Face Naming Research Articles

Proper name retrieval in temporal lobe epilepsy: Naming of famous faces and landmarks

The objective of this study was to further explore proper name (PN) retrieval and conceptual knowledge in patients with left and right temporal lobe epilepsy (69 patients with LTLE and 62 patients with RTLE) using a refined assessment procedure. Based on the performance of a large group of age- and education-matched normals, a new test of famous faces and famous landmarks was designed. Recognition, naming, and semantic knowledge were assessed consecutively, allowing for a better characterization of deficient levels in the naming system. Impairment in PN retrieval was common in the cohort with TLE. Furthermore, side of seizure onset impaired stages of name retrieval differently: LTLE impaired the lexico-phonological processing, whereas RTLE mainly impaired the perceptual–semantic stage of object recognition. In addition to deficient PN retrieval, patients with TLE had reduced conceptual knowledge regarding famous persons and landmarks.

Assigned value improves memory of proper names

Names are more difficult to remember than other personal information such as occupations. The current research examined the influence of assigned point value on memory and metamemory judgements for names and occupations to determine whether incentive can improve recall of proper names. In Experiment 1 participants studied face–name and face–occupation pairs assigned 1 or 10 points, made judgements of learning, and were given a cued recall test. High-value names were recalled more often than low-value names. However, recall of occupations was not influenced by value. In Experiment 2 meaningless nonwords were used for both names and occupations. The name difficulty disappeared, and value influenced recall of both names and occupations. Thus value similarly influenced names and occupations when meaningfulness was held constant. In Experiment 3 participants were required to use overt rote rehearsal for all items. Value did not boost recall of high-value names, suggesting that differential processing could not be implemented to improve memory. Thus incentives may improve memory for proper names by motivating people to engage in selective rehearsal and effortful elaborative processing.

Famous face identification in temporal lobe epilepsy: Support for a multimodal integration model of semantic memory

This study aims to demonstrate that the left and right anterior temporal lobes (ATLs) perform critical but unique roles in famous face identification, with damage to either leading to differing deficit patterns reflecting decreased access to lexical or semantic concepts but not their degradation. Famous face identification was studied in 22 presurgical and 14 postsurgical temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE) patients and 20 healthy comparison subjects using free recall and multiple choice (MC) paradigms. Right TLE patients exhibited presurgical deficits in famous face recognition, and postsurgical deficits in both famous face recognition and familiarity judgments. However, they did not exhibit any problems with naming before or after surgery. In contrast, left TLE patients demonstrated both pre- and postsurgical deficits in famous face naming but no significant deficits in recognition or familiarity. Double dissociations in performance between groups were alleviated by altering task demands. Postsurgical right TLE patients provided with MC options correctly identified greater than 70% of famous faces they initially rated as unfamiliar. Left TLE patients accurately chose the name for nearly all famous faces they recognized (based on their verbal description) but initially failed to name, although they tended to rapidly lose access to this name. We believe alterations in task demands activate alternative routes to semantic and lexical networks, demonstrating that unique pathways to such stored information exist, and suggesting a different role for each ATL in identifying visually presented famous faces. The right ATL appears to play a fundamental role in accessing semantic information from a visual route, with the left ATL serving to link semantic information to the language system to produce a specific name. These findings challenge several assumptions underlying amodal models of semantic memory, and provide support for the integrated multimodal theories of semantic memory and a distributed representation of concepts.

Hyperfamiliarity in patients with temporal lobe epilepsy

Hyperfamiliarity is a type of paramnesia characterized by an increased feeling of familiarity to unfamiliar faces. This dysfunction has been associated with frontal and temporal lobe pathology. The study investigated hyperfamiliarity in patients with temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE) by assessing their ability to recognize both familiar and unfamiliar faces. We evaluated 61 patients with pharmacoresistant TLE (33 right-sided, 28 left-sided) and 16 controls. The ability to recognize familiar faces was similar in patients and controls, although patients with left-sided TLE showed poorer performance in familiar face naming compared to both right-sided TLE patients and controls. Hyperfamiliarity was observed in a significantly higher number of patients with TLE compared to controls; in subgroup analysis, only right-sided TLE patients expressed hyperfamiliarity. Overall, patients with right-sided TLE showed more severe impairment compared to patients with left-sided TLE. It is proposed that hyperfamiliarity can be a relatively common symptom in patients with treatment‐refractory TLE and right-sided focus.

Memory impairment exhibited by veterans with Gulf War Illness

Roughly 26–32% of US veterans, who served in the first Gulf War, report suffering from chronic health problems (Golomb, 2008, Proceedings of the National Academies of Science, 105, 4295). The present study investigated the memory deficits reported by these ill Gulf War veterans (GWV) using a face–name associative memory paradigm administered during functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). The fMRI data confirmed memory performance on the memory task to be related to the amount of activation in the left hippocampus observed during the study. In addition, ill-GWV demonstrated decreased memory performance relative to unaffected GWV on this memory test, providing evidence of memory deficits using an objective measure of memory.

An event‐related potentials study of face naming: Evidence of phonological retrieval deficit in the tip‐of‐the‐tongue state

A famous-face naming task was used to establish the electrophysiological characterization of the tip-of-the-tongue (TOT) state, successful naming (K), and nonrecognition (DK). The differences in the direct event-related potentials (ERPs) and in the lateralized readiness potential between those categories were studied. The ERP correlates of recognition and access to semantic and lexical information were similar between K and TOT, but showed amplitude differences with respect to DK. A delayed onset of the response selection was obtained in TOT in comparison with K, suggesting an insufficient activation of phonological information from 360 ms onwards. The continuous search for the name and the conflict monitoring in TOT led to differences in ERP amplitudes between TOT and the other categories from 750 ms onwards as well as to a delayed onset of response preparation, indicating a continuous engagement of processing resources.

Face–Name Association Learning and Brain Structural Substrates in Alcoholism

Associative learning is required for face-name association and is impaired in alcoholism, but the cognitive processes and brain structural components underlying this deficit remain unclear. It is also unknown whether prompting alcoholics to implement a deep level of processing during face-name encoding would enhance performance. Abstinent alcoholics and controls performed a levels-of-processing face-name learning task. Participants indicated whether the face was that of an honest person (deep encoding) or that of a man (shallow encoding). Retrieval was examined using an associative (face-name) recognition task and a single-item (face or name only) recognition task. Participants also underwent 3T structural MRI. Compared with controls, alcoholics had poorer associative and single-item learning and performed at similar levels. Level of processing at encoding had little effect on recognition performance but affected reaction time (RT). Correlations with brain volumes were generally modest and based primarily on RT in alcoholics, where the deeper the processing at encoding, the more restricted the correlations with brain volumes. In alcoholics, longer control task RTs correlated modestly with smaller tissue volumes across several anterior to posterior brain regions; shallow encoding correlated with calcarine and striatal volumes; deep encoding correlated with precuneus and parietal volumes; and associative recognition RT correlated with cerebellar volumes. In controls, poorer associative recognition with deep encoding correlated significantly with smaller volumes of frontal and striatal structures. Despite prompting, alcoholics did not take advantage of encoding memoranda at a deep level to enhance face-name recognition accuracy. Nonetheless, conditions of deeper encoding resulted in faster RTs and more specific relations with regional brain volumes than did shallow encoding. The normal relation between associative recognition and corticostriatal volumes was not present in alcoholics. Rather, their speeded RTs occurred at the expense of accuracy and were related most robustly to cerebellar volumes.

Validation of the Face Name Associative Memory Exam in cognitively normal older individuals

The recently developed Face Name Associative Memory Exam (FNAME), a challenging paired associative learning task, shows promise in detecting the subtle cognitive changes characteristic of preclinical Alzheimer's disease. In this study, we evaluated the validity and reliability of the FNAME in 210 cognitively normal older individuals (58–90 years of age). Construct validity of the measure was assessed by principal components analysis, which revealed two independent factors. Correlations between the FNAME subtests and another episodic memory test were significant. The results indicated strong test–retest reliability in a subsample (n = 41). Normative data stratified by age were also generated.

Searching for interference effects in learning new face–name associations

In three experiments we attempted to increase interference using experimental manipulations in a face–name learning paradigm. All experiments included young and older adult participants because ageing is associated with increases in both susceptibility to interference and difficulty in learning face–name associations. None of the experiments produced interference for either age group: The inclusion of confusable (i.e., ambiguous) names and occupations, having to learn an additional piece of information in association with each face, and requiring participants to guess when uncertain all failed to negatively impact name learning. Interference does not appear to be the critical mechanism underlying the difficulty of learning proper names, and it cannot account for older adults' disproportionate decline in name-learning ability.

Self control of when and how much to test face–name pairs in a novel spaced retrieval paradigm: An examination of age-related differences

ABSTRACT Although the mnemonic benefit of spaced retrieval is well established, the way in which participants naturally space their own retrieval is relatively unexplored. To examine this question, a novel experimental paradigm was developed in which young and healthy older adults were given control over the frequency and timing of retrieval practice in the context of an ongoing reading task. Results showed that both age groups naturally expanded the intervals of their retrieval practice. When instructed, younger adults but not older adults were better able to employ equal spaced retrieval during retrieval practice. However, even under equal spaced retrieval instructions, young adults included an early retrieval attempt prior to equally spacing their retrieval. Although memory performance was equivalent, secondary task performance was reduced in the experimenter-instructed condition compared with the participant-selected condition. The results overall indicate that both younger and older participants naturally monitor their memory and efficiently use testing to titrate the number and timing of retrieval attempts used during the acquisition phase.

Names and numberplates: Quasi-everyday associative memory tasks for distinguishing amnestic mild cognitive impairment from healthy aging

Amnestic mild cognitive impairment (aMCI) delineates a population at high risk for subsequently developing Alzheimer's disease (AD)—that is, people with preclinical AD. Associative episodic memory tasks are particularly sensitive to preclinical AD; however, they often lack ecological validity, which is important when evaluating performance in daily activities. We describe the development of two quasi-everyday associative memory tasks—the La Trobe Face–Name test and the La Trobe Numberplate task—and their utility in profiling and separating 70 aMCI participants from 101 healthy older adults (HOA) compared with standard episodic memory tasks. aMCI participants performed significantly worse overall and demonstrated a greater forgetting rate than HOA on both tasks. The everyday tasks separated aMCI from HOA participants as effectively as standard episodic memory tasks and were well tolerated. These tasks provide a valuable addition to neuropsychologists' toolkits with enhanced ecological (verisimilitude) and face validity for assisting in counseling clients, measuring the effect of interventions, and profiling everyday memory performance in HOA and aMCI.

The effects of distinctiveness on memory and metamemory for face–name associations

We examined the influence of face and name distinctiveness on memory and metamemory for face–name associations. Four types of monitoring judgements were solicited during encoding and retrieval of face–name pairs that contained distinct or typical faces (Experiment 1) or names (Experiment 2). The beneficial effects of distinctiveness on associative memory were symmetrical between faces and names, such that relative to their typical counterparts, distinct faces enhanced memory for names, and distinct names enhanced memory for faces. These effects were also apparent in metamemory. Estimates of prospective and retrospective memory performance were greater for face–name associations that contained a distinct face or name compared with a typical face or name, regardless of whether the distinct item was a cue or target. Moreover, the predictive validity of prospective monitoring improved with name distinctiveness, whereas the predictive validity of retrospective monitoring improved with facial distinctiveness. Our results indicate that distinctiveness affects not only the strength of the association between a face and a name, but also the ability to monitor that association.

Hemisphere-dependent holistic processing of familiar faces

In two behavioral experiments involving lateralized stimulus presentation, we tested whether one of the most commonly used measures of holistic face processing—the composite face effect—would be more pronounced for stimuli presented to the right as compared to the left hemisphere. In experiment 1, we investigated the composite face effect in a verbal identification task, similar to its original report ( Young, Hellawell, & Hay, 1987). Aligning top and bottom halves of composite face stimuli led to performance decreases irrespective of hemifield, indicating holistic processing of comparable magnitude for inputs provided separately to either hemisphere. However, when matching of the same top parts was required in experiment 2, an alignment-dependent performance decrease was found for stimuli presented in the left, but not right visual field. These observations suggest that the right hemisphere dominates in early stages of holistic processing, as indexed by the composite face effect, but that later processes such as face identification and naming are based on unified representations that are independent of input lateralization. Moreover, the composite face effect may not rely on the exact same representation(s) when measured in matching and identification tasks.

Functional MRI mapping of category-specific sites associated with naming of famous faces, animals and man-made objects

Category-specific recognition and naming deficits have been observed in a variety of patient populations. However, the category-specific cortices for naming famous faces, animals and man-made objects remain controversial. The present study aimed to study the specific areas involved in naming pictures of these 3 categories using functional magnetic resonance imaging. Functional images were analyzed using statistical parametric mapping and the 3 different contrasts were evaluated using t statistics by comparing the naming tasks to their baselines. The contrast images were entered into a random-effects group level analysis. The results were reported in Montreal Neurological Institute coordinates, and anatomical regions were identified using an automated anatomical labeling method with XJview 8. Naming famous faces caused more activation in the bilateral head of the hippocampus and amygdala with significant left dominance. Bilateral activation of pars triangularis and pars opercularis in the naming of famous faces was also revealed. Naming animals evoked greater responses in the left supplementary motor area, while naming man-made objects evoked more in the left premotor area, left pars orbitalis and right supplementary motor area. The extent of bilateral fusiform gyri activation by naming man-made objects was much larger than that by naming of famous faces or animals. Even in the overlapping sites of activation, some differences among the categories were found for activation in the fusiform gyri. The cortices involved in the naming process vary with the naming of famous faces, animals and man-made objects. This finding suggests that different categories of pictures should be used during intra-operative language mapping to generate a broader map of language function, in order to minimize the incidence of false-negative stimulation and permanent post-operative deficits.

N400 modulation by categorical or associative interference in a famous face naming task

It is controversial whether the organization of biographical information relating to known persons is categorical [10] or associative [1]. To shed light on semantic organization, researchers have studied semantic access of proper names using priming or interference paradigms with associated and/or category-specific primes or distractors, in recognition, familiarity or naming tasks. Depending on the task, categorical and/or associative effects have been obtained. In order to disambiguate those conflicting results, in the present event-related potentials (ERP) study, we capitalized on the fact that the N400 component is sensitive to the congruity of a stimulus with the current semantic context. We used an interference paradigm with delayed naming, in which a celebrity face target and a proper name distractor (auditory stimulus) were either associated or belonged to the same category (in the control condition, the face was preceded by a white noise). The results showed an associative interference effect with a more negative N400 component for associated name distractors than in the other conditions. These results are consistent not only with a categorical organization but also with an associative organization of biographical information for people.

Aerobic exercise improves hippocampal function and increases BDNF in the serum of young adult males

Physical activity has been reported to improve cognitive function in humans and rodents, possibly via a brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF)-regulated mechanism. In this study of human subjects, we have assessed the effects of acute and chronic exercise on performance of a face–name matching task, which recruits the hippocampus and associated structures of the medial temporal lobe, and the Stroop word–colour task, which does not, and have assessed circulating concentrations of BDNF and IGF-1 in parallel. The results show that a short period of high-intensity cycling results in enhancements in performance of the face–name matching, but not the Stroop, task. These changes in cognitive function were paralleled by increased concentration of BDNF, but not IGF-1, in the serum of exercising subjects. 3weeks of cycling training had no effect on cardiovascular fitness, as assessed by VO2 scores, cognitive function, or serum BDNF concentration. Increases in fitness, cognitive function and serum BDNF response to acute exercise were observed following 5weeks of aerobic training. These data indicate that both acute and chronic exercise improve medial temporal lobe function concomitant with increased concentrations of BDNF in the serum, suggesting a possible functional role for this neurotrophic factor in exercise-induced cognitive enhancement in humans.

Metamemory for faces, names, and common nouns

This study examined the metacognitive aspects of face–name learning with the goal of providing a comprehensive profile of monitoring performance during this task. Four types of monitoring judgments were solicited during encoding and retrieval of novel face–name associations. Across all of the monitoring judgments, relative accuracy was significantly above chance for face and name targets. Furthermore, metamemory performance was similar between both target conditions, even though names were more difficult to recognize than faces. As a preliminary test of the stability of monitoring accuracy across different categories of stimuli, we also compared metamemory performance between face–name pairs and noun–noun pairs. Prospective monitoring accuracy was similar across the categories of stimuli, but retrospective monitoring accuracy was superior for noun targets compared with face or name targets. Altogether, our results indicate that participants can monitor their memory for face–name associations at a level above chance, and retrospective monitoring is more accurate with nouns compared with faces and names.

An appreciation of Bruce and Young's (1986) serial stage model of face naming after 25 years

The current status of Bruce and Young's (1986) serial model of face naming is discussed 25 years after its original publication. In the first part of the paper, evidence for and against the serial model is reviewed. It is argued that there is no compelling reason why we should abandon Bruce and Young's claim that recall of a name is contingent upon prior retrieval of semantic information about the person. The current status of the claim that people's names are more difficult to recall than the names of objects is then evaluated. Finally, an account of the anatomical location in the brain of Bruce and Young's three processing stages (face familiarity, retrieval of semantic information, retrieval of names) is suggested. In particular, there is evidence that biographical knowledge about familiar people is stored in the right anterior temporal lobes (ATL) and that the left temporal pole (TP) is heavily involved in retrieval of the names of familiar people. The issue of whether these brain areas play a similar role in object processing is also discussed.

Delaying feedback by three seconds benefits retention of face–name pairs: the role of active anticipatory processing

In three experiments, we used face-name learning to examine the puzzling feedback delay benefit--the tendency for feedback to be more effective when it is delayed rather than presented immediately. In Experiment 1, we found that feedback presented after a 3-s blank screen was more effective than feedback presented immediately, even after controlling for the exposure time to the material. In Experiment 2, we replicated the benefit of a feedback delay even when participants were given extra time to view the feedback or to try to retrieve the answer, indicating that this benefit is specific to a delay before feedback. Finally, in Experiment 3, we showed that the 3-s delay is beneficial only if it involves a blank screen, not if the delay is filled with an unrelated distracter task. These results suggest that the feedback delay benefit in this paradigm could arise from an active anticipatory process that occurs during the delay.

Testing protects against proactive interference in face–name learning

Learning face-name pairings at a social function becomes increasingly more difficult the more individuals one meets. This phenomenon is attributable to proactive interference--the negative influence of prior learning on subsequent learning. Recent evidence suggests that taking a memory test can alleviate proactive interference in verbal list learning paradigms. We apply this technique to face-name pair learning. Participants studied four lists of 12 face-name pairings and either attempted to name the 12 faces just studied after every list or did not. Recall attempts after every list improved learning of the fourth list by over 100%. Moreover, no reduction in learning of face-name pairings occurred from list 1 to list 4 for participants who attempted to name studied faces between lists. These results suggest that testing oneself on the names of a group of new acquaintances before moving on to the next group is an effective mnemonic technique for social functions.