Serial dependence in perception across naturalistic generative adversarial network-generated mammogram.

Purpose: Human perception and decisions are biased toward previously seen stimuli. This phenomenon is known as serial dependence and has been extensively studied for the last decade. Recent evidence suggests that clinicians' judgments of mammograms might also be impacted by serial dependence. However, the stimuli used in previous psychophysical experiments on this question, consisting of artificial geometric shapes and healthy tissue backgrounds, were unrealistic. We utilized realistic and controlled generative adversarial network (GAN)-generated radiographs to mimic images that clinicians typically encounter. Approach: Mammograms from the digital database for screening mammography (DDSM) were utilized to train a GAN. This pretrained GAN was then adopted to generate a large set of authentic-looking simulated mammograms: 20 circular morph continuums, each with 147 images, for a total of 2940 images. Using these stimuli in a standard serial dependence experiment, participants viewed a random GAN-generated mammogram on each trial and subsequently matched the GAN-generated mammogram encountered using a continuous report. The characteristics of serial dependence from each continuum were analyzed. Results: We found that serial dependence affected the perception of all naturalistic GAN-generated mammogram morph continuums. In all cases, the perceptual judgments of GAN-generated mammograms were biased toward previously encountered GAN-generated mammograms. On average, perceptual decisions had 7% categorization errors that were pulled in the direction of serial dependence. Conclusions: Serial dependence was found even in the perception of naturalistic GAN-generated mammograms created by a GAN. This supports the idea that serial dependence could, in principle, contribute to decision errors in medical image perception tasks.

Individual differences in classification images of Mooney faces.

Human face recognition is robust even under conditions of extreme lighting and in situations where there is high noise and uncertainty. Mooney faces are a canonical example of this: Mooney faces are two-tone shadow-defined images that are readily and holistically recognized despite lacking easily segmented face features. Face perception in such impoverished situations-and Mooney face perception in particular-is often thought to be supported by comparing encountered faces to stored templates. Here, we used a classification image approach to measure the templates that observers use to recognize Mooney faces. Visualizing these templates reveals the regions and structures of the image that best predict individual observer recognition, and they reflect the underlying internal representation of faces. Using this approach, we tested whether there are classification images that are consistent from session to session, whether the classification images are observer-specific, and whether they allow for pattern completion of holistic representations even in the absence of an underlying signal. We found that classification images of Mooney faces were indeed non-random (i.e., consistent session from session) within each observer, but they were different between observers. This result is in line with previously proposed existence of face templates that support face recognition, and further suggests that these templates may be unique to each observer and could drive idiosyncratic individual differences in holistic face recognition. Moreover, we found classification images that reflected information within the blank regions of the original Mooney faces, suggesting that observers may fill in missing information using idiosyncratic internal information about faces.

Cognitive and contextual factors modulating grammar learning at older ages.

Second language learning has been shown more difficult for older than younger adults, however, the research trying to identify the sources of difficulty and possible modulating factors is scarce. Extrinsic (learning condition and complexity) and intrinsic factors (executive control) have been related to L2-grammar learning in younger adults. In the present study, we aim to assess whether extrinsic and intrinsic factors are also modulating grammar learning in older adults. We compared the learning performance of younger and older adults in a L2 learning task. 162 Spanish native-speakers (81 young) learnt Japañol (Japanese syntaxis and Spanish lexicon) in either an intentional (metalinguistic explanation) or an incidental (comprehension of sentences) context. The complexity of the sentences was also manipulated by introducing (or not) a subordinate clause. Individual differences in proactivity were measured with the AX-CPT task. After the learning phase, participants performed a Grammatical Judgment Task where they answered if the presented sentences were grammatically correct. No differences between older and younger adults were found. Overall, better results were found for the intentional-condition than for the incidental-condition. A significant interaction between learning context and the proactivity index in the AX-CPT task showed that more proactive participants were better when learning in the incidental-condition. These results suggest that both extrinsic and intrinsic factors are important during language learning and that they equally affect younger and older adults.

Neurocognitive mechanisms of collaborative recall.

Research on collaborative memory shows that people recalling in groups rarely achieve optimal performance. Collaborative groups typically recall less than nominal groups, where performance for the latter is derived by pooling the non-overlapping information recalled by the same number of individuals working alone. While behavioural evidence has widely replicated this collaborative inhibition in free recall, little evidence speaks to the neurophysiological signatures of this counterintuitive phenomenon. Behavioural evidence also indicates that disruption to one's preferred recall strategy, resulting from processing others' recalled information, is a key mechanism underlying this effect. We aimed to identify the neural signatures indexing the recollection process and their disruption during collaborative recall. In three experiments, we replicated the standard collaborative inhibition effect with an EEG-adapted procedure (Experiment 1), and recorded EEG while people recalled in groups or in isolation (Experiments 2a, 2b). Comparisons showed increments in N400 and theta power, the neurophysiological components associated with interference, at shorter intervals for the collaborative compared to the nominal groups. Stronger theta power for collaborative than nominal recall, and for speakers than non-speakers in collaborative groups, were also evident at longer intervals and suggest demanding reinstatement of memory associated with collaborative recall. Together, the results suggest distinct neural processes underlying collaborative inhibition, with neural responses at shorter intervals signaling processes that are consistent with strategy disruption (stronger interference signaled by N400 and theta power increments), and further increments in theta at later times suggesting more demanding reinstatement processes during collaborative remembering.

Relative tuning of holistic face processing towards the fovea.

Humans quickly detect and gaze at faces in the world, which reflects their importance in cognition and may lead to tuning of face recognition toward the central visual field. Although sometimes reported, foveal selectivity in face processing is debated: brain imaging studies have found evidence for a central field bias specific to faces, but behavioral studies have found little foveal selectivity in face recognition. These conflicting results are difficult to reconcile, but they could arise from stimulus-specific differences. Recent studies, for example, suggest that individual faces vary in the degree to which they require holistic processing. Holistic processing is the perception of faces as a whole rather than as a set of separate features. We hypothesized that the dissociation between behavioral and neuroimaging studies arises because of this stimulus-specific dependence on holistic processing. Specifically, the central bias found in neuroimaging studies may be specific to holistic processing. Here, we tested whether the eccentricity-dependence of face perception is determined by the degree to which faces require holistic processing. We first measured the holistic-ness of individual Mooney faces (two-tone shadow images readily perceived as faces). In a group of independent observers, we then used a gender discrimination task to measured recognition of these Mooney faces as a function of their eccentricity. Face gender was recognized across the visual field, even at substantial eccentricities, replicating prior work. Importantly, however, holistic face gender recognition was relatively tuned-slightly, but reliably stronger in the central visual field. Our results may reconcile the debate on the eccentricity-dependance of face perception and reveal a spatial inhomogeneity specifically in the holistic representations of faces.

Automaticity and cognitive control in bilingual and translation expertise.

It has been observed that different linguistic experiences might exert a differential effect on general cognitive processes. For example, research has shown that language control in professional translation differs from language control applied to other types of bilingual activities. The present study focuses on the construct of automaticity and aims at determining whether different linguistic experiences might modulate the balance between automaticity and cognitive control at the general cognitive level. Hence, monolinguals, bilinguals, and professional translators performed a memory search task that has extensively been employed to observe how automaticity is acquired through consistent practice. Comparisons between the groups showed overall differences in the ease with which the task was performed and, importantly, differences in both automaticity and cognitive control. Specifically, monolinguals showed higher levels of automaticity in the learning phase of the task, while bilinguals and professional translations carried out the task in a more controlled fashion. This pattern might have implied higher cognitive costs for the monolingual group when a switched learning condition was presented. Possibly due to previous control over the initial learning phase, bilinguals and translators were less affected by the cognitive costs associated to the reversal of the learning condition. Differences are explained in terms of professional translation and everyday bilingual practice. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

Visual search in naturalistic scenes from foveal to peripheral vision: A comparison between dynamic and static displays.

How important foveal, parafoveal, and peripheral vision are depends on the task. For object search and letter search in static images of real-world scenes, peripheral vision is crucial for efficient search guidance, whereas foveal vision is relatively unimportant. Extending this research, we used gaze-contingent Blindspots and Spotlights to investigate visual search in complex dynamic and static naturalistic scenes. In Experiment 1, we used dynamic scenes only, whereas in Experiments 2 and 3, we directly compared dynamic and static scenes. Each scene contained a static, contextually irrelevant target (i.e., a gray annulus). Scene motion was not predictive of target location. For dynamic scenes, the search-time results from all three experiments converge on the novel finding that neither foveal nor central vision was necessary to attain normal search proficiency. Since motion is known to attract attention and gaze, we explored whether guidance to the target was equally efficient in dynamic as compared to static scenes. We found that the very first saccade was guided by motion in the scene. This was not the case for subsequent saccades made during the scanning epoch, representing the actual search process. Thus, effects of task-irrelevant motion were fast-acting and short-lived. Furthermore, when motion was potentially present (Spotlights) or absent (Blindspots) in foveal or central vision only, we observed differences in verification times for dynamic and static scenes (Experiment 2). When using scenes with greater visual complexity and more motion (Experiment 3), however, the differences between dynamic and static scenes were much reduced.

Idiosyncratic biases in the perception of medical images.

Introduction: Radiologists routinely make life-altering decisions. Optimizing these decisions has been an important goal for many years and has prompted a great deal of research on the basic perceptual mechanisms that underlie radiologists' decisions. Previous studies have found that there are substantial individual differences in radiologists' diagnostic performance (e.g., sensitivity) due to experience, training, or search strategies. In addition to variations in sensitivity, however, another possibility is that radiologists might have perceptual biases-systematic misperceptions of visual stimuli. Although a great deal of research has investigated radiologist sensitivity, very little has explored the presence of perceptual biases or the individual differences in these. Methods: Here, we test whether radiologists' have perceptual biases using controlled artificial and Generative Adversarial Networks-generated realistic medical images. In Experiment 1, observers adjusted the appearance of simulated tumors to match the previously shown targets. In Experiment 2, observers were shown with a mix of real and GAN-generated CT lesion images and they rated the realness of each image. Results: We show that every tested individual radiologist was characterized by unique and systematic perceptual biases; these perceptual biases cannot be simply explained by attentional differences, and they can be observed in different imaging modalities and task settings, suggesting that idiosyncratic biases in medical image perception may widely exist. Discussion: Characterizing and understanding these biases could be important for many practical settings such as training, pairing readers, and career selection for radiologists. These results may have consequential implications for many other fields as well, where individual observers are the linchpins for life-altering perceptual decisions.

Serial dependence in the perceptual judgments of radiologists.

In radiological screening, clinicians scan myriads of radiographs with the intent of recognizing and differentiating lesions. Even though they are trained experts, radiologists' human search engines are not perfect: average daily error rates are estimated around 3-5%. A main underlying assumption in radiological screening is that visual search on a current radiograph occurs independently of previously seen radiographs. However, recent studies have shown that human perception is biased by previously seen stimuli; the bias in our visual system to misperceive current stimuli towards previous stimuli is called serial dependence. Here, we tested whether serial dependence impacts radiologists' recognition of simulated lesions embedded in actual radiographs. We found that serial dependence affected radiologists' recognition of simulated lesions; perception on an average trial was pulled 13% toward the 1-back stimulus. Simulated lesions were perceived as biased towards the those seen in the previous 1 or 2 radiographs. Similar results were found when testing lesion recognition in a group of untrained observers. Taken together, these results suggest that perceptual judgements of radiologists are affected by previous visual experience, and thus some of the diagnostic errors exhibited by radiologists may be caused by serial dependence from previously seen radiographs.

Emotional devaluation in ignoring and forgetting as a function of adolescent development.

We know that emotion and cognition interact to guide goal-directed behavior. Accordingly, it has recently been shown that distracting stimuli (Raymond, Fenske, & Tavassoli, 2003) and instructed to-be-forgotten items (Vivas, Marful, Panagiotidou, & Bajo, 2016) are emotionally devaluated. The devaluation by inhibition hypothesis (Raymond, Fenske, & Tavassoli, 2003) is the main theoretical explanation of these effects. However, we know little about how the cognition-emotion interplay is further modulated by development, and particularly, by changes in inhibitory control and affective processing within the adolescence period. In the present study we combined a selective attention task with faces, and a selective memory (directed forgetting paradigm) task with words, with a pleasantness evaluation task to address this question in three age groups; younger adolescents, older adolescents and young adults. Younger adolescents exhibited worse accuracy in the attention task, lower overall recognition of words in the memory task, and a smaller in magnitude directed forgetting effect in the latter, relative to the two older groups. That is, they showed less efficient inhibitory control in attention and memory selection. Despite this, all groups showed similar devaluation effects of the distractor faces and the to-be-forgotten words. Our findings do not fully support an inhibition account of such effects. Yet, they support the robustness of the forgetting devaluation effect, replicating the findings of Vivas, Marful, Panagiotidou, and Bajo (2016) with a Greek version of the task and in a bigger sample of participants.

Stimulus-Specific Individual Differences in Holistic Perception of Mooney Faces.

Humans perceive faces holistically rather than as a set of separate features. Previous work demonstrates that some individuals are better at this holistic type of processing than others. Here, we show that there are unique individual differences in holistic processing of specific Mooney faces. We operationalized the increased difficulty of recognizing a face when inverted compared to upright as a measure of the degree to which individual Mooney faces were processed holistically by individual observers. Our results show that Mooney faces vary considerably in the extent to which they tap into holistic processing; some Mooney faces require holistic processing more than others. Importantly, there is little between-subject agreement about which faces are processed holistically; specific faces that are processed holistically by one observer are not by other observers. Essentially, what counts as holistic for one person is unique to that particular observer. Interestingly, we found that the per-face, per-observer differences in face discrimination only occurred for harder Mooney faces that required relatively more holistic processing. These findings suggest that holistic processing of hard Mooney faces depends on a particular observer's experience whereas processing of easier, cartoon-like Mooney faces can proceed universally for everyone. Future work using Mooney faces in perception research should take these stimulus-specific individual differences into account to best isolate holistic processing.

Electrophysiological correlates of interference control at retrieval predict performance on a subsequent analogical reasoning task.

Previous research has shown that variations in the accessibility of relevant information that stem from retrieval practice may impair analogical reasoning. In the present study, we sought to examine the neural signatures of inhibitory control during selective retrieval and its effects on a subsequent analogical reasoning task by employing electrophysiological measures. At a behavioral level, we found that selective retrieval of a subset of potential solutions led to impaired performance on the analogy test. ERPs analyses during selective retrieval revealed that (1) the repeated presentation of retrieval cues was associated with decreased amplitudes for the FN400 ERP effect, possibly reflecting reduced reactivation of competitor associates and interference across retrieval attempts; (2) this effect correlated positively with the retrieval-related impairment in analogical reasoning performance. During the analogy test, the production of control solutions (non-affected by prior retrieval practice) was characterized by more positive modulations of anterior frontal and parietal ERPs than the production of unstudied solutions, whereas inhibited solutions elicited similar amplitudes to unstudied solutions. This effect was restricted to the retrieval phase of the analogy where the actual solutions had to be retrieved, but it did not affect the mapping phase where the accessibility status of the possible solutions failed to reveal significant amplitude differences. These findings suggest that control during selective retrieval may lead to the downregulation of competing memory representations and advance our understanding of the neural correlates of analogical thinking.

Theta oscillations show impaired interference detection in older adults during selective memory retrieval.

Seemingly effortless tasks, such as recognizing faces and retrieving names, become harder as we age. Such difficulties may be due to the competition generated in memory by irrelevant information that comes to mind when trying to recall a specific face or name. It is unknown, however, whether age-related struggles in retrieving these representations stem from an inability to detect competition in the first place, or from being unable to suppress competing information once interference is detected. To investigate this, we used the retrieval practice paradigm, shown to elicit memory interference, while recording electrophysiological activity in young and older adults. In two experiments, young participants showed Retrieval-Induced Forgetting (RIF), reflecting the suppression of competing information, whereas older adults did not. Neurally, mid-frontal theta power (~4-8 Hz) during the first retrieval cycle, a proxy for interference detection, increased in young compared to older adults, indicating older adults were less capable of detecting interference. Moreover, while theta power was reduced across practice cycles in younger adults, a measure of interference resolution, older adults did not show such a reduction. Thus, in contrast with younger adults, the lack of an early interference detection signal rendered older adults unable to recruit memory selection mechanisms, eliminating RIF.

Improving Memory Inhibition: A Study of Retrieval Induced Forgetting, Executive Control, and Chronic Aerobic Exercise.

Chronic aerobic exercise is being established as a way to enhance executive functions and prevent cognitive decline. In the current study, we are aiming to investigate whether chronic aerobic exercise would also modulate long-term memory retrieval under the context of the Retrieval Practice Paradigm. According to Anderson et al. (1994), the retrieval of relevant information may decrease the access to other related information inducing the failure to remember or forgetting Interestingly, it has been shown (Román et al., 2009) that this process is mediated by the level of attentional resources. In order to test if chronic aerobic exercise benefits attentional resources, we have applied the Dual Retrieval Practice Task. The purpose of this task is to evaluate the Retrieval Induced Forgetting (RIF) effect, which is supposed to index adaptive forgetting. More specifically, the Dual Retrieval Practice Task assesses the effects of memory retrieval on forgetting information directly related to the information that has been previously retrieved, but also studies the involvement of attentional resources on this type of forgetting (retrieval induced forgetting). This task alternates memory retrieval practice with an updating task in order to load attentional resources. Two groups of physically active and sedentary young participants were evaluated. The results showed that while active participants were able to show RIF despite the overload of the attentional resources, sedentary participants were not. These results are discussed in terms of the modulatory role of chronic aerobic exercise on executive control and retrieval induced forgetting.

Forgetting "Novel" but Not "Dragon": The Role of Age of Acquisition on Intentional and Incidental Forgetting.

Two experiments studied how the age at which words are acquired (Age of Acquisition, AoA) modulates forgetting. Experiment 1 employed the retrieval-practice paradigm to test the effect of AoA on the incidental forgetting that emerges after solving competition during retrieval (i.e., retrieval-induced forgetting, RIF). Standard RIF appeared with late-acquired words, but this effect disappeared with early-acquired words. Experiment 2 evaluated the effect of AoA on intentional forgetting by employing the list-method directed forgetting paradigm. Results showed a standard directed forgetting effect only when the to-be-forgotten words were late-acquired words. These findings point to the prominent role of AoA in forgetting processes.

Instruction to forget leads [corrected] to emotional devaluation.

OBJECTIVE: The aim of this study was to investigate if the interaction between emotion and memory is bidirectional. Specifically we tested if intentional forgetting of words and faces would lead to their subsequent emotional devaluation. METHOD: In three experiments we combined an item-method directed forgetting paradigm with an emotional evaluation task. In addition, to test the general response bias hypothesis, we manipulated the forget instruction so that participants would associate a positive encoding affect with this condition. RESULTS: We found that intentionally forgotten words and faces were subsequently emotionally devaluated as compared with the to-be-remembered words and faces. Furthermore, this effect was replicated for words when we associated a positive instruction with the forget condition, which supports that the devaluation was memory specific. CONCLUSION: These findings suggest that the Distractor Devaluation effect previously reported in the attention field can be generalized to memory. This is one the first studies to show an influence of memory processes, namely forgetting, on emotion.

Inferential revision in narrative texts: An ERP study.

We evaluated the process of inferential revision during text comprehension in adults. Participants with high or low working memory read short texts, in which the introduction supported two plausible concepts (e.g., 'guitar/violin'), although one was more probable ('guitar'). There were three possible continuations: a neutral sentence, which did not refer back to either concept; a no-revise sentence, which referred to a general property consistent with either concept (e.g., '…beautiful curved body'); and a revise sentence, which referred to a property that was consistent with only the less likely concept (e.g., '…matching bow'). Readers took longer to read the sentence in the revise condition, indicating that they were able to evaluate their comprehension and detect a mismatch. In a final sentence, a target noun referred to the alternative concept supported in the revise condition (e.g., 'violin'). ERPs indicated that both working memory groups were able to evaluate their comprehension of the text (P3a), but only high working memory readers were able to revise their initial incorrect interpretation (P3b) and integrate the new information (N400) when reading the revise sentence. Low working memory readers had difficulties inhibiting the no-longer-relevant interpretation and thus failed to revise their situation model, and they experienced problems integrating semantically related information into an accurate memory representation.

Interference resolution in face perception and name retrieval.

Selective retrieval is a rather difficult task, and especially so when one attempts to retrieve personal representations such as faces or names. Retrieval of memories under strong competition conditions is pervasive in human memory and some have suggested that inhibitory control is used to overcome interference between competing stimuli. In the present study, we used the retrieval practice paradigm to investigate if competition among personal representations (such as facial features and names) is also resolved by inhibitory mechanisms. This question is theoretically relevant, since personal representations have been said to have a special status on cognition. Moreover, some models of face recognition assume that interference can arise between different representations, but that this interference would be automatically and rapidly solved, with no need for a controlled inhibitory mechanism to act. In two experiments we showed RIF for facial features and familiar names, but only when participants had to actively retrieve some information. This suggests that personal information is subject to mechanisms of inhibitory control, which could help explain everyday life difficulties in processes such as face feature recognition or name retrieval.