Identity Matching Research Articles

Automatic and Controlled Semantic Retrieval: TMS Reveals Distinct Contributions of Posterior Middle Temporal Gyrus and Angular Gyrus.

We demonstrate a novel functional dissociation between the angular gyrus (AG) and posterior middle temporal gyrus (pMTG) in conceptual processing. These sites are often coactivated during neuroimaging studies using semantic tasks, but their individual contributions are unclear. Using transcranial magnetic stimulation and tasks designed to assess different aspects of semantics (item identity and thematic matching), we tested two alternative theoretical accounts. Neither site showed the pattern expected for a "thematic hub" (i.e., a site storing associations between concepts) since stimulation disrupted both tasks. Instead, the data indicated that pMTG contributes to the controlled retrieval of conceptual knowledge, while AG is critical for the efficient automatic retrieval of specific semantic information.

Facial identity and facial expression are initially integrated at visual perceptual stages of face processing

It is frequently assumed that facial identity and facial expression are analysed in functionally and anatomically distinct streams within the core visual face processing system. To investigate whether expression and identity interact during the visual processing of faces, we employed a sequential matching procedure where participants compared either the identity or the expression of two successively presented faces, and ignored the other irrelevant dimension. Repetitions versus changes of facial identity and expression were varied independently across trials, and event-related potentials (ERPs) were recorded during task performance. Irrelevant facial identity and irrelevant expression both interfered with performance in the expression and identity matching tasks. These symmetrical interference effects show that neither identity nor expression can be selectively ignored during face matching, and suggest that they are not processed independently. N250r components to identity repetitions that reflect identity matching mechanisms in face-selective visual cortex were delayed and attenuated when there was an expression change, demonstrating that facial expression interferes with visual identity matching. These findings provide new evidence for interactions between facial identity and expression within the core visual processing system, and question the hypothesis that these two attributes are processed independently.

The Facial Expressive Action Stimulus Test. A test battery for the assessment of face memory, face and object perception, configuration processing, and facial expression recognition.

There are many ways to assess face perception skills. In this study, we describe a novel task battery FEAST (Facial Expressive Action Stimulus Test) developed to test recognition of identity and expressions of human faces as well as stimulus control categories. The FEAST consists of a neutral and emotional face memory task, a face and shoe identity matching task, a face and house part-to-whole matching task, and a human and animal facial expression matching task. The identity and part-to-whole matching tasks contain both upright and inverted conditions. The results provide reference data of a healthy sample of controls in two age groups for future users of the FEAST.

A hydrophobic proclivity index for protein alignments

Sequence alignment algorithms are fundamental to modern bioinformatics. Sequence alignments are widely used in diverse applications such as phylogenetic analysis, database searches for related sequences to aid identification of unknown protein domain structures and classification of proteins and protein domains. Additionally, alignment algorithms are integral to the location of related proteins to secure understanding of unknown protein functions, to suggest the folded structure of proteins of unknown structure from location of homologous proteins and/or by locating homologous domains of known 3D structure. For proteins, alignment algorithms depend on information about amino acid substitutions that allows for matching sequences that are similar, but not exact. When primary sequence percent identity falls below about 25%, algorithms often fail to identify proteins that may have similar 3D structure. We have created a hydrophobicity scale and a matching dynamic programming algorithm called TMATCH (unpublished report) that is able to match proteins with remote homologs with similar secondary/tertiary structure, even with very low primary sequence matches. In this paper, we describe how we arrived at the hydrophobic scale, how it provides much more information than percent identity matches and some of the implications for better alignments and understanding protein structure.

Super-recognisers in Action: Evidence from Face-matching and Face Memory Tasks.

SummaryIndividuals employed in forensic or security settings are often required to compare faces of ID holders to document photographs, or to recognise the faces of suspects in closed‐circuit television footage. It has long been established that both tasks produce a high error rate amongst typical perceivers. This study sought to determine the performance of individuals with exceptionally good face memory (‘super‐recognisers’) on applied facial identity matching and memory tasks. In experiment 1, super‐recognisers were significantly better than controls when matching target faces to simultaneously presented line‐ups. In experiment 2, super‐recognisers were also better at recognising faces from video footage. These findings suggest that super‐recognisers are more accurate at face matching and face memory tasks than typical perceivers, and they could be valuable expert employees in national security and forensic settings. © 2015 The Authors Applied Cognitive Psychology Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Monkeys head-gaze following is fast, precise and not fully suppressible.

Human eye-gaze is a powerful stimulus, drawing the observer's attention to places and objects of interest to someone else ('eye-gaze following'). The largely homogeneous eyes of monkeys, compromising the assessment of eye-gaze by conspecifics from larger distances, explain the absence of comparable eye-gaze following in these animals. Yet, monkeys are able to use peer head orientation to shift attention ('head-gaze following'). How similar are monkeys' head-gaze and human eye-gaze following? To address this question, we trained rhesus monkeys to make saccades to targets, either identified by the head-gaze of demonstrator monkeys or, alternatively, identified by learned associations between the demonstrators' facial identities and the targets (gaze versus identity following). In a variant of this task that occurred at random, the instruction to follow head-gaze or identity was replaced in the course of a trial by the new rule to detect a change of luminance of one of the saccade targets. Although this change-of-rule rendered the demonstrator portraits irrelevant, they nevertheless influenced performance, reflecting a precise redistribution of spatial attention. The specific features depended on whether the initial rule was head-gaze or identity following: head-gaze caused an insuppressible shift of attention to the target gazed at by the demonstrator, whereas identity matching prompted much later shifts of attention, however, only if the initial rule had been identity following. Furthermore, shifts of attention prompted by head-gaze were spatially precise. Automaticity and swiftness, spatial precision and limited executive control characterizing monkeys' head-gaze following are key features of human eye-gaze following. This similarity supports the notion that both may rely on the same conserved neural circuitry.

Facilitating Targeted Open Innovation by Applying Pragmatic Identity Matching

How can Targeted Open Innovation (TOI) systematically be implemented in a company or organisation? Meeting Chesbrough’s paradigm of Open Innovation, Erbach’s concept of Pragmatic Identity Matching combines the pragmatism of Charles Peirce and identity research to provide a standard operation system for TOI with broad applicability. It integrates and interrelates internal and external knowledge and resources in a transparent way. Based on the semiotic model developed by Peirce and on the understanding of identity development according to social psychology, the Matrix for Identity Matching, as the central element of Pragmatic Identity Matching, facilitates intra- and inter-organisational content integration. It represents the value-neutral integration infrastructure to provide a virtual developmental space and database for information exchange, scenario development, problem solution and innovation. The focus of this article lies in matching corporate TOI development with customer needs and market requirements to ensure acceptance of the outcome. The paper describes the theory and methodology of Pragmatic Identity Matching as a collaborative knowledge platform and interaction interface. To demonstrate its versatile applicability for TOI planning, Pragmatic Identity Matching is applied to key actors of innovation development according to the concept of the Quintuple Innovation Helix of Carayannis and Campbell. The paper concludes with a vision for developing sustainable innovation within a holistic Identity Matching infrastructure.

Facial misidentifications arise from the erroneous activation of visual face memory

Misidentifications are a common phenomenon in unfamiliar face processing, but little is known about the underlying cognitive and neural mechanisms. We used the face identity-sensitive N250r component of the event-related brain potential as a measure of identity-sensitive face matching process in visual working memory. Two face images were presented in rapid succession, and participants had to judge whether they showed the same or two different individuals. Identity match and mismatch trials were presented in random sequence. On similar mismatch trials, perceptually similar faces of two different individuals were shown, while two physically distinct faces were presented on dissimilar mismatch trials. Misidentification errors occurred on 40% of all similar mismatch trials. N250r components were elicited not only in response to an identity match, but also on trials with misidentification errors. This misidentification N250r was smaller and emerged later than the N250r to correctly detected identity repetitions. Importantly, N250r components were entirely eliminated on similar mismatch trials where participants correctly reported two different facial identities. Results show that misidentification errors are not primarily a post-perceptual decision-related phenomenon, but are generated during early visual stages of identity-related face processing. Misidentification errors occur when stored representations of a particular individual face in visual working memory are incorrectly activated by a perceptual match with a different face.

A closer look at cognitive control: differences in resource allocation during updating, inhibition and switching as revealed by pupillometry.

The present study investigated resource allocation, as measured by pupil dilation, in tasks measuring updating (2-Back task), inhibition (Stroop task) and switching (Number Switch task). Because each cognitive control component has unique characteristics, differences in patterns of resource allocation were expected. Pupil and behavioral data from 35 participants were analyzed. In the 2-Back task (requiring correct matching of current stimulus identity at trial p with the stimulus two trials back, p −2) we found that better performance (low total of errors made in the task) was positively correlated to the mean pupil dilation during correctly responding to targets. In the Stroop task, pupil dilation on incongruent trials was higher than those on congruent trials. Incongruent vs. congruent trial pupil dilation differences were positively related to reaction time differences between incongruent and congruent trials. Furthermore, on congruent Stroop trials, pupil dilation was negatively related to reaction times, presumably because more effort allocation paid off in terms of faster responses. In addition, pupil dilation on correctly-responded-to congruent trials predicted a weaker Stroop interference effect in terms of errors, probably because pupil dilation on congruent trials were diagnostic of task motivation, resulting in better performance. In the Number Switch task we found higher pupil dilation in switch as compared to non-switch trials. On the Number Switch task, pupil dilation was not related to performance. We also explored error-related pupil dilation in all tasks. The results provide new insights in the diversity of the cognitive control components in terms of resource allocation as a function of individual differences, task difficulty and error processing.

Spinal Locomotor Circuits Develop Using Hierarchical Rules Based on Motorneuron Position and Identity

The coordination of multi-muscle movements originates in the circuitry that regulates the firing patterns of spinal motorneurons. Sensory neurons rely on the musculotopic organization of motorneurons to establish orderly connections, prompting us to examine whether the intraspinal circuitry that coordinates motor activity likewise uses cell position as an internal wiring reference. We generated a motorneuron-specific GCaMP6f mouse line and employed two-photon imaging to monitor the activity of lumbar motorneurons. We show that the central pattern generator neural network coordinately drives rhythmic columnar-specific motorneuron bursts at distinct phases of the locomotor cycle. Using multiple genetic strategies to perturb the subtype identity and orderly position of motorneurons, we found that neurons retained their rhythmic activity-but cell position was decoupled from the normal phasing pattern underlying flexion and extension. These findings suggest a hierarchical basis of motor circuit formation that relies on increasingly stringent matching of neuronal identity and position.

Emergent identity but not symmetry following successive olfactory discrimination training in rats.

The search for symmetry in nonhuman subjects has been successful in recent studies in pigeons (e.g., Urcuioli, 2008). The key to these successes has been the use of successive discrimination procedures and combined training on identity, as well as arbitrary, baseline relations. The present study was an effort to extend the findings and theoretical analysis developed by Urcuioli and his colleagues to rats using olfactory rather than visual stimuli. Experiment 1 was a systematic replication of Urcuioli's (2008) demonstration of symmetry in pigeons. Rats were exposed to unreinforced symmetry probes following training with two arbitrary and four identity conditional discriminations. Response rates on symmetry probe trials were low and provided little evidence for emergent symmetry in any of the seven rats tested. In Experiment 2, a separate group of six rats was trained on four identity relations and was then exposed to probe trials with four novel odor stimuli. Response rates were high on identity probe trials, and low on nonmatching probe trials. The similar patterns of responding on baseline and probe trials that were shown by most rats provided a demonstration of generalized identity matching. These findings suggest that the development of stimulus control topographies in rats with olfactory stimuli may differ from those that emerge in pigeons with visual stimuli. Urcuioli's (2008) theory has been highly successful in predicting conditions necessary for stimulus class formation in pigeons, but may not be sufficient to fully understand determinants of emergent behaviors in other nonhuman species.

Gymnodinium catenatum Graham isolated from the Portuguese coast: Toxin content and genetic characterization

The bloom forming marine dinoflagellate Gymnodinium catenatum Graham has been linked to paralytic shellfish poisoning (PSP) outbreaks in humans. Along the Portuguese coast (NE Atlantic), G. catenatum shows a complex bloom pattern, raising questions about the origin and affinities of each bloom population. In this work, the variability within six cultured strains of G. catenatum isolated from Portuguese coastal waters (S coast, W coast and NW coast), between 1999 and 2011, was investigated. The strains were analyzed for toxin profiling and intra-specific genetic diversity. Regarding the toxin profile, differences recorded between strains could not be assigned to the time of isolation or geographical origin. The parameter that most influenced the toxin profile was the life-cycle stage that originated the culture: vegetative cell versus hypnozygote (resting cyst). At the genetic level, all strains showed similar sequences for the D1–D2 region of the large subunit (LSU) of the nuclear ribosomal DNA (rDNA) and shared complete identity with strains from Spain, Algeria, China and Australia. Conversely, we did not find a total identity match for the ITS-5.8S nuclear rDNA fragment. After sequence analysis, two guanine/adenine (R) single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNP 1 and 2) were detected for all strains, in the ITS1 region. This species has been reported to present very conservative LSU and ITS-5.8S rDNA regions, though with few SNP, including SNP1 of this study, already attributed to strains from certain locations. The SNP here described characterize G. catenatum populations from Portuguese waters and may represent valuable genetic markers for studies on the phylogeography of this species.

Activity in the right fusiform face area predicts the behavioural advantage for the perception of familiar faces

People are extremely proficient at discriminating the identity of familiar faces, but are significantly worse with unfamiliar faces. Despite this clear behavioural difference in perception, the neural correlates of the advantage for familiar faces remain unclear. Here, we use an individual differences approach to explore the link between neural responses in face-selective regions and the behavioural advantage for the perception of familiar faces. First, we compared performance on an identity matching task with either familiar or unfamiliar faces. We found that participants were significantly better at matching the identity of familiar compared to unfamiliar faces. Next, we used fMRI to measure the response to familiar and unfamiliar faces. Consistent with the behavioural data, there was a significant difference in the neural response to familiar and unfamiliar faces in face-selective regions. Finally, we asked whether interindividual variation in behavioural performance could be predicted by corresponding variation in fMRI response. We found a significant correlation in the right fusiform face area (rFFA) between the difference in response to familiar and unfamiliar faces and corresponding differences on the face-matching task. That is, participants who showed a larger response to familiar compared to unfamiliar faces in the rFFA also matched familiar faces much more accurately than unfamiliar faces. No other face-selective region showed a correlation between neural and matching accuracy. These results provide a link between activity in the rFFA and the perception of familiar faces.

Contrôle automatisé de l’exhaustivité du registre breton des malformations congénitales à partir des données des bases médico-administratives des établissements de santé

BackgroundExhaustiveness is required for registries. In the Breton registry of congenital abnormalities, cases are recorded at the source. We use hospital discharge data in order to verify the completeness of the registry. In this paper, we present a computerized tool for completeness assessment applied to the Breton registry. MethodsAll the medical information departments were solicited once a year, asking for infant medical stays for newborns alive at one year old and for mother's stays if not. Files were transmitted by secure messaging and data were processed on a secure server. An identity-matching algorithm was applied and a similarity score calculated. When the record was not linked automatically or manually, the medical record had to be consulted. The exhaustiveness rate was assessed using the capture recapture method and the proportion of cases matched manually was used to assess the identity matching algorithm. ResultsThe computerized tool bas been used in common practice since June 2012 by the registry investigators. The results presented concerned the years 2011 and 2012. There were 470 potential cases identified from the hospital discharge data in 2011 and 538 in 2012, 35 new cases were detected in 2011 (32 children born alive and 3 stillborn), and 33 in 2012 (children born alive). There were respectively 85 and 137 false-positive cases. The theorical exhaustiveness rate reached 91% for both years. The rate of exact matching amounted to 68%; 6% of the potential cases were linked manually. ConclusionHospital discharge databases contribute to the quality of the registry even though reports are made at the source. The implemented tool facilitates the investigator's work. In the future, use of the national identifying number, when allowed, should facilitate linkage between registry data and hospital discharge data.

Evaluation of Bar, Barnase, and Barstar recombinant proteins expressed in genetically engineered Brassica juncea (Indian mustard) for potential risks of food allergy using bioinformatics and literature searches

The potential allergenicity of Bar, Barnase, and Barstar recombinant proteins expressed in genetically engineered mustard for pollination control in plant breeding was evaluated for regulatory review. To evaluate the potential allergenicity of the Bar, Barnase and Barstar proteins amino acid sequence comparisons were made to those of known and putative allergens, and search for published evidence to the sources of the genes using the AllergenOnline.org database. Initial comparisons in 2012 were performed with version 12 by methods recommended by the Codex Alimentarius Commission and the Indian Council of Medical Research, Government of India. Searches were repeated with version 15 in 2015. A literature search was performed using PubMed to identify reports of allergy associated with the sources of the three transgenes. Potential open reading frames at the DNA insertion site were evaluated for matches to allergens. No significant sequence identity matches were identified with Bar, Barnase or Barstar proteins or potential fusion peptides at the genomic-insert junctions compared to known allergens. No references were identified that associated the sources of the genes with allergy. Based on these results we conclude that the Bar, Barnase and Barstar proteins are unlikely to present any significant risk of food allergy to consumers.

GENERALIZED IDENTITY MATCHING IN THE PIGEON: ROLE OF EXTENDED OBSERVING- AND CHOICE-RESPONSE REQUIREMENTS

Four experimentally naive White Carneau pigeons matched three hues to each other in a variant of an identity matching-to-sample procedure with a fixed-ratio 20 on samples and a response-initiated fixed-interval 8 s on comparisons. The extent to which the pigeons were matching on the basis of identity was assessed by presenting, in extinction, test trials comprising novel stimuli serving as the sample and comparison stimuli. When the test trials were comprised only of novel stimuli, three out of the four pigeons demonstrated substantially above-chance levels of accuracy. These data suggest that the extended observing- and choice-response requirements facilitate the development of generalized identity matching performance.

Item-nonspecific proactive interference in monkeys' auditory short-term memory

Recent studies using the delayed matching-to-sample (DMS) paradigm indicate that monkeys' auditory short-term memory (STM) is susceptible to proactive interference (PI). During the task, subjects must indicate whether sample and test sounds separated by a retention interval are identical (match) or not (nonmatch). If a nonmatching test stimulus also occurred on a previous trial, monkeys are more likely to incorrectly make a “match” response (item-specific PI). However, it is not known whether PI may be caused by sounds presented on prior trials that are similar, but nonidentical to the current test stimulus (item-nonspecific PI). This possibility was investigated in two experiments. In Experiment 1, memoranda for each trial comprised tones with a wide range of frequencies, thus minimizing item-specific PI and producing a range of frequency differences among nonidentical tones. In Experiment 2, memoranda were drawn from a set of eight artificial sounds that differed from each other by one, two, or three acoustic dimensions (frequency, spectral bandwidth, and temporal dynamics). Results from both experiments indicate that subjects committed more errors when previously-presented sounds were acoustically similar (though not identical) to the test stimulus of the current trial. Significant effects were produced only by stimuli from the immediately previous trial, suggesting that item-nonspecific PI is less perseverant than item-specific PI, which can extend across noncontiguous trials. Our results contribute to existing human and animal STM literature reporting item-nonspecific PI caused by perceptual similarity among memoranda. Together, these observations underscore the significance of both temporal and discriminability factors in monkeys' STM.

Efficient identity matching using static pruning q-gram indexing approach

Information overload is a growing problem for information management and analytics in many organizations. Identity matching techniques are used to manage and resolve millions of identity records in diverse domains such as health care information, telecom subscribers, insurance holders, law offenders, and the census. In this paper, we propose an identity matching technique that is efficient for large datasets without compromising matching effectiveness. Our experimental results provide strong evidence that our proposed identity matching technique outperforms the adaptive detection identity matching technique in terms of efficiency and effectiveness, reducing the number of required comparisons by almost 98% and the completion time by 97%, with promising scalability results. Furthermore, our proposed technique achieves better matching results than the most trusted pairwise identity matching approach.

Cognitive representations and cognitive processing of team-specific tactics in soccer.

Two core elements for the coordination of different actions in sport are tactical information and knowledge about tactical situations. The current study describes two experiments to learn about the memory structure and the cognitive processing of tactical information. Experiment 1 investigated the storage and structuring of team-specific tactics in humans’ long-term memory with regard to different expertise levels. Experiment 2 investigated tactical decision-making skills and the corresponding gaze behavior, in presenting participants the identical match situations in a reaction time task. The results showed that more experienced soccer players, in contrast to less experienced soccer players, possess a functionally organized cognitive representation of team-specific tactics in soccer. Moreover, the more experienced soccer players reacted faster in tactical decisions, because they needed less fixations of similar duration as compared to less experienced soccer players. Combined, these experiments offer evidence that a functionally organized memory structure leads to a reaction time and a perceptual advantage in tactical decision-making in soccer. The discussion emphasizes theoretical and applied implications of the current results of the study.

Event-related potential responses to letter-string comparison analogies.

Previous studies have used analogy completion tasks (e.g., abe is to abf as ijk is to what?) to examine the event-related potential (ERP) parameters of analogical reasoning. In the present study, ERP responses to analogies were investigated using an analogy comparison task (e.g., is abe to abf as ijk is to ijl?), with a focus on structural evaluation. The results showed that the identical match task elicited an N2 component with smaller amplitude than that of the N2 component in the zero- and one-step consistent analogies, reflecting automatic match detection. The data also showed that there were significant differences in the N400 during the consistent and inconsistent analogies, which may reflect a delayed perceptual mismatch with semantic strategies. Moreover, one-step consistent analogies evoked smaller late positive component (LPC) amplitudes than that evoked by identical match or zero-step consistent analogies in the 500- to 800-ms time interval, and one-step inconsistent analogies elicited smaller amplitude LPCs than that elicited by zero-step inconsistent analogies in the 500- to 750-ms time interval, which suggested that LPCs reflected structure evaluation in analogy comparison tasks.