disorders of recognition. Some accounts suggest that distinct mechanisms are responsible for recognizing objects of different categories, while others propose that categories share or even compete for cortical resources. We took an individual differences approach to estimate the relationship between abilities in recognition. Neurotypical participants (N = 97 after outlier exclusion) performed a match-to-sample task with faces, houses, and pseudowords. Either individual features or feature configurations were manipulated. To estimate the separability of visual recognition mechanisms, we used representational similarity analysis (RSA) where correlational matrices for accuracy were compared to predicted data patterns. Recognition abilities separated into face recognition on one hand and house/pseudoword recognition on the other, indicating that face recognition may rely on relatively selective mechanisms in neurotypicals. We also found evidence for a general visual object recognition mechanism, while some combinations of category (faces, houses, words) and processing type (featural, configural) likely rely on additional mechanisms. Developmental conditions may therefore reflect combinations of impaired and intact aspects of specific and general visual object recognition mechanisms, where featural and configural processes for one object category separate from the featural or configural processing of another. More generally, RSA is a promising approach for advancing understanding of neurodiversity, including shared aspects and distinctions between neurodevelopmental conditions of visual recognition.
Topics: Humans; Pattern Recognition, Visual; Visual Perception; Recognition, Psychology; Facial Recognition; Dyslexia
PubMed: 37390594
DOI: 10.1016/j.cortex.2023.05.012 -
Perception Sep 2023Aphantasia and prosopagnosia are both rare conditions with impairments in visual cognition. While prosopagnosia refers to a face recognition deficit, aphantasics exhibit...
Aphantasia and prosopagnosia are both rare conditions with impairments in visual cognition. While prosopagnosia refers to a face recognition deficit, aphantasics exhibit a lack of mental imagery. Current object recognition theories propose an interplay of perception and mental representations, making an association between recognition performance and visual imagery plausible. While the literature assumes a link between aphantasia and prosopagnosia, other impairments in aphantasia have been shown to be rather global. Therefore, we assumed that aphantasics do not solely exhibit impairments in face recognition but rather in general visual recognition performance, probably moderated by stimulus complexity. To test this hypothesis, 65 aphantasics were compared to 55 controls in a face recognition task, the Cambridge Face Memory Test, and a corresponding object recognition task, the Cambridge Car Memory Test. In both tasks, aphantasics performed worse than controls, indicating mild recognition deficits without face-specificity. Additional correlations between imagery vividness and performance in both tasks were found, suggesting that visual imagery influences visual recognition not only in imagery extremes. Stimulus complexity produced the expected moderation effect but only for the whole imagery-spectrum and only with face stimuli. Overall, the results imply that aphantasia is linked to a general but mild deficit in visual recognition.
Topics: Humans; Prosopagnosia; Prevalence; Recognition, Psychology; Cognition; Visual Perception; Pattern Recognition, Visual
PubMed: 37321679
DOI: 10.1177/03010066231180712 -
Cognition Sep 2023Individuals with developmental prosopagnosia (DPs) experience severe and lifelong deficits recognising faces, but whether their deficits are selective to the processing...
Individuals with developmental prosopagnosia (DPs) experience severe and lifelong deficits recognising faces, but whether their deficits are selective to the processing of face identity or extend to the processing of face expression remains unclear. Clarifying this issue is important for understanding DP impairments and advancing theories of face processing. We compared identity and expression processing in a large sample of DPs (N = 124) using three different matching tasks that each assessed identity and expression processing with identical experimental formats. We ran each task in upright and inverted orientations and we measured inversion effects to assess the integrity of upright-specific face processes. We report three main results. First, DPs showed large deficits at discriminating identity but only subtle deficits at discriminating expression. Second, DPs showed a reduced inversion effect for identity but a normal inversion effect for expression. Third, DPs' performance on the expression tasks were linked to autism traits, but their performance on the identity tasks were not. These results constitute several dissociations between identity and expression processing in DP, and they are consistent with the view that the core impairment in DP is highly selective to identity.
Topics: Humans; Facial Recognition; Prosopagnosia; Facial Expression; Photic Stimulation; Orientation; Pattern Recognition, Visual
PubMed: 37216847
DOI: 10.1016/j.cognition.2023.105469