Multiracial Reading the Mind in the Eyes Test (MRMET): An inclusive version of an influential measure.

Can an inclusive test of face cognition meet or exceed the psychometric properties of a prominent less inclusive test? Here, we norm and validate an updated version of the influential Reading the Mind in the Eyes Test (RMET), a clinically significant neuropsychiatric paradigm that has long been used to assess theory of mind and social cognition. Unlike the RMET, our Multiracial Reading the Mind in the Eyes Test (MRMET) incorporates racially inclusive stimuli, nongendered answer choices, ground-truth referenced answers, and more accessible vocabulary. We show, via a series of large datasets, that the MRMET meets or exceeds RMET across major psychometric indices. Moreover, the reliable signal captured by the two tests is statistically indistinguishable, evidence for full interchangeability. We thus present the MRMET as a high-quality, inclusive, normed and validated alternative to the RMET, and as a case in point that inclusivity in psychometric tests of face cognition is an achievable aim. The MRMET test and our normative and validation data sets are openly available under a CC-BY-SA 4.0 license at osf.io/ahq6n.

Face perception and facial emotional expression recognition ability: Both unique predictors of the broader autism phenotype.

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and the broader autistic phenotype (BAP) have been suggested to be associated with perceptual-cognitive difficulties processing human faces. However, the empirical results are mixed, arguably, in part due to inadequate samples and analyses. Consequently, we administered the Cambridge Face Perception Test (CFPT), the Reading the Mind in the Eyes Test (RMET), a vocabulary test, and the Autism Quotient (AQ) to a sample of 318 adults in the general community. Based on a disattenuated path analytic modelling strategy, we found that both face perception ability (ß = -.21) and facial emotional expression recognition ability (ß = -.27) predicted uniquely and significantly the Communication dimension of AQ. Vocabulary failed to yield a significant, direct effect onto the Communication dimension of the AQ. We conclude that difficulties perceiving information from the faces of others may contribute to difficulties in nonverbal communication, as conceptualised and measured within the context of BAP.

Effects of age on face perception: Reduced eye region discrimination ability but intact holistic processing.

While age-related decline in face recognition memory is well-established, the degree of decline in face perceptual abilities across the lifespan and the underlying mechanisms are incompletely characterized. In the present study, we used the part-whole task to examine lifespan changes in holistic and featural processing. After studying an intact face, participants are tested for memory of a face part (eyes, nose, mouth) with the target and foil part presented either in isolation or in the context of the whole face. To the extent that parts are encoded into a holistic face representation, an advantage is expected for part recognition when tested in the whole face condition. The task therefore provides measures of holistic processing (whole-over-isolated-part trial advantage) and featural processing for each part when tested in isolation. Using a large sample of 3,341 online participants aged 18-69 years, we found that while discrimination of the eye region decreased beginning in the 50s, both mouth discrimination accuracy and the holistic advantage of whole versus part trial discrimination were stable with age. In separate analyses by gender, we found that age-related declines in eye region accuracy were more pronounced in males than females. We discuss potential mechanistic explanations for this eye region-specific decline with age, including age-related hearing loss directing attention toward the mouth. Further, we discuss how this could be related to the age-related positivity effect, which is associated with reduced sensitivity to eye-related emotions (e.g., anger) but preserved mouth-related emotion sensitivity (e.g., happiness). (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

What is the prevalence of developmental prosopagnosia? An empirical assessment of different diagnostic cutoffs.

The prevalence of developmental prosopagnosia (DP), lifelong face recognition deficits, is widely reported to be 2-2.5%. However, DP has been diagnosed in different ways across studies, resulting in differing prevalence rates. In the current investigation, we estimated the range of DP prevalence by administering well-validated objective and subjective face recognition measures to an unselected web-based sample of 3116 18-55 year-olds and applying DP diagnostic cutoffs from the last 14 years. We found estimated prevalence rates ranged from .64-5.42% when using a z-score approach and .13-2.95% when using a percentile approach, with the most commonly used cutoffs by researchers having a prevalence rate of .93% (z-score, .45% when using percentiles). We next used multiple cluster analyses to examine whether there was a natural grouping of poorer face recognizers but failed to find consistent grouping beyond those with generally above versus below average face recognition. Lastly, we investigated whether DP studies with more relaxed diagnostic cutoffs were associated with better performance on the Cambridge Face Perception Test. In a sample of 43 studies, there was a weak nonsignificant association between greater diagnostic strictness and better DP face perception accuracy (Kendall's tau-b correlation, τb =.18 z-score; τb = .11 percentiles). Together, these results suggest that researchers have used more conservative DP diagnostic cutoffs than the widely reported 2-2.5% prevalence. We discuss the strengths and weaknesses of using more inclusive cutoffs, such as identifying mild and major forms of DP based on DSM-5.

Estradiol-mediated protection against high-fat diet induced anxiety and obesity is associated with changes in the gut microbiota in female mice.

Decreased estrogens during menopause are associated with increased risk of anxiety, depression, type 2 diabetes and obesity. Similarly, depleting estrogens in rodents by ovariectomy, combined with a high-fat diet (HFD), increases anxiety and adiposity. How estrogens and diet interact to affect anxiety and metabolism is poorly understood. Mounting evidence indicates that gut microbiota influence anxiety and metabolism. Here, we investigated the effects of estradiol (E) and HFD on anxiety, metabolism, and their correlation with changes in gut microbiota in female mice. Adult C57BL/6J mice were ovariectomized, implanted with E or vehicle-containing capsules and fed a standard diet or HFD. Anxiety-like behavior was assessed and neuronal activation was measured by c-fos immunoreactivity throughout the brain using iDISCO. HFD increased anxiety-like behavior, while E reduced this HFD-dependent anxiogenic effect. Interestingly, E decreased neuronal activation in brain regions involved in anxiety and metabolism. E treatment also altered gut microbes, a subset of which were associated with anxiety-like behavior. These findings provide insight into gut microbiota-based therapies for anxiety and metabolic disorders associated with declining estrogens in menopausal women.

Two graphs walk into a bar: Readout-based measurement reveals the Bar-Tip Limit error, a common, categorical misinterpretation of mean bar graphs.

How do viewers interpret graphs that abstract away from individual-level data to present only summaries of data such as means, intervals, distribution shapes, or effect sizes? Here, focusing on the mean bar graph as a prototypical example of such an abstracted presentation, we contribute three advances to the study of graph interpretation. First, we distill principles for Measurement of Abstract Graph Interpretation (MAGI principles) to guide the collection of valid interpretation data from viewers who may vary in expertise. Second, using these principles, we create the Draw Datapoints on Graphs (DDoG) measure, which collects drawn readouts (concrete, detailed, visuospatial records of thought) as a revealing window into each person's interpretation of a given graph. Third, using this new measure, we discover a common, categorical error in the interpretation of mean bar graphs: the Bar-Tip Limit (BTL) error. The BTL error is an apparent conflation of mean bar graphs with count bar graphs. It occurs when the raw data are assumed to be limited by the bar-tip, as in a count bar graph, rather than distributed across the bar-tip, as in a mean bar graph. In a large, demographically diverse sample, we observe the BTL error in about one in five persons; across educational levels, ages, and genders; and despite thoughtful responding and relevant foundational knowledge. The BTL error provides a case-in-point that simplification via abstraction in graph design can risk severe, high-prevalence misinterpretation. The ease with which our readout-based DDoG measure reveals the nature and likely cognitive mechanisms of the BTL error speaks to the value of both its readout-based approach and the MAGI principles that guided its creation. We conclude that mean bar graphs may be misinterpreted by a large portion of the population, and that enhanced measurement tools and strategies, like those introduced here, can fuel progress in the scientific study of graph interpretation.

Childhood Adversity and Dimensional Variations in Adult Sustained Attention.

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVE: Sustained attention is a transdiagnostic phenotype linked with most forms of psychopathology. We sought to understand factors that influence the development of sustained attention, by looking at the relationship between childhood adversity and adult sustained attention. PARTICIPANTS SETTING AND METHODS: Participants were 5,973 TestMyBrain.org visitors from English-speaking countries who completed a continuous performance task (gradCPT) of sustained attention and a childhood adversity questionnaire. We analyzed gradCPT performance using a signal detection approach. RESULTS: Discrimination ability (the main metric of performance on the gradCPT) was associated with total childhood adversity load, even when controlling for covariates related to age, gender, parental education, race, country of origin, and relative socioeconomic status (ß = -0.079, b = -0.032). CONCLUSION: Our results demonstrate that attention differences related to childhood adversity exposure can (1) be measured using brief, performance-based measures of sustained attention, (2) persist into adulthood, and (3) be detected at the population level. These results, paired with the well-documented associations between sustained attention and psychopathology, indicate that sustained attention may be an important mechanism for understanding early influences on mental health.

Individual differences in trust evaluations are shaped mostly by environments, not genes.

People evaluate a stranger's trustworthiness from their facial features in a fraction of a second, despite common advice "not to judge a book by its cover." Evaluations of trustworthiness have critical and widespread social impact, predicting financial lending, mate selection, and even criminal justice outcomes. Consequently, understanding how people perceive trustworthiness from faces has been a major focus of scientific inquiry, and detailed models explain how consensus impressions of trustworthiness are driven by facial attributes. However, facial impression models do not consider variation between observers. Here, we develop a sensitive test of trustworthiness evaluation and use it to document substantial, stable individual differences in trustworthiness impressions. Via a twin study, we show that these individual differences are largely shaped by variation in personal experience, rather than genes or shared environments. Finally, using multivariate twin modeling, we show that variation in trustworthiness evaluation is specific, dissociating from other key facial evaluations of dominance and attractiveness. Our finding that variation in facial trustworthiness evaluation is driven mostly by personal experience represents a rare example of a core social perceptual capacity being predominantly shaped by a person's unique environment. Notably, it stands in sharp contrast to variation in facial recognition ability, which is driven mostly by genes. Our study provides insights into the development of the social brain, offers a different perspective on disagreement in trust in wider society, and motivates new research into the origins and potential malleability of face evaluation, a critical aspect of human social cognition.

Emotion sensitivity across the lifespan: Mapping clinical risk periods to sensitivity to facial emotion intensity.

Face emotion perception is important for social functioning and mental health. In addition to recognizing categories of face emotion, accurate emotion perception relies on the ability to detect subtle differences in emotion intensity. The primary aim of this study was to examine participants' ability to discriminate the intensity of facial emotions (emotion sensitivity: ES) in three psychometrically matched ES tasks (fear, anger, or happiness), to identify developmental changes in sensitivity to face emotion intensity across the lifespan. We predicted that increased age would be associated with lower anger and fear ES, with minimal differences in happiness ES. Participants were 9,546 responders to a Web-based ES study (age range = 10 to 85 years old). Results of segmented linear regression confirmed our hypotheses and revealed differential patterns of ES based on age, sex, and emotion category. Females showed enhanced sensitivity to anger and fear relative to males, but similar sensitivity to happiness. While sensitivity to all emotions increased during adolescence and early adulthood, sensitivity to anger showed the largest increase, potentially related to the importance of anger perception during adolescent development. We also observed age-related decreases in both anger and fear sensitivity in older adults, with little to no change in happiness sensitivity. Unlike previous studies, the effect observed here could not be explained by task-related confounds (e.g., ceiling effects for happiness recognition), lending strong support to observed differences in ES for happiness, anger, and fear across age. Implications for everyday functioning and the development of psychopathology across the lifespan are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).

Self-reported face recognition is highly valid, but alone is not highly discriminative of prosopagnosia-level performance on objective assessments.

Severe developmental deficits in face recognition ability (developmental prosopagnosia, or DP) have been vigorously studied over the past decade, yet many questions remain unanswered about their origins, nature, and social consequences. A rate-limiting factor in answering such questions is the challenge of recruiting rare DP participants. Although self-reported experiences have long played a role in efforts to identify DPs, much remains unknown about how such self-reports can or should contribute to screening or diagnosis. Here, in a large, population-based web sample, we investigated the effectiveness of self-report, used on its own, as a screen to identify individuals who will ultimately fail, at a conventional cutoff, the two types of objective tests that are most commonly used to confirm DP diagnoses: the Cambridge Face Memory Test (CFMT) and the famous faces memory test (FFMT). We used a highly reliable questionnaire (alpha = .91), the Cambridge Face Memory Questionnaire (CFMQ), and revealed strong validity via high correlations of .44 with the CFMT and .52 with the FFMT. However, cutoff analyses revealed that no CFMQ score yielded a clinical-grade combination of sensitivity and positive predictive value in enough individuals to support using it alone as a DP diagnostic or screening tool. This result was replicated in an analysis of data from the widely used PI20 questionnaire, a 20-question self-assessment of facial recognition similar in form to the CFMQ. We therefore recommend that screens for DP should, wherever possible, include objective as well as subjective assessment tools.

How generalizable is the inverse relationship between social class and emotion perception?

Compared to individuals in lower positions of power, higher-power individuals are theorized to be less motivated to attend to social cues. In support of this theory, previous research has consistently documented negative correlations between social class and emotion perception. Prior studies, however, were limited by the size and diversity of the participant samples as well as the systematicity with which social class and emotion perception were operationalized. Here, we examine the generalizability of prior research across 10,000+ total participants. In an initial modest sample, (n = 179), Study 1 partially replicated past results: emotion identification correlated negativity with subjective social class (ß = -0.15, 95% CI = [-0.28,-0.02]) and one of two objective social class measures (participant education ß = -0.15, 95% CI = [-0.03,-0.01]). Studies 2-4 followed up on Study 1's mixed results for objective social class in three much larger samples. These results diverged from past literature. In Study 2, complex emotion identification correlated non-significantly with participant education (ß = 0.02, p = 0.25; 95% CI = [-0.01, 0.05], n = 2,726), positively with childhood family income (ß = 0.03, 95% CI = [0.01,0.06], n = 4,312), and positively with parental education (ß = 0.06, 95% CI = [0.04,0.09], n = 4,225). In Study 3, basic emotion identification correlated positively with participant education (ß = 0.05, 95% CI = [0.02, 0.09]), n = 2,564). In Study 4, basic emotion discrimination correlated positively with participant education (ß = 0.09, 95% CI = [0.05,0.13], n = 2,079), positively with parental education (ß = 0.06, 95% CI = [0.02,0.09], n = 3,225), and non-significantly with childhood family income (ß = 0.2, 95% CI = [0.01,0.07], n = 3,272). Results remained similar when restricting analyses to U.S.-based participants. Taken together, these findings suggest that previously reported negative correlations between emotion perception and social class may generalize poorly past select samples and/or subjective measures of social class. Data from the three large web-based samples used in Studies 2-4 are available at osf.io/jf7r3 as normative datasets and to support future investigations of these and other research questions.

General object recognition is specific: Evidence from novel and familiar objects.

In tests of object recognition, individual differences typically correlate modestly but nontrivially across familiar categories (e.g. cars, faces, shoes, birds, mushrooms). In theory, these correlations could reflect either global, non-specific mechanisms, such as general intelligence (IQ), or more specific mechanisms. Here, we introduce two separate methods for effectively capturing category-general performance variation, one that uses novel objects and one that uses familiar objects. In each case, we show that category-general performance variance is unrelated to IQ, thereby implicating more specific mechanisms. The first approach examines three newly developed novel object memory tests (NOMTs). We predicted that NOMTs would exhibit more shared, category-general variance than familiar object memory tests (FOMTs) because novel objects, unlike familiar objects, lack category-specific environmental influences (e.g. exposure to car magazines or botany classes). This prediction held, and remarkably, virtually none of the substantial shared variance among NOMTs was explained by IQ. Also, while NOMTs correlated nontrivially with two FOMTs (faces, cars), these correlations were smaller than among NOMTs and no larger than between the face and car tests themselves, suggesting that the category-general variance captured by NOMTs is specific not only relative to IQ, but also, to some degree, relative to both face and car recognition. The second approach averaged performance across multiple FOMTs, which we predicted would increase category-general variance by averaging out category-specific factors. This prediction held, and as with NOMTs, virtually none of the shared variance among FOMTs was explained by IQ. Overall, these results support the existence of object recognition mechanisms that, though category-general, are specific relative to IQ and substantially separable from face and car recognition. They also add sensitive, well-normed NOMTs to the tools available to study object recognition.

The inversion, part-whole, and composite effects reflect distinct perceptual mechanisms with varied relationships to face recognition.

Face recognition is thought to rely on specific mechanisms underlying a perceptual bias toward processing faces as undecomposable wholes. This face-specific "holistic processing" is commonly quantified using 3 measures: the inversion, part-whole, and composite effects. Consequently, many researchers assume that these 3 effects measure the same cognitive mechanism(s) and these mechanisms contribute to the wide range of individual differences seen in face recognition ability. We test these assumptions in a large sample (N = 282), with individual face recognition abilities measured by the well-validated Cambridge Face Perception Test. Our results provide little support for either assumption. The small to nonexistent correlations among inversion, part-whole, and composite effects (correlations between -.03 and .28) fail to support the first assumption. As for the second assumption, only the inversion effect moderately predicts face recognition (r = .42); face recognition was weakly correlated with the part-whole effect (r = .25) and not correlated with the composite effect (r = .04). We rule out multiple artifactual explanations for our results by using valid tasks that produce standard effects at the group level, demonstrating that our tasks exhibit psychometric properties suitable for individual differences studies, and demonstrating that other predicted correlations (e.g., between face perception measures) are robust. Our results show that inversion, part-whole, and composite effects reflect distinct perceptual mechanisms, and we argue against the use of the single, generic term holistic processing when referring to these effects. Our results also question the contribution of these mechanisms to individual differences in face recognition. (PsycINFO Database Record

Are portrait artists superior face recognizers? Limited impact of adult experience on face recognition ability.

Across 2 studies, the authors asked whether extensive experience in portrait art is associated with face recognition ability. In Study 1, 64 students completed a standardized face recognition test before and after completing a year-long art course that included substantial portraiture training. They found no evidence of an improvement in face recognition after training over and above what would be expected by practice alone. In Study 2, the authors investigated the possibility that more extensive experience might be needed for such advantages to emerge, by testing a cohort of expert portrait artists (N = 28), all of whom had many years of experience. In addition to memory for faces, they also explored memory for abstract art and for words in a paired-associate recognition test. The expert portrait artists performed similarly to a large, normative comparison sample on memory for faces and words but showed a small advantage for abstract art. Taken together, the results converge with existing literature to suggest that there is relatively little plasticity in face recognition in adulthood, at which point our substantial everyday experience with faces may have pushed us to the limits of our capabilities. (PsycINFO Database Record

Individual Aesthetic Preferences for Faces Are Shaped Mostly by Environments, Not Genes.

Although certain characteristics of human faces are broadly considered more attractive (e.g., symmetry, averageness), people also routinely disagree with each other on the relative attractiveness of faces. That is, to some significant degree, beauty is in the "eye of the beholder." Here, we investigate the origins of these individual differences in face preferences using a twin design, allowing us to estimate the relative contributions of genetic and environmental variation to individual face attractiveness judgments or face preferences. We first show that individual face preferences (IP) can be reliably measured and are readily dissociable from other types of attractiveness judgments (e.g., judgments of scenes, objects). Next, we show that individual face preferences result primarily from environments that are unique to each individual. This is in striking contrast to individual differences in face identity recognition, which result primarily from variations in genes [1]. We thus complete an etiological double dissociation between two core domains of social perception (judgments of identity versus attractiveness) within the same visual stimulus (the face). At the same time, we provide an example, rare in behavioral genetics, of a reliably and objectively measured behavioral characteristic where variations are shaped mostly by the environment. The large impact of experience on individual face preferences provides a novel window into the evolution and architecture of the social brain, while lending new empirical support to the long-standing claim that environments shape individual notions of what is attractive.

Sustained Attention Across the Life Span in a Sample of 10,000: Dissociating Ability and Strategy.

Normal and abnormal differences in sustained visual attention have long been of interest to scientists, educators, and clinicians. Still lacking, however, is a clear understanding of how sustained visual attention varies across the broad sweep of the human life span. In the present study, we filled this gap in two ways. First, using an unprecedentedly large 10,430-person sample, we modeled age-related differences with substantially greater precision than have prior efforts. Second, using the recently developed gradual-onset continuous performance test (gradCPT), we parsed sustained-attention performance over the life span into its ability and strategy components. We found that after the age of 15 years, the strategy and ability trajectories saliently diverge. Strategy becomes monotonically more conservative with age, whereas ability peaks in the early 40s and is followed by a gradual decline in older adults. These observed life-span trajectories for sustained attention are distinct from results of other life-span studies focusing on fluid and crystallized intelligence.

Face recognition: a model specific ability.

In our everyday lives, we view it as a matter of course that different people are good at different things. It can be surprising, in this context, to learn that most of what is known about cognitive ability variation across individuals concerns the broadest of all cognitive abilities; an ability referred to as general intelligence, general mental ability, or just g. In contrast, our knowledge of specific abilities, those that correlate little with g, is severely constrained. Here, we draw upon our experience investigating an exceptionally specific ability, face recognition, to make the case that many specific abilities could easily have been missed. In making this case, we derive key insights from earlier false starts in the measurement of face recognition's variation across individuals, and we highlight the convergence of factors that enabled the recent discovery that this variation is specific. We propose that the case of face recognition ability illustrates a set of tools and perspectives that could accelerate fruitful work on specific cognitive abilities. By revealing relatively independent dimensions of human ability, such work would enhance our capacity to understand the uniqueness of individual minds.

What can individual differences reveal about face processing?

Faces are probably the most widely studied visual stimulus. Most research on face processing has used a group-mean approach that averages behavioral or neural responses to faces across individuals and treats variance between individuals as noise. However, individual differences in face processing can provide valuable information that complements and extends findings from group-mean studies. Here we demonstrate that studies employing an individual differences approach-examining associations and dissociations across individuals-can answer fundamental questions about the way face processing operates. In particular these studies allow us to associate and dissociate the mechanisms involved in face processing, tie behavioral face processing mechanisms to neural mechanisms, link face processing to broader capacities and quantify developmental influences on face processing. The individual differences approach we illustrate here is a powerful method that should be further explored within the domain of face processing as well as fruitfully applied across the cognitive sciences.

Heritability of strabismus: genetic influence is specific to eso-deviation and independent of refractive error.

Strabismus represents a complex oculomotor disorder characterized by the deviation of one or both eyes and poor vision. A more sophisticated understanding of the genetic liability of strabismus is required to guide searches for associated molecular variants. In this classical twin study of 1,462 twin pairs, we examined the relative influence of genes and environment in comitant strabismus, and the degree to which these influences can be explained by factors in common with refractive error. Participants were examined for the presence of latent ('phoria') and manifest ('tropia') strabismus using cover-uncover and alternate cover tests. Two phenotypes were distinguished: eso-deviation (esophoria and esotropia) and exo-deviation (exophoria and exotropia). Structural equation modeling was subsequently employed to partition the observed phenotypic variation in the twin data into specific variance components. The prevalence of eso-deviation and exo-deviation was 8.6% and 20.7%, respectively. For eso-deviation, the polychoric correlation was significantly greater in monozygotic (MZ) (r = 0.65) compared to dizygotic (DZ) twin pairs (r = 0.33), suggesting a genetic role (p = .003). There was no significant difference in polychoric correlation between MZ (r = 0.55) and DZ twin pairs (r = 0.53) for exo-deviation (p = .86), implying that genetic factors do not play a significant role in the etiology of exo-deviation. The heritability of an eso-deviation was 0.64 (95% CI 0.50-0.75). The additive genetic correlation for eso-deviation and refractive error was 0.13 and the bivariate heritability (i.e., shared variance) was less than 1%, suggesting negligible shared genetic effect. This study documents a substantial heritability of 64% for eso-deviation, yet no corresponding heritability for exo-deviation, suggesting that the genetic contribution to strabismus may be specific to eso-deviation. Future studies are now needed to identify the genes associated with eso-deviation and unravel their mechanisms of action.