Is semantic dementia an outdated entity?

Does it still make clinical sense to talk about semantic dementia? For more than 10 years, some researchers and clinicians have highlighted the need for new diagnostic criteria, arguing for this entity either to be redefined or, more recently, to be divided into two partially distinct entities, each with its own supposed characteristics, namely the semantic variant primary progressive aphasia and the semantic behavioral variant frontotemporal dementia. Why such a shift? Is it no longer appropriate to talk about semantic dementia? Is it really useful to divide the concept of semantic dementia into verbal and socioemotional semantic subcomponents? Does this proposal have any clinical merit or does it solely reflect theoretical considerations? To shed light on these questions, the purpose of the present review was to explore theoretical considerations on the nature of the knowledge that is disturbed in this disease which might justify such terminological changes.

Integrating AI with medical industry chain data: enhancing clinical nutrition research through semantic knowledge graphs.

In clinical nutrition research, the medical industry chain generates a wealth of multidimensional spatial data across various formats, including text, images, and semi-structured tables. This data's inherent heterogeneity and diversity present significant challenges for processing and mining, which are further compounded by the data's diverse features, which are difficult to extract. To address these challenges, we propose an innovative integration of artificial intelligence (AI) with the medical industry chain data, focusing on constructing semantic knowledge graphs and extracting core features. These knowledge graphs are pivotal for efficiently acquiring insights from the vast and granular big data within the medical industry chain. Our study introduces the Clinical Feature Extraction Knowledge Mapping ( C F E K M ) model, designed to augment the attributes of medical industry chain knowledge graphs through an entity extraction method grounded in syntactic dependency rules. The C F E K M model is applied to real and large-scale datasets within the medical industry chain, demonstrating robust performance in relation extraction, data complementation, and feature extraction. It achieves superior results to several competitive baseline methods, highlighting its effectiveness in handling medical industry chain data complexities. By representing compact semantic knowledge in a structured knowledge graph, our model identifies knowledge gaps and enhances the decision-making process in clinical nutrition research.

The primacy of taxonomic semantic organization over thematic semantic organization during picture naming.

Different organizational structures have been argued to underlie semantic knowledge about concepts; taxonomic organization, based on shared features, and thematic organization based on co-occurrence in common scenes and scenarios. The goal of the current study is to examine which of the two organizational systems are more engaged in the semantic context of a picture naming task. To address this question, we examined the representational structure underlying the semantic space in different picture naming tasks by applying representational similarity analysis (RSA) to electroencephalography (EEG) datasets. In a series of experiments, EEG signals were collected while participants named pictures under different semantic contexts. Study 1 reanalyzes existing data from semantic contexts directing attention to taxonomic organization and semantic contexts that are not biased towards either taxonomic or thematic organization. In Study 2 we keep the stimuli the same and vary semantic contexts to draw attention to either taxonomic or thematic organization. The RSA approach allows us to examine the pairwise similarity in scalp-recorded amplitude patterns at each time point following the onset of the picture and relate it to theoretical taxonomic and thematic measures derived from computational models of semantics. Across all tasks, the similarity structure of scalp-recorded neural activity correlated better with taxonomic than thematic measures, in time windows associated with semantic processing. Most strikingly, we found that the scalp-recorded patterns of neural activity between taxonomically related items were more similar to each other than the scalp-recorded patterns of neural activity for thematically related or unrelated items, even in tasks that makes thematic information more salient. These results suggest that the principle semantic organization of these concepts during picture naming is taxonomic, at least in the context of picture naming.

From long-term to short-term: Distinct neural networks underlying semantic knowledge and its recruitment in working memory.

Although numerous studies suggest that working memory (WM) and semantic long-term knowledge interact, the nature and underlying neural mechanisms of this intervention remain poorly understood. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), this study investigated the extent to which neural markers of semantic knowledge in long-term memory (LTM) are activated during the WM maintenance stage in 32 young adults. First, the multivariate neural patterns associated with four semantic categories were determined via an implicit semantic activation task. Next, the participants maintained words - the names of the four semantic categories implicitly activated in the first task - in a verbal WM task. Multi-voxel pattern analyses showed reliable neural decoding of the four semantic categories in the implicit semantic activation and the verbal WM tasks. Critically, however, no between-task classification of semantic categories was observed. Searchlight analyses showed that for the WM task, semantic category information could be decoded in anterior temporal areas associated with abstract semantic category knowledge. In the implicit semantic activation task, semantic category information was decoded in superior temporal, occipital and frontal cortices associated with domain-specific semantic feature representations. These results indicate that item-level semantic activation during verbal WM involves shallow rather than deep semantic information.

Modeling item-level variance of polysyllabic word reading in developing readers: Exploring semantically related child, word, and child-by-word predictors.

Across word reading development, there are important and evolving relationships between oral and written semantic knowledge. Recent research has focused on these relationships, with accumulating evidence supporting the role of word knowledge and related word characteristics as important factors influencing polysyllabic word reading abilities. The purpose of this study was to investigate how semantic-related effects across child-level skills (e.g., general vocabulary knowledge), word-level properties (e.g., age of acquisition), child-by-word-level familiarity (e.g., item-level familiarity), and interactions between key child attributes and word characteristics (e.g., word reading skill by age of acquisition) contribute to polysyllabic word reading. Specifically, we emphasize the semantic contributions of word-level features to word reading development, which have been relatively underexplored in the literature. A sample of elementary school students oversampled for word reading difficulty (N = 92) in Grades 3 to 5 read a set of polysyllabic words (J = 45) and completed a battery of reading and language-related measures. Using cross-classified random-effects models and accounting for various control variables, semantic-related variables representing item-level familiarity; child-level set for variability; and word-level age of acquisition and number of morphemes were significant predictors in the main-effects model. A significant interaction between sight word efficiency and age of acquisition indicated higher probabilities of correctly reading polysyllabic words at lower levels of acquisition for better readers. Results indicate important semantic-related influences on polysyllabic word reading at the child, word, and child-by-word levels, suggesting meaningful relationships between knowledge of the orthographic form of a word and semantic knowledge in developing readers.

How schema knowledge influences memory in older adults: Filling in the gaps, or leading memory astray?

Age-related declines in episodic memory do not affect all types of mnemonic information equally: when to-be-remembered information is in line with one's prior knowledge, or schema-congruent, older adults often show no impairments. There are two major accounts of this effect: One proposes that schemas compensate for memory failures in aging, and the other proposes that schemas instead actively impair older adults' otherwise intact memory for incongruent information. However, the evidence thus far is inconclusive, likely due to methodological constraints in teasing apart these complex underlying dynamics. We developed a paradigm that separately examines the contributions of underlying memory and schema knowledge to a final memory decision, allowing these dynamics to be examined directly. In the present study, healthy older and younger adults first searched for target objects in congruent or incongruent locations within scenes. In a subsequent test, participants indicated where in each scene the target had been located previously, and provided confidence-based recognition memory judgments that indexed underlying memory, in terms of recollection and familiarity, for the background scenes. We found that age-related increases in schema effects on target location spatial recall were predicted and statistically mediated by age-related increases in underlying memory failures, specifically within recollection. We also found that, relative to younger adults, older adults had poorer spatial memory precision within recollected scenes but slightly better precision within familiar scenes-and age increases in schema bias were primarily exhibited within recollected scenes. Interestingly, however, there were also slight age-related increases in schema effects that could not be explained by memory deficits alone, outlining a role for active schema influences as well. Together, these findings support the account that age-related schema effects on memory are compensatory in that they are driven primarily by underlying memory failures, and further suggest that age-related deficits in memory precision may also drive schema effects.

Developmental refinements to neural attentional state during semantic memory retrieval through adolescence.

Despite the fact that attention undergoes protracted development, little is known about how it may support memory refinements in childhood and adolescence. Here, we asked whether people differentially focus their attention on semantic or perceptual information over development during memory retrieval. First, we trained a multivoxel classifier to characterize whole-brain neural patterns reflecting semantic versus perceptual attention in a cued attention task. We then used this classifier to quantify how attention varied in a separate dataset in which children, adolescents, and adults retrieved autobiographical, semantic, and episodic memories. All age groups demonstrated a semantic attentional bias during memory retrieval, with significant age differences in this bias during the semantic task. Trials began with a preparatory picture cue followed by a retrieval question, which allowed us to ask whether attentional biases varied by trial period. Adults showed a semantic bias earlier during the picture cues, whereas adolescents showed this bias during the question. Adults and adolescents also engaged different brain regions-superior parietal cortex and ventral visual regions, respectively-during preparatory picture cues. Our results demonstrate that retrieval-related attention undergoes refinement beyond childhood. These findings suggest that alongside expanding semantic knowledge, attention-related changes may support the maturation of factual knowledge retrieval.

Are we just talking in circles? Impact of psychoeducation on disease knowledge and relapse in severe alcohol use disorder.

BACKGROUND: Psychoeducation constitutes a routine therapeutic practice in most treatment settings for severe alcohol use disorder (sAUD). This technique is considered an efficient way to help patients to learn more about their disease and achieve therapeutic objectives. However, this approach capitalizes on three untested assumptions: namely, that (1) patients with sAUD possess insufficient knowledge about sAUD at treatment entry; (2) patients with sAUD have the cognitive resources to learn new information and benefit from psychoeducation; and (3) psychoeducation positively impacts clinical outcomes. METHODS: We tested these assumptions in two experimental studies. In the first experiment in 66 recently detoxified patients with sAUD and 102 matched healthy controls, we measured baseline knowledge on sAUD through self-reported questionnaires, determined whether an up-to-date psychoeducation program can improve this knowledge, explored the role of cognitive abilities in such learning, and established the impact of psychoeducation on relapse rates. In a second experiment in 23 patients and 17 healthy controls, we examined whether the increased knowledge following psychoeducation is alcohol specific, and whether the motivation to change influences the relation between psychoeducation and clinical outcomes. RESULTS: At treatment entry, patients with sAUD presented with more sAUD-related knowledge than healthy controls, and were able to increase this knowledge following psychoeducation, independently of their cognitive status. However, psychoeducation did not impact either the motivation to change or relapse rates. CONCLUSIONS: Psychoeducation can increase patients' knowledge about sAUD, but it does not increase the likelihood of abstinence or controlled low consumption after discharge. Thus, clinicians should question whether psychoeducation should occupy a central position in the therapeutic programs and reconsider what can be expected from psychoeducation in terms of achieving therapeutic objectives.

Who am I with my Lewy bodies? The insula as a core region of the self-concept networks.

BACKGROUND: Dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB) is characterized by insular atrophy, which occurs at the early stage of the disease. Damage to the insula has been associated with disorders reflecting impairments of the most fundamental components of the self, such as anosognosia, which is a frequently reported symptom in patients with Lewy bodies (LB). The purpose of this study was to investigate modifications of the self-concept (SC), another component of the self, and to identify neuroanatomical correlates, in prodromal to mild DLB. METHODS: Twenty patients with prodromal to mild DLB were selected to participate in this exploratory study along with 20 healthy control subjects matched in terms of age, gender, and level of education. The Twenty Statements Test (TST) was used to assess the SC. Behavioral performances were compared between LB patients and control subjects. Three-dimensional magnetic resonance images (MRI) were acquired for all participants and correlational analyses were performed using voxel-based morphometry (VBM) in whole brain and using a mask for the insula. RESULTS: The behavioral results on the TST showed significantly impaired performances in LB patients in comparison with control subjects (p < .0001). Correlational analyses using VBM revealed positive correlations between the TST and grey matter volume within insular cortex, right supplementary motor area, bilateral inferior temporal gyri, right inferior frontal gyrus, and left lingual gyrus, using a threshold of p = .001 uncorrected, including total intracranial volume (TIV), age, and MMSE as nuisance covariates. Additionally, correlational analysis using a mask for the insula revealed positive correlation with grey matter volume within bilateral insular cortex, using a threshold of p = .005. CONCLUSIONS: The behavioral results confirm the existence of SC impairments in LB patients from the prodromal stage of the disease, compared to matched healthy controls. As we expected, VBM analyses revealed involvement of the insula, among that of other brain regions, already known to be involved in other self-components. While this study is exploratory, our findings provide important insights regarding the involvement of the insula within the self, confirming the insula as a core region of the self-networks, including for high-order self-representations such as the SC.

When It's Not Worn on the Face: Trait Anxiety and Attention to Neutral Faces Semantically Linked to Threat.

While our direct observations of the features or behaviours of the stimuli around us tell us much about them (e.g., should they be feared?), the origin of much of our knowledge is often untethered from directly observable properties (e.g., through what we have learned or have been told about them, or "semantic knowledge"). Here, we ask whether otherwise neutral visual stimuli that participants learn to associate with emotional qualities in the lab cause the stimuli to be attended in a similar way as stimuli whose emotional qualities can be discerned through their visual properties. In Experiment 1, participants learned to associate negative or neutral characteristics with neutral faces, which then served as valid or invalid spatial cues to targets in an attentional disengagement paradigm. The performance of participants higher in trait anxiety was consistent with attentional avoidance of faces with learned negative associations, while participants lower in trait anxiety showed a general response slowing in trials with these stimuli, compared to those with neutral associations. In contrast, in Experiment 2, using (visually) expressive (angry) faces, the performance of participants higher in trait anxiety was consistent with difficulty disengaging from visually threatening faces, while the performance of those with lower trait anxiety appeared unaffected by the valence of the stimuli. These findings suggest that (1) emotionality acquired indirectly via learned semantic knowledge impacts how attention is allocated to face stimuli, and this impact is influenced by trait anxiety, and (2) there are differences in the effects of stimulus emotionality depending on whether it is acquired indirectly or directly via the perceptual features of the stimulus. These differences are discussed in the context of the variability of attention bias effects reported in the literature and the time course of impacts of emotionality on stimulus processing.

"I don't know who you are": anomia for people's names in Alzheimer's disease.

It is well known that difficulty in the retrieval of people's names is an early symptom of Alzheimer's Disease Dementia (ADD), but there is a controversy about the nature of this deficit. In this study, we analyzed whether the nature of the difficulty in retrieving proper names in ADD reflects pre-semantic, semantic, or post-semantic difficulties. To do so, 85 older adults, 35 with ADD and 50 cognitively healthy (CH), completed a task with famous faces involving: recognition, naming, semantic questions, and naming with phonological cues. The ADD group scored lower than the CH group in all tasks. Both groups showed a greater capacity for recognition than naming, but this difference was more pronounced in the ADD group. Additionally, the ADD group showed significantly fewer semantic errors than the CH group. Overall results suggest that the difficulties people with ADD have in naming reflect a degradation at semantic level.

A neuroanatomical and cognitive model of impaired social behaviour in frontotemporal dementia.

Impaired social cognition is a core deficit in frontotemporal dementia (FTD). It is most commonly associated with the behavioural-variant of FTD, with atrophy of the orbitofrontal and ventromedial prefrontal cortex. Social cognitive changes are also common in semantic dementia, with atrophy centred on the anterior temporal lobes. The impairment of social behaviour in FTD has typically been attributed to damage to the orbitofrontal cortex and/or temporal poles and/or the uncinate fasciculus that connects them. However, the relative contributions of each region are unresolved. In this review, we present a unified neurocognitive model of controlled social behaviour that not only explains the observed impairment of social behaviours in FTD, but also assimilates both consistent and potentially contradictory findings from other patient groups, comparative neurology and normative cognitive neuroscience. We propose that impaired social behaviour results from damage to two cognitively- and anatomically-distinct components. The first component is social-semantic knowledge, a part of the general semantic-conceptual system supported by the anterior temporal lobes bilaterally. The second component is social control, supported by the orbitofrontal cortex, medial frontal cortex and ventrolateral frontal cortex, which interacts with social-semantic knowledge to guide and shape social behaviour.

Cross-modality interaction for few-shot multispectral object detection with semantic knowledge.

Multispectral object detection (MOD), which incorporates additional information from thermal images into object detection (OD) to robustly cope with complex illumination conditions, has garnered significant attention. However, existing MOD methods always demand a considerable amount of annotated data for training. Inspired by the concept of few-shot learning, we propose a novel task called few-shot multispectral object detection (FSMOD) that aims to accomplish MOD using only a few annotated data from each category. Specifically, we first design a cross-modality interaction (CMI) module, which leverages different attention mechanisms to interact with the information from visible and thermal modalities during backbone feature extraction. With the guidance of interaction process, the detector is able to extract modality-specific backbone features with better discrimination. To improve the few-shot learning ability of the detector, we also design a semantic prototype metric (SPM) loss that integrates semantic knowledge, i.e., word embeddings, into the optimization process of embedding space. Semantic knowledge provides stable category representation when visual information is insufficient. Extensive experiments on the customized FSMOD dataset demonstrate that the proposed method achieves state-of-the-art performance.

Generative and active engagement in learning neuroscience: A comparison of self-derivation and rephrase.

It is crucial to identify cognitive mechanisms that support knowledge growth. One such mechanism that is known to improve learning outcomes is generative processing: the construction of novel information beyond what is directly taught. In this study of college students, we investigate the learning outcomes associated with the generative process of self-derivation through integration, the integration of multiple related facts to generate novel information. We compare the effects of self-derivation versus an active rephrase control condition on retrieval, application, and organization of neuroscience classroom content. In the self-derivation condition, learners were prompted to generate inferences based on integration of two explicitly-taught facts. In the rephrase condition, learners were explicitly provided these inferences and asked to rephrase them. We found few overall differences between learning manipulation conditions. However, we found that, regardless of the learning manipulation condition to which learners were exposed, learners generated their own information on some trials. This generation predicted success on retrieval and application of learned information. Further, self-derivation, when successful, led to particularly high rates of retrieval when compared with active rephrase. These findings inform theory on generative processing, and demonstrate that self-derivation is a mechanism of knowledge growth that may be useful for retrieval.

Knowing "what for," but not "where": Dissociation between functional and contextual tool knowledge in healthy individuals and patients with dementia.

OBJECTIVE: Semantic tool knowledge underlies the ability to perform activities of daily living. Models of apraxia have emphasized the role of functional knowledge about the action performed with tools (e.g., a hammer and a mallet allow a "hammering" action), and contextual knowledge informing individuals about where to find tools in the social space (e.g., a hammer and a mallet can be found in a workshop). The goal of this study was to test whether contextual or functional knowledge, would be central in the organization of tool knowledge. It was assumed that contextual knowledge would be more salient than functional knowledge for healthy controls and that patients with dementia would show impaired contextual knowledge. METHODS: We created an original, open-ended categorization task with ambiguity, in which the same familiar tools could be matched on either contextual or functional criteria. RESULTS: In our findings, healthy controls prioritized a contextual, over a functional criterion. Patients with dementia had normal visual categorization skills (as demonstrated by an original picture categorization task), yet they made less contextual, but more functional associations than healthy controls. CONCLUSION: The findings support a dissociation between functional knowledge ("what for") on the one hand, and contextual knowledge ("where") on the other hand. While functional knowledge may be distributed across semantic and action-related factors, contextual knowledge may actually be the name of higher-order social norms applied to tool knowledge. These findings may encourage researchers to test both functional and contextual knowledge to diagnose semantic deficits and to use open-ended categorization tests.

Neuroanatomical and cellular degeneration associated with a social disorder characterized by new ritualistic belief systems in a TDP-C patient vs. a Pick patient.

Frontotemporal dementia (FTD) is a spectrum of clinically and pathologically heterogenous neurodegenerative dementias. Clinical and anatomical variants of FTD have been described and associated with underlying frontotemporal lobar degeneration (FTLD) pathology, including tauopathies (FTLD-tau) or TDP-43 proteinopathies (FTLD-TDP). FTD patients with predominant degeneration of anterior temporal cortices often develop a language disorder of semantic knowledge loss and/or a social disorder often characterized by compulsive rituals and belief systems corresponding to predominant left or right hemisphere involvement, respectively. The neural substrates of these complex social disorders remain unclear. Here, we present a comparative imaging and postmortem study of two patients, one with FTLD-TDP (subtype C) and one with FTLD-tau (subtype Pick disease), who both developed new rigid belief systems. The FTLD-TDP patient developed a complex set of values centered on positivity and associated with specific physical and behavioral features of pigs, while the FTLD-tau patient developed compulsive, goal-directed behaviors related to general themes of positivity and spirituality. Neuroimaging showed left-predominant temporal atrophy in the FTLD-TDP patient and right-predominant frontotemporal atrophy in the FTLD-tau patient. Consistent with antemortem cortical atrophy, histopathologic examinations revealed severe loss of neurons and myelin predominantly in the anterior temporal lobes of both patients, but the FTLD-tau patient showed more bilateral, dorsolateral involvement featuring greater pathology and loss of projection neurons and deep white matter. These findings highlight that the regions within and connected to anterior temporal lobes may have differential vulnerability to distinct FTLD proteinopathies and serve important roles in human belief systems.

Healthy ageing has divergent effects on verbal and non-verbal semantic cognition.

Semantic cognition refers to the storage and appropriate use of knowledge acquired over the lifespan and underpins our everyday verbal and non-verbal behaviours. Successful semantic cognition requires representation of knowledge and control processes which ensure that currently relevant aspects of knowledge are retrieved and selected. Although these abilities have been widely studied in healthy young populations and semantically impaired patients, it is unclear how they change as a function of healthy ageing, especially for non-verbal semantic processing. Here, we addressed this issue by comparing the performance profiles of young and older people on a semantic knowledge task and a semantic control task, across verbal (word) and non-verbal (picture) versions. The results revealed distinct patterns of change during adulthood for semantic knowledge and semantic control. Older people performed better in both verbal and non-verbal knowledge tasks than young people. However, although the older group showed preserved controlled retrieval for verbal semantics, they demonstrated a specific impairment for non-verbal semantic control. These findings indicate that the effects of ageing on semantic cognition are more complex than previously assumed, and that input modality plays an important role in the shifting cognitive architecture of semantics in later life.

The Ability to Use Contextual Information in Object and Scene Recognition in Patients with Mild Cognitive Impairment.

BACKGROUND: The ability to understand and make use of object-scene relationships are critical for object and scene recognition. OBJECTIVE: The current study assessed whether patients with mild cognitive impairment (MCI), possibly in the preclinical phase of Alzheimer's disease, exhibited impairment in processing contextual information in scene and object recognition. METHODS: In Experiment 1, subjects viewed images of foreground objects in either semantic consistent or inconsistent scenes under no time pressure, and they verbally reported the names of foreground objects and backgrounds. Experiment 2 replicated Experiment 1, except that subjects were required to name scene first. Experiment 3 examined object and scene recognition accuracy baselines, recognition difficulty, familiarity with objects/scenes, and object-scene consistency judgements. RESULTS: There were contextual consistency effects on scene recognition for MCI and healthy subjects, regardless of response sequence. Scenes were recognized more accurately under the consistent condition than the inconsistent condition. Additionally, MCI patients were more susceptible to incongruent contextual information, possibly due to inhibitory deficits or over-dependence on semantic knowledge. However, no significant differences between MCI and healthy subjects were observed in consistency judgement, recognition accuracy, recognition difficulty and familiarity rating, suggesting no significant impairment in object and scene knowledge among MCI subjects. CONCLUSIONS: The study indicates that MCI patients retain relatively intact contextual processing ability but may exhibit inhibitory deficits or over-reliance on semantic knowledge.

Instant Effects of Semantic Information on Visual Perception.

Does our perception of an object change once we discover what function it serves? We showed human participants (n = 48, 31 females and 17 males) pictures of unfamiliar objects either together with keywords matching their function, leading to semantically informed perception, or together with nonmatching keywords, resulting in uninformed perception. We measured event-related potentials to investigate at which stages in the visual processing hierarchy these two types of object perception differed from one another. We found that semantically informed compared with uninformed perception was associated with larger amplitudes in the N170 component (150-200 ms), reduced amplitudes in the N400 component (400-700 ms), and a late decrease in alpha/beta band power. When the same objects were presented once more without any information, the N400 and event-related power effects persisted, and we also observed enlarged amplitudes in the P1 component (100-150 ms) in response to objects for which semantically informed perception had taken place. Consistent with previous work, this suggests that obtaining semantic information about previously unfamiliar objects alters aspects of their lower-level visual perception (P1 component), higher-level visual perception (N170 component), and semantic processing (N400 component, event-related power). Our study is the first to show that such effects occur instantly after semantic information has been provided for the first time, without requiring extensive learning.SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT There has been a long-standing debate about whether or not higher-level cognitive capacities, such as semantic knowledge, can influence lower-level perceptual processing in a top-down fashion. Here we could show, for the first time, that information about the function of previously unfamiliar objects immediately influences cortical processing within less than 200 ms. Of note, this influence does not require training or experience with the objects and related semantic information. Therefore, our study is the first to show effects of cognition on perception while ruling out the possibility that prior knowledge merely acts by preactivating or altering stored visual representations. Instead, this knowledge seems to alter perception online, thus providing a compelling case against the impenetrability of perception by cognition.

A correlational study investigating whether semantic knowledge facilitates face identity processing.

The ability to recognize faces is a fundamental skill in human social interaction. While much research has focused on the recognition of familiar faces, there is growing interest in understanding the cognitive processes underlying the recognition of unfamiliar faces. Previous studies have suggested that both semantic knowledge and physical features play a role in unfamiliar face recognition, but the nature of their relationship is not well understood. This study examines the relationship between unfamiliar face recognition ability and the encoding abilities of semantic knowledge and physical features for famous faces. Using the Gorilla platform, a large group of participants (N = 66) with a broad age range completed three tasks: a challenging unfamiliar face matching task and Famous People Recognition Tests 1 and 2 to evaluate semantic and physical feature encoding abilities, respectively. Results indicate positive correlations between encoding abilities for both semantic knowledge and physical features of familiar faces with Model Face Matching Task scores. Additionally, the encoding ability for semantic knowledge was found to be positively associated with that of physical features.