Familiar Person Research Articles

Dividends

The domestic cat is now one of the most common pet species in the Western world. As part of its role as a pet, cats are expected to not only tolerate but enjoy being touched. This study consisted of two experiments, with the first investigating the influence of body region touched and handler familiarity on the domestic cat's behavioural response to being stroked. The second experiment extended this work by investigating the influence of order of body region touched on behavioural responses. Both handler familiarity and body region stroked significantly influenced negative behavioural responses. Familiar handling, in comparison to unfamiliar handling, led to significantly higher negative behavioural scores displayed by the cats (score of 8.5 versus 5.0 respectively, p = 0.001). When considering the different body regions investigated, the caudal region produced the highest negative scores both when handled by the unfamiliar person (Experiment 1: score of 2.0 in comparison to scores of 0.0–1.0 for other studied body regions, p = 0.046) and by the familiar person (Experiment 2: score of 2.0 in comparison to a score of 1.0 for each other studied body region, p = 0.002). Order of body region touched had no significant bearing on behavioural responses exhibited. Results suggest that handling of cats should avoid the caudal region and highlight the need for further investigation into the owner–cat relationship.

Disgust Toward Sex-Relevant and Sex-Irrelevant Stimuli in Pre-, Early, and Middle Adolescence

For prepubertal youth, sexual stimuli elicit disgust and avoidance, yet in adolescence this avoidance shifts to sexual approach. One explanation could be that disgust declines in adolescence. This project examined whether disgust is indeed lower in adolescence compared to preadolescence, and whether this difference across age groups would be restricted to sex-relevant disgust elicitors. We also examined whether the strength of disgust would depend on familiarity between participant and source. To examine disgust responses in youths, two cross-sectional studies (N = 248, ages six to 17 years) were conducted using scenario-based measurements. Disgust was overall higher in early adolescence than in preadolescence and relatively weak when the source of disgust was a familiar person. Specifically, when parents were the source, sex-relevant disgust was higher in the groups of early and middle adolescents than in the group of preadolescents. Sex-relevant disgust elicited by a stranger or best friend, however, was lower in middle than in early adolescence. The latter is consistent with the view that repeated confrontation with disgusting stimuli might attenuate disgust, which could contribute to healthy sexual functioning. The heightened sex-relevant disgust in middle adolescents when parents were the source might reflect a functional avoidance mechanism of inappropriate sex mates.

Les syndromes délirants d’identification : un facteur associé à la violence ? Revue de littérature à partir d’études de cas

ObjectivesDelusional misidentification syndromes (DMS) correspond to the delusional belief of misidentification of familiar persons, places or objects and to the conviction that they have been replaced or transformed. Several cases of patients who developed violent behavior while suffering from DMS have been published. This led some authors to consider patients with DMS at risk of violence. However, only a few studies have focused on the potential relationship between violence and DMS. The aim of our study was to explore this relationship with a literature review of published cases of patients having committed violent acts associated to DMS. MethodsA systematic literature search was conducted on PubMed up to January 2017 using the following term combination “misidentification” and “violence” Fifteen cases of patients with DMS who had committed violent acts were identified. The data from these descriptions were analyzed and synthetized. ResultsMost of the patients were men with a diagnosis of schizophrenia and Capgras syndrome. Acts of violence were severe with a relatively high number of murders or attempted murders. For half of the patients these violent acts were perpetrated with weapons. Victims were regularly the patient's family members and the assaults were usually not planned. Delusional syndromes often progressed for several years. Importantly, substance abuse, which is known to increase the risk of violence in patients with schizophrenia, was only observed in two patients. ConclusionDMS are associated with several risk factors of violence, such as a diagnosis of schizophrenia, specific delusions including megalomania, persecution, negative affects and identified targets. Despite this risk for severe violence, there are no existing guidelines on how to assess and treat DMS in schizophrenia. Accordingly, we propose (1) the establishment of formal diagnostic criteria, (2) the development of rigorous research on these syndromes and (3) the integration of DMS in assessment of violence risk in schizophrenic patients.

The honorific third person plural in Slavic

Although much has been written about polite forms of address in Slavic, the grammatical expression of respect for a person that does not take part in the conversation has hitherto received little to no attention. Yet this type of honorific reference is widely found in the Slavic languages, especially in dialects and substandard varieties. In the present article I shall distinguish between three types of honorific reference to a person spoken about and focus on the type that I think is most current in Slavic dialects, viz. honorific reference to elder relatives, and, by extension, other familiar older persons and priests. I shall first present an analysis of the use of the construction and the kind of respect involved. One of the characteristics that make this honorific plural interesting from a typological point of view is that it is primarily used for respected persons the speaker has an in-group relationship with: if there is too much ‘horizontal distance’ it is not used. Then I shall give a picture of the distribution of this type of honorific third person plural across the Slavic language area. It will become clear that it is found across a more or less continuous area from Slovene in the southwest to central Ukrainian in the northeast.

The lost ability to distinguish between self and other voice following a brain lesion.

Mechanisms underlying the self/other distinction have been mainly investigated focusing on visual, tactile or proprioceptive cues, whereas very little is known about the contribution of acoustical information. Here the ability to distinguish between self and others' voice is investigated by using a neuropsychological approach. Right (RBD) and left brain damaged (LBD) patients and healthy controls were submitted to a voice discrimination and a voice recognition task. Stimuli were paired words/pseudowords pronounced by the participant, by a familiar or unfamiliar person. In the voice discrimination task, participants had to judge whether two voices were same or different, whereas in the voice recognition task participants had to judge whether their own voice was or was not present. Crucially, differences between patient groups were found. In the discrimination task, only RBD patients were selectively impaired when their own voice was present. By contrast, in the recognition task, both RBD and LBD patients were impaired and showed two different biases: RBD patients misattributed the other's voice to themselves, while LBD patients denied the ownership of their own voice. Thus, two kinds of bias can affect self-voice recognition: we can refuse self-stimuli (voice disownership), or we can misidentify others' stimuli as our own (embodiment of others' voice). Overall, these findings reflect different impairments in self/other distinction both at behavioral and anatomical level, the right hemisphere being involved in voice discrimination and both hemispheres in the voice identity explicit recognition. The finding of selective brain networks dedicated to processing one's own voice demonstrates the relevance of self-related acoustic information in bodily self-representation.

Anesthesiologists' Preferences regarding Visitor Presence during Placement of Neuraxial Labor Analgesia.

Introduction Neuraxial labor analgesia has become an integral part of modern obstetric anesthetic practice. Presence of a familiar person during its placement may be beneficial to the patient. A survey was sent to anesthesiologists practicing obstetric anesthesia in the USA to determine their views. Methods The survey queried the following: existence of a written policy; would they allow a visitor; visitor's view, sitting or standing; reasons to allow or not allow a visitor; and influence by other staff on the decision. The responses were analyzed using multiple chi-square analyses. Results Most practitioners supported allowing a visitor during placement. Reduction of patient anxiety and fulfillment of patient request were the major reasons for allowing a visitor. Sitting position and no view of the workspace were preferred. Visitor interference and safety were cited as the major reasons for precluding a visitor. Nonanesthesia providers rarely influenced the decision. Epidural analgesia was the preferred technique. Essentially no bias was found in the responses; there was statistical uniformity regardless of procedures done per week, years in practice, professional certification, geographic region (rural, urban, or suburban), or academic, private, or government responders. Conclusion The practice of visitor presence during the placement of neuraxial labor analgesia is gaining acceptance.

Bio-inspired Approach for Automatic Speaker Clustering Using Auditory Modeling and Self-Organizing Maps

This paper presents a biologically inspired approach to the problem of voice biometrics. The aim of this study is to examine the capacity of the automatic system, based on a physiologically appropriate auditory model and self-organizing neural networks, to distinguish the voices of different speakers. The idea stems from the human ability to successfully extract various information from speech in the process of verbal communication in different acoustic conditions, including recognizing the identity of a familiar person by their voice. Based on the obtained results, one can conclude that the proposed method has demonstrated high-quality unsupervised classification.

Clinical Practice Guidelines for Management of Dementia.

Indian Psychiatric Society (IPS) published Clinical Practice Guidelines (CPGs) for management of dementia, in the year 2007. (http://www.indianjpsychiatry.org/cpg2007.asp). The current version of the CPG is an update of the earlier version of CPGs for management of dementia There were three separate CPGs for management of dementia, one each for Reversible Dementias, Alzheimer's Disease and Vascular Dementia, Please note that the present CPG on dementia deals all types of dementia together. The current version of the CPGs for dementia in elderly must be read in conjunction with the previous version of CPGs for dementia. The focus of the present CPG is to provide suggestions and clinical tips to differentiate dementia syndrome from other clinical conditions, identify the subtypes of dementia and then offer suggestions for management. These guidelines only provide a broad framework for assessment, management and follow-up of older people with dementia. While most of the recommendations are evidence based, these guidelines should not be considered as a substitute of professional knowledge and clinical judgment. The recommendations made as part of these guidelines should be tailored to address the clinical needs of the individual patient and the treatment setting.

Neonatal Diabetes: Nurse Navigator Role

Neonatal Diabetes: Nurse Navigator Role

Quality of Aesthetic Experience and Implicit Modulating Factors

Quality of Aesthetic Experience and Implicit Modulating Factors

ICD-11 and DSM-5 personality trait domains capture categorical personality disorders: Finding a common ground.

The five personality disorder trait domains in the proposed International Classification of Diseases, 11th edition and the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 5th edition are comparable in terms of Negative Affectivity, Detachment, Antagonism/Dissociality and Disinhibition. However, the International Classification of Diseases, 11th edition model includes a separate domain of Anankastia, whereas the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 5th edition model includes an additional domain of Psychoticism. This study examined associations of International Classification of Diseases, 11th edition and Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 5th edition trait domains, simultaneously, with categorical personality disorders. Psychiatric outpatients ( N = 226) were administered the Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-IV Axis II Personality Disorders Interview and the Personality Inventory for DSM-5. International Classification of Diseases, 11th edition and Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 5th edition trait domain scores were obtained using pertinent scoring algorithms for the Personality Inventory for DSM-5. Associations between categorical personality disorders and trait domains were examined using correlation and multiple regression analyses. Both the International Classification of Diseases, 11th edition and the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 5th edition domain models showed relevant continuity with categorical personality disorders and captured a substantial amount of their information. As expected, the International Classification of Diseases, 11th edition model was superior in capturing obsessive-compulsive personality disorder, whereas the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 5th edition model was superior in capturing schizotypal personality disorder. These preliminary findings suggest that little information is 'lost' in a transition to trait domain models and potentially adds to narrowing the gap between Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 5th edition and the proposed International Classification of Diseases, 11th edition model. Accordingly, the International Classification of Diseases, 11th edition and Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 5th edition domain models may be used to delineate one another as well as features of familiar categorical personality disorder types. A preliminary category-to-domain 'cross walk' is provided in the article.

Exposure shapes the perception of affective touch

Touch is a common occurrence in our lives, where affective and inter-personal aspects of touch are important for our well-being. We investigated whether touch exposure affects hedonic and discriminative aspects of tactile perception. The perceived pleasantness and intensity of gentle forearm stroking, over different velocities, was assessed in individuals reporting to seldom receive inter-personal touch, and in controls who received touch often. The groups did not differ in their stroking intensity judgements, nor in tactile discrimination sensitivity; however, individuals with low touch exposure evaluated the pleasantness of touch differently. These individuals did not differentiate pleasantness over the stroking velocities in the same way as the control group. The pleasantness curve for the low touch exposure group was significantly flatter and they rated 3cm/s stroking as significantly less pleasant. Other physiological and questionnaire measures were obtained and the appreciation of touch from familiar persons was positively related to the pleasantness of touch in controls, but this was not found in low touch exposure individuals. This suggests that the association of human caresses from well-known individuals, with the pleasure derived, may depend on continued exposure to it.

Masking the Identities of Celebrities and Personally Familiar Individuals: Effects on Visual and Auditory Recognition Performance.

The current study compared the effectiveness of masking on recognition performance for faces and voices of celebrities and personally familiar individuals. On the basis of the theory suggesting stronger memory representations for personally familiar individuals, we expected masking to be more effective for celebrities than for personally familiar stimulus persons. Furthermore, we sought to replicate the face recognition advantage with masked stimuli. Face pixelation and electronic changes of the voice pitch were applied as masking techniques, using four masking levels for each stimulus. Thirty-one undergraduate students were presented with the masked faces and voices of 10 celebrities and 10 personally familiar fellow students. As expected, more correct recognitions occurred for faces than for voices, suggesting that masking does not counteract the mechanisms causing the face recognition advantage. Unexpectedly, masking effectiveness did not differ between celebrities and personally familiar individuals. This may be due to the type of personally familiar individuals used. Within personally familiar stimuli, increased familiarity did not predict the effectiveness of masking. Whereas the highest masking level eliminated speaker recognition, masking did not fully eliminate face recognition. From a practical perspective, the findings especially question the suitability of pixelation as a means for identity concealment.

Tracking the truth: the effect of face familiarity on eye fixations during deception.

In forensic investigations, suspects sometimes conceal recognition of a familiar person to protect co-conspirators or hide knowledge of a victim. The current experiment sought to determine whether eye fixations could be used to identify memory of known persons when lying about recognition of faces. Participants' eye movements were monitored whilst they lied and told the truth about recognition of faces that varied in familiarity (newly learned, famous celebrities, personally known). Memory detection by eye movements during recognition of personally familiar and famous celebrity faces was negligibly affected by lying, thereby demonstrating that detection of memory during lies is influenced by the prior learning of the face. By contrast, eye movements did not reveal lies robustly for newly learned faces. These findings support the use of eye movements as markers of memory during concealed recognition but also suggest caution when familiarity is only a consequence of one brief exposure.

An unusual delusion of duplication in a patient affected by Dementia with Lewy bodies

BackgroundDementia with Lewy bodies (DLB) is the second most frequent diagnosis of progressive degenerative dementia in older people. Delusions are common features in DLB and, among them, Capgras syndrome represents the most frequent disturbance, characterized by the recurrent and transient belief that a familiar person, often a close family member or caregiver, has been replaced by an identical-looking imposter. However, other delusional conditions near to misidentification syndromes can occur in DLB patients and may represent a major psychiatric disorder, although rarely studied systematically.Case presentationWe reported on a female patient affected by DLB who presented with an unusual delusion of duplication. Referring to the female professional caregiver engaged by her relatives for her care, the patient constantly described the presence of two different female persons, with a disorder framed in the context of a delusion of duplication.A brain 99Tc-hexamethylpropyleneamineoxime SPECT was performed showing moderate hypoperfusion in both occipital lobes, and associated with marked decreased perfusion in parieto-fronto-temporal lobes bilaterally.ConclusionsAn occipital hypoperfusion was identified, although in association with a marked global decrease of perfusion in the remaining lobes. The role of posterior lobes is certainly important in all misidentification syndromes where a natural dissociation between recognition and identification is present. Moreover, the concomitant presence of severe attentional and executive deficits evocative for a frontal syndrome and the marked global decrease of perfusion in the remaining lobes at the SPECT scan also suggest a possible dysfunction in an abnormal connectivity between anterior and posterior areas.

The role of familiarization in dynamic person recognition

ABSTRACTPerson recognition in real life is typically performed on dynamic whole people. Recent studies have indicated that the body and motion may contribute to person recognition beyond the face. In the current study, we examined the role of dynamic identity signatures—the idiosyncratic dynamic pattern of an individual—in unfamiliar and familiarized person recognition. To familiarize participants with the studied identities, we used an individuation training procedure and tested person recognition before and after training. In Experiment 1, participants studied people in motion and recognized them from dynamic or multi-static images (i.e., multiple still images taken from the video). We found that person recognition was better when people were recognized from dynamic than multi-static stimuli but only for familiarized people. These findings suggest that dynamic identity signatures may be used for familiar person recognition. In Experiment 2, we ruled out two alternative explanations by presenting multi-static images in study and testing recognition from dynamic or multi-static stimuli: lower recognition rates from dynamic stimuli following exposure to multi-static than dynamic stimuli indicated no evidence for a general advantage to recognition from video; lower recognition rates from multi-static stimuli following exposure to multi-static stimuli indicated no evidence for an advantage due to the congruence between the study and test media. We conclude that dynamic identity signatures may contribute to person recognition, but only of familiar people who were previously seen in motion.

The precuneus and hippocampus contribute to individual differences in the unfolding of spatial representations during episodic autobiographical memory

Spatial information is a central aspect of episodic autobiographical memory (EAM). Space-based theories of memory, including cognitive map and scene construction models, posit that spatial reinstatement is a required process during early event recall. Spatial information can be represented from both allocentric (third-person) and egocentric (first-person) perspectives during EAM, with egocentric perspectives being important for mental imagery and supported by the precuneus. Individuals differ in their tendency to rely on allocentric or egocentric information, and in general, the subjective experience of remembering in EAM differs greatly across individuals. Here we examined individual differences in spatial aspects of EAM, how such differences influence the vividness and temporal order of recollection, and their anatomical correlates. We cued healthy young participants (n =63) with personally familiar locations and non-locations. We examined how cue type affects (i) retrieval dynamics and (ii) phenomenological aspects of remembering, and related behavioural performance to regional brain volumes (n =42). Participants tended to spontaneously recall spatial information early during recollection, even in the absence of spatial cues, and individuals with a stronger tendency to recall space first also displayed faster reaction times. Across participants, place-cued memories were re-experienced more vividly and were richer in detail than those cued by objects, but not more than those cued by familiar persons. Volumetric differences were associated with behavioural performance such that egocentric remembering was positively associated with precuneus volume. Hippocampal CA2/CA3 volumes were associated with the tendency to recall place-cued memories less effortfully. Consistent with scene construction theories, this study suggests that spatial information is reinstated early and contributes to the efficiency and phenomenology of EAM. However, early recall of spatial information is not universal and other routes to recall exist, challenging some aspects of these models. Variability among participants highlights the importance of an individual differences approach to studying EAM.

Distinctiveness effects in self-prioritization

ABSTRACTThe prioritization of self-relevant information has been shown in different selective-attention paradigms. Recently, in a new paradigm, formerly neutral material was associated with the self, a familiar person, or a neutral instance and, in a following matching task, the self-associated pairings were prioritized. To test whether this self-prioritization effect (SPE) might be explained by two different types of distinctiveness (distinctiveness due to self-relevance and distinctiveness due to differences in the stimulus material), we manipulated both types of distinctiveness asymmetries in this paradigm. Three experiments provide evidence that distinctiveness asymmetry due to semantic/grammatical differences influenced response times and signal detection rates. The data also show that the SPE remained reliable when controlling for the influence of grammatical distinctiveness. Thus, the results suggest that distinctiveness asymmetries do play a role in the matching paradigm, however, the SPE in the matching task is more than just the recoding of salient content.

Audiovisual integration in familiar person recognition

ABSTRACTInterpersonal communication is a multimodal experience. Perceptual integration of information conveyed by voice and face has previously been demonstrated for speech comprehension and speaker localization. For instance, audiovisual (McGurk) illusions occur when perceiving an auditory syllable with a time-synchronized incongruent syllable in a visual facial articulation. However, despite a large body of research on audiovisual integration (AVI), researchers have only recently begun to consider the role of AVI for person recognition. In the present paper, Experiment 1 demonstrated systematic benefits and costs for recognition of familiar voices when combined with time-synchronized articulating faces of corresponding or noncorresponding speaker identity, respectively. By contrast, no costs (relative to auditory-only presentation) occurred when voices were combined with static noncorresponding faces. Moreover, this pattern was clear for familiar but not unfamiliar voices. In Experiment 2, smaller benefits and costs for familiar voices when combined with time-reversed (as compared to time-synchronized) facial articulations suggest a role of synchrony for AVI, over and above effects of facial motion per se. Experiment 3 demonstrated benefits, as well as a trend for costs, of familiar face recognition when faces were presented with voices of corresponding or noncorresponding identity. Overall, these results suggest that AVI is an important factor in the recognition of people, depends on familiarity with a speaker, shows sensitivity to temporal synchronization of the facial and vocal articulation, and can occur in a bidirectional manner.

Categorization-based stranger avoidance does not explain the uncanny valley effect

The uncanny valley hypothesis predicts that an entity appearing almost human risks eliciting cold, eerie feelings in viewers. Categorization-based stranger avoidance theory identifies the cause of this feeling as categorizing the entity into a novel category. This explanation is doubtful because stranger is not a novel category in adults; infants do not avoid strangers while the category stranger remains novel; infants old enough to fear strangers prefer photographs of strangers to those more closely resembling a familiar person; and the uncanny valley’s characteristic eeriness is seldom felt when meeting strangers. We repeated our original experiment with a more realistic 3D computer model and found no support for categorization-based stranger avoidance theory. By contrast, realism inconsistency theory explains cold, eerie feelings elicited by transitions between instances of two different, mutually exclusive categories, given that at least one category is anthropomorphic: Cold, eerie feelings are caused by prediction error from perceiving some features as features of the first category and other features as features of the second category. In principle, realism inconsistency theory can explain not only negative evaluations of transitions between real and computer modeled humans but also between different vertebrate species.