Familiar Process Research Articles

Context and Time Matter: Effects of Emotion and Motivation on Episodic Memory Overtime.

Previous studies have shown that compared with neutral cues, stimuli with positive and negative/stressful contexts or reward and punishment cues are remembered better. However, it is unclear whether the enhanced effect differs in emotion or motivation dimensions and the passage of time. We addressed these issues by manipulating different contextual cues for neutral words at different time intervals. In experiment 1, subjects were asked to learn words with picture contexts in positive, negative/stressful, and neutral valences and were tested by old/new word recognition and contextual judgment 10 min, 1 day, and 1 week later. In experiment 2, the reward and punishment motivations were manipulated by monetary cues during learning. Word recognition and contextual judgment were assessed 10 min, 1 day, 1 week, and 1 month after the study. Compared with negative and punishment conditions, the words in positive and reward contexts were recognized better at shorter intervals, which was associated with recollection process. In contrast, the words in negative and punishment contexts were recognized better at longer intervals, which was mainly associated with familiarity process. These results clarified how different dimensions of emotional and motivational contexts influence memory at short and long intervals and highlighted the role of contextual features in memory formation and consolidation.

Algorithmic reputation and information equity

ABSTRACTIn this paper I offer a theory of reputation and information systems. As a form of human judgement and a tool for decision making, I argue that the social process of reputation plays a central role in essential human functions and that one's ability to control reputation is a mark of power over important decisions concerning one's fate. Algorithmic reputation can be understood as a type of reputation that has been transformed from a familiar and visible interpersonal process to a commodified and remote data process. I argue that we ought to evaluate algorithmic reputation as the digital expression of the social process of reputation and situate it within existing moral obligations and interests. Reputations can be fraught with error and bias but perform vital social and economic functions nonetheless. Reputation absolutists would require that we subsume any concerns about reputational fairness, such as the risk of disparate effects on members of marginalized social groups, to the ideals of information transparency and business efficiency. I conclude that we risk enshrining societal inequity as algorithmic destiny by committing to the absolutist position on reputational transparency, posing serious risks to the functioning of a free and fair information society.

An Event Related Potentials Study of Semantic Coherence Effect during Episodic Encoding in Schizophrenia Patients.

The objective of this electrophysiological study was to investigate the processing of semantic coherence during encoding in relation to episodic memory processes promoted at test, in schizophrenia patients, by using the N400 paradigm. Eighteen schizophrenia patients and 15 healthy participants undertook a recognition memory task. The stimuli consisted of pairs of words either semantically related or unrelated to a given category name (context). During encoding, both groups exhibited an N400 external semantic coherence effect. Healthy controls also showed an N400 internal semantic coherence effect, but this effect was not present in patients. At test, related stimuli were accompanied by an FN400 old/new effect in both groups and by a parietal old/new effect in the control group alone. In the patient group, external semantic coherence effect was associated with FN400, while, in the control group, it was correlated to the parietal old/new effect. Our results indicate that schizophrenia patients can process the contextual information at encoding to enhance familiarity process for related stimuli at test. Therefore, cognitive rehabilitation therapies targeting the implementation of semantic encoding strategies can mobilize familiarity which in turn can overcome the recollection deficit, promoting successful episodic memory performance in schizophrenia patients.

ПОРІВНЯЛЬНИЙ АНАЛІЗ ПРОФЕСІЙНОЇ ПІДГОТОВКИ СТУДЕНТІВ І КУРСУ СПЕЦІАЛЬНОСТІ «ФАРМАЦІЯ» В УКРАЇНІ ТА НІМЕЧЧИНІ

Мета роботи. Вивчення процесу ознайомлення студентів І курсу фармацевтичних факультетів з майбутньою спеціальністю у вищому навчальному закладі (ВНЗ) порівняно з аналогічним курсом Боннського університету (Німеччина).Матеріали і методи. Використано нормативно-правову базу, що регулює освітній процес в Україні та Німеччині: проведено аналіз організації підготовки студентів фармацевтичних факультетів. Для порівняльного аналізу обрано фармацевтичний факультет Боннського університету (Німеччина).Результати й обговорення. Встановлено, що відмінності у дисциплінах, які дають можливість ознайомити студентів-магістрів із майбутньою спеціальністю, є незначними, а саме більше теоретичного матеріалу, що можна пояснити відносно молодим періодом становлення фармації в Україні. Перевагою у підготовці вітчизняних студентів є проходження практичної підготовки на базі навчально-виробничої аптеки, що сприяє адаптації майбутніх випускників на робочому місці.Висновки. Дисципліна «Вступ у фармацію» забезпечує ознайомлення першокурсників фармацевтичних факультетів з особливостями фармацевтичної справи аналогічно як і в європейському університеті м. Бонн (Німеччина) під час вивчення курсу «Arzneimittelformenlehre».

Familiarity matters: A review on prioritized processing of personally familiar faces

ABSTRACTIn this review, we synthesize the existing literature investigating personally familiar face processing and highlight the remarkable, enhanced processing efficiency resulting from real-life experience. Highly learned identity-specific visual and semantic information associated with personally familiar face representations facilitates detection, recognition of identity and social cues, and activation of person knowledge. These optimizations afford qualitatively different processing of personally familiar as compared to unfamiliar faces, which manifests on both the behavioural and neural level.

Syngas production in chemical looping reforming process over ZrO2 promoted Mn-based catalyst

Chemical looping reforming (CLR) of methane is a familiar process for the production syngas or hydrogen, which could be applied as one of the most important energy sources. In this process, reforming of methane takes place in the fuel reactor in contact with lattice oxygen of oxygen carriers (OCs), while the reduced OCs are re-oxidized in the air reactor. In this study, two different alumina supports are promoted using zirconium oxide to improve Mn-based oxygen carriers. Different synthesized oxygen carriers were evaluated in CO2-modified chemical looping reforming process at different conditions such as reaction temperature (500–750°C), CH4/CO2 ratio (0.5–3), alumina support base, ZrO2 position and manganese loading weight percentage (10–30). The presence of ZrO2 in the support structure significantly inhibited the deposition of coke on the surface of oxygen carrier. The characterization and process results revealed the noteworthy effect of Zr incorporation to the structure of alumina support. The redox results revealed that 20Mn/20Zr-Al oxygen carrier exhibited the highest activity even at low reduction temperatures. This oxygen carrier exposed the highest activity and stability with lowest coke deposition during 16 redox cycles at 650°C. The methane and CO2 conversion, H2 yield and H2/CO molar ratio of about 99.0%, 96.6%, 65.2% and 2.55 were achieved at 650°C using the optimized oxygen carrier. The synthesized samples were characterized by X-ray powder diffraction (XRD), field emission scanning electron microscopy (FESEM), energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDX), transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and N2 adsorption–desorption (BET) techniques.

Item and source memory for emotional associates is mediated by different retrieval processes

Recent event-related potential (ERP) data showed that neutral objects encoded in emotional background pictures were better remembered than objects encoded in neutral contexts, when recognition memory was tested one week later. In the present study, we investigated whether this long-term memory advantage for items is also associated with correct memory for contextual source details. Furthermore, we were interested in the possibly dissociable contribution of familiarity and recollection processes (using a Remember/Know procedure). The results revealed that item memory performance was mainly driven by the subjective experience of familiarity, irrespective of whether the objects were previously encoded in emotional or neutral contexts. Correct source memory for the associated background picture, however, was driven by recollection and enhanced when the content was emotional. In ERPs, correctly recognized old objects evoked frontal ERP Old/New effects (300–500 ms), irrespective of context category. As in our previous study (Ventura-Bort et al., 2016b), retrieval for objects from emotional contexts was associated with larger parietal Old/New differences (600–800 ms), indicating stronger involvement of recollection. Thus, the results suggest a stronger contribution of recollection-based retrieval to item and contextual background source memory for neutral information associated with an emotional event.

Early Adverse Caregiving Experiences and Preschoolers' Current Attachment Affect Brain Responses during Facial Familiarity Processing: An ERP Study.

When being placed into more benign environments like foster care, children from adverse rearing backgrounds are capable of forming attachment relationships to new caregivers within the first year of placement, while certain problematic social behaviors appear to be more persistent. Assuming that early averse experiences shape neural circuits underlying social behavior, neurophysiological studies on individual differences in early social-information processing have great informative value. More precisely, ERP studies have repeatedly shown face processing to be sensitive to experience especially regarding the caregiving background. However, studies on effects of early adverse caregiving experiences are restricted to children with a history of institutionalization. Also, no study has investigated effects of attachment security as a marker of the quality of the caregiver-child relationship. Thus, the current study asks how adverse caregiving experiences and attachment security to (new) caregivers affect early- and mid-latency ERPs sensitive to facial familiarity processing. Therefore, pre-school aged foster children during their second year within the foster home were compared to an age matched control group. Attachment was assessed using the AQS and neurophysiological data was collected during a passive viewing task presenting (foster) mother and stranger faces. Foster children were comparable to the control group with regard to attachment security. On a neurophysiological level, however, the foster group showed dampened N170 amplitudes for both face types. In both foster and control children, dampened N170 amplitudes were also found for stranger as compared to (foster) mother faces, and, for insecurely attached children as compared to securely attached children. This neural pattern may be viewed as a result of poorer social interactions earlier in life. Still, there was no effect on P1 amplitudes. Indicating heightened attentional processing, Nc amplitude responses to stranger faces were found to be enhanced in foster as compared to control children. Also, insecurely attached children allocated more attentional resources for the neural processing of mother faces. The study further confirms that early brain development is highly sensitive to the quality of caregiving. The findings are also relevant from a developmental perspective as miswiring of neural circuits may possibly play a critical role in children's psycho-social adjustment.

Photovoice as a listening mode: subsidies for the promotion of equity.

Health Promotion observations of patients from a Rehabilitation Center in rural São Paulo evidenced that these people faced difficulties in dealing with their physical limitations when these prevented them from working. This study aimed to broaden listening methods to facilitate dialogue with people in situations of physical frailty and removal from their work activities, using Photovoice, a participatory research-action method, as a tool and Health Promotion's theoretical framework. Images captured and reports that accompanied them consisted of the material of this study. Two thematic categories stood out: the expert decision; and physical condition: vanity, power and hope. Labor activity is perceived as a determinant of individuals' introduction in their environment and defines their role in the family and in the social field. Faced with disability, they feel deprived of their identity, vulnerable and without future prospects of social reintegration, an individual and familiar misfit process, but without social visibility and with negative consequences for global health is observed. Photovoice proved to be effective in apprehending perceptions and stimulating debate, providing essential inputs to promote equity in socially disadvantaged groups.

Chasing the Rainbow: The Non-conscious Nature of Being.

Despite the compelling subjective experience of executive self-control, we argue that “consciousness” contains no top-down control processes and that “consciousness” involves no executive, causal, or controlling relationship with any of the familiar psychological processes conventionally attributed to it. In our view, psychological processing and psychological products are not under the control of consciousness. In particular, we argue that all “contents of consciousness” are generated by and within non-conscious brain systems in the form of a continuous self-referential personal narrative that is not directed or influenced in any way by the “experience of consciousness.” This continuously updated personal narrative arises from selective “internal broadcasting” of outputs from non-conscious executive systems that have access to all forms of cognitive processing, sensory information, and motor control. The personal narrative provides information for storage in autobiographical memory and is underpinned by constructs of self and agency, also created in non-conscious systems. The experience of consciousness is a passive accompaniment to the non-conscious processes of internal broadcasting and the creation of the personal narrative. In this sense, personal awareness is analogous to the rainbow which accompanies physical processes in the atmosphere but exerts no influence over them. Though it is an end-product created by non-conscious executive systems, the personal narrative serves the powerful evolutionary function of enabling individuals to communicate (externally broadcast) the contents of internal broadcasting. This in turn allows recipients to generate potentially adaptive strategies, such as predicting the behavior of others and underlies the development of social and cultural structures, that promote species survival. Consequently, it is the capacity to communicate to others the contents of the personal narrative that confers an evolutionary advantage—not the experience of consciousness (personal awareness) itself.

Haptic experience design: What hapticians do and where they need help

From simple vibrations to roles in complex multisensory systems, haptic technology is often a critical, expected component of user experience – one face of the rapid progression towards blended physical-digital interfaces. Haptic experience design, which is woven together with other multisensory design efforts, interfaces is now becoming part of many designers' jobs. We can expect it to present unique challenges, and yet we know almost nothing of what it looks like “in the wild” due to the field's relative youth, its technical complexity, the multisensory interactions between haptics, sight, and sound, and the difficulty of accessing practitioners in professional and proprietary environments. In this paper, we analyze interviews with six professional haptic designers to document and articulate haptic experience design by observing designers' goals and processes and finding themes at three levels of scope: the multisensory nature of haptic experiences, a map of the collaborative ecosystem, and the cultural context of haptics. Our findings are augmented by feedback obtained in a recent design workshop at an international haptics conference. We find that haptic designers follow a familiar design process, but face specific challenges when working with haptics. We capture and summarize these challenges, make concrete recommendations to conquer them, and present a vision for the future of haptic experience design.

Intact perceptual ability, but impaired familiarity judgment, after neonatal perirhinal lesions in rhesus macaques

The perirhinal cortex is known to support high-level perceptual abilities as well as familiarity judgments that may affect recognition memory. We tested whether poor perceptual abilities or a loss of familiarity judgment contributed to the recognition memory impairments reported earlier in monkeys with PRh lesions received in infancy (Neo-PRh) (Weiss and Bachevalier, 2016; Zeamer et al., 2015). Perceptual abilities were assessed using a version of the Visual Paired Comparison task with black&white (B&W) stimuli, and familiarity judgments were assessed using the Constant Negative task requiring repeated familiarization exposures. Adult monkeys with Neo-PRh lesions were able to recognize B&W stimuli after short delays, suggesting that their perceptual abilities were within the range of control animals. However, the same Neo-PRh monkeys were slower to acquire the Constant Negative task, requiring more exposures to objects before judging them as familiar compared to control animals. Taken together, the data help to account for the differential patterns of functional compensation on previously reported recognition tasks following neonatal versus adult-onset PRh lesions, and provide further support to the view that the PRh is involved in familiarity processes.

Accelerated Long-Term Forgetting Limited to the Recollection Component of Recognition Memory in a Temporal Lobe Epileptic Patient

ABSTRACTAccelerated long-term forgetting (ALF) is a frequent finding in patients with temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE). Here we report the case of a TLE patient who complained of marked difficulties in remembering personal events and information even though repeated neuropsychological assessments had failed to detect any deficit on common laboratory memory tests. The patient underwent an experimental investigation that involved estimating recollection and familiarity processes in the performance on verbal and visual recognition tests, over intervals ranging from 10 minutes to 7 days. Results showed accelerated forgetting confined to the recollection component only, which was particularly evident in the verbal test.

Human Novelty Response to Emotional Animal Vocalizations: Effects of Phylogeny and Familiarity.

Darwin (1872) postulated that emotional expressions contain universals that are retained across species. We recently showed that human rating responses were strongly affected by a listener's familiarity with vocalization types, whereas evidence for universal cross-taxa emotion recognition was limited. To disentangle the impact of evolutionarily retained mechanisms (phylogeny) and experience-driven cognitive processes (familiarity), we compared the temporal unfolding of event-related potentials (ERPs) in response to agonistic and affiliative vocalizations expressed by humans and three animal species. Using an auditory oddball novelty paradigm, ERPs were recorded in response to task-irrelevant novel sounds, comprising vocalizations varying in their degree of phylogenetic relationship and familiarity to humans. Vocalizations were recorded in affiliative and agonistic contexts. Offline, participants rated the vocalizations for valence, arousal, and familiarity. Correlation analyses revealed a significant correlation between a posteriorly distributed early negativity and arousal ratings. More specifically, a contextual category effect of this negativity was observed for human infant and chimpanzee vocalizations but absent for other species vocalizations. Further, a significant correlation between the later and more posteriorly P3a and P3b responses and familiarity ratings indicates a link between familiarity and attentional processing. A contextual category effect of the P3b was observed for the less familiar chimpanzee and tree shrew vocalizations. Taken together, these findings suggest that early negative ERP responses to agonistic and affiliative vocalizations may be influenced by evolutionary retained mechanisms, whereas the later orienting of attention (positive ERPs) may mainly be modulated by the prior experience.

The effects of familiarity on escape responses in the Trinidadian guppy (Poecilia reticulata).

Predation is the main cause of mortality during early life stages. The ability to avoid and evade potential threats is, therefore, favoured to evolve during the early stages of life. It is also during these early stages that the process of familiarization occurs. It has long been recognized that associating with familiar individuals confers antipredator benefits. Yet gaps in our knowledge remain about how predator evasion is affected by social experience during early stages. In this study, we test the hypothesis that familiarization acquired during early life stages improves escape responses. Using the guppy Poecilia reticulata, we examine the effect of different recent social conditions in the three main components of predator evasion. Using high-speed motion analysis, we compared the number of individuals in each test group that responded to a visual stimulus, their reactive distance and magnitude of their response (maximum speed, maximum acceleration and distance) in groups composed either of familiar or non-familiar individuals. Contrary to the prediction, groups composed of familiar individuals were less responsive than groups of unfamiliar individuals. Reactive distance and magnitude of response were more dependent on individual size rather than on familiarity. Larger individuals reached higher maximum speeds and total distances in their escape response. Our result indicates that familiarity is likely to affect behaviour earlier in a predator-prey interaction, which then affects the behavioural component of the response. Taken together, our study contributes to previous ones by distinguishing which components of an escape response are modulated by familiarity.

Self-Referential Information Alleviates Retrieval Inhibition of Directed Forgetting Effects-An ERP Evidence of Source Memory.

Directed forgetting (DF) assists in preventing outdated information from interfering with cognitive processing. Previous studies pointed that self-referential items alleviated DF effects due to the elaboration of encoding processes. However, the retrieval mechanism of this phenomenon remains unknown. Based on the dual-process framework of recognition, the retrieval of self-referential information was involved in familiarity and recollection. Using source memory tasks combined with event-related potential (ERP) recording, our research investigated the retrieval processes of alleviative DF effects elicited by self-referential information. The FN400 (frontal negativity at 400 ms) is a frontal potential at 300–500 ms related to familiarity and the late positive complex (LPC) is a later parietal potential at 500–800 ms related to recollection. The FN400 effects of source memory suggested that familiarity processes were promoted by self-referential effects without the modulation of to-be-forgotten (TBF) instruction. The ERP results of DF effects were involved with LPCs of source memory, which indexed retrieval processing of recollection. The other-referential source memory of TBF instruction caused the absence of LPC effects, while the self-referential source memory of TBF instruction still elicited the significant LPC effects. Therefore, our neural findings suggested that self-referential processing improved both familiarity and recollection. Furthermore, the self-referential processing advantage which was caused by the autobiographical retrieval alleviated retrieval inhibition of DF, supporting that the self-referential source memory alleviated DF effects.

On the functional significance of retrieval mode: Task switching disrupts the recollection of conceptual stimulus information from episodic memory

Episodic memory retrieval is assumed to be associated with the tonic cognitive state of retrieval mode. Despite extensive research into the neurophysiological correlates of retrieval mode, as of yet, relatively little is known about its functional significance. The present event-related potential (ERP) study was aimed at examining the impact of retrieval mode on the specificity of memory content retrieved in the course of familiarity and recollection processes. In two experiments, participants performed a recognition memory inclusion task in which they had to distinguish identically repeated and re-colored versions of study items from new items. In Experiment 1, participants had to alternate between the episodic memory task and a semantic task requiring a natural/artificial decision. In Experiment 2, the two tasks were instead performed in separate blocks. ERPs locked to the preparatory cues in the test phases indicated that participants did not establish retrieval mode on switch trials in Experiment 1. In the absence of retrieval mode, neither type of studied item elicited ERP correlates of familiarity-based retrieval (FN400). Recollection-related late positive complex (LPC) old/new effects emerged only for identically repeated but not for conceptually identical but perceptually changed versions of study items. With blocked retrieval in Experiment 2, both types of old items instead elicited equivalent FN400 and LPC old/new effects. The LPC data indicate that retrieval mode may play an important role in the successful recollection of conceptual stimulus information. The FN400 results additionally suggest that task switching may have a detrimental effect on familiarity-based memory retrieval.

Process dissociation analyses of memory changes in healthy aging, preclinical, and very mild Alzheimer disease: Evidence for isolated recollection deficits.

Recollection and familiarity are independent processes that contribute to memory performance. Recollection is dependent on attentional control, which has been shown to be disrupted in early stage Alzheimer's disease (AD), whereas familiarity is independent of attention. The present longitudinal study examines the sensitivity of recollection estimates based on Jacoby's (1991) process dissociation procedure to AD-related biomarkers in a large sample of well-characterized cognitively normal middle-aged and older adults (N = 519) and the extent to which recollection discriminates these individuals from individuals with very mild symptomatic AD (N = 64). Participants studied word pairs (e.g., knee bone), then completed a primed, explicit, cued fragment-completion memory task (e.g., knee b_n_). Primes were either congruent with the correct response (e.g., bone), incongruent (e.g., bend), or neutral (e.g., &&&). This design allowed for the estimation of independent contributions of recollection and familiarity processes, using the process dissociation procedure. Recollection, but not familiarity, was impaired in healthy aging and in very mild AD. Recollection discriminated cognitively normal individuals from the earliest detectable stage of symptomatic AD above and beyond standard psychometric tests. In cognitively normal individuals, baseline CSF measures indicative of AD pathology were related to lower initial recollection and less practice-related improvement in recollection over time. Finally, presence of amyloid plaques, as imaged by PIB-PET, was also related to less improvement in recollection over time. These findings suggest that attention-demanding memory processes, such as recollection, may be particularly sensitive to both symptomatic and preclinical AD pathology. (PsycINFO Database Record

Feasibility of Supramaximal Verification of Peak Oxygen Uptake of a Graded Maximal Treadmill Test in Adults With Intellectual Disability

Purpose: To determine the feasibility of aerobic capacity measurement (V̇o 2max) of adults (18–50 years) with an intellectual disability (ID) through supramaximal verification. Methods: A cross-sectional observational design was used that consisted of 2 sessions. Before testing, a 3-step familiarization process was performed (session 1), after which the V̇o 2peak of a graded maximal treadmill test (GXTT) (V̇o 2peakGXTT) and a supramaximal exercise test (SET) (V̇o 2peakSET) were measured (session 2). The feasibility parameters used in this study were completion rate (based on the criteria for maximal effort), agreement between the V̇o 2peakGXTT and the V̇o 2peakSET (through intraclass correlation coefficient [ICCagreement]) and acceptance (through a custom-made questionnaire). Results: Twelve participants performed the measurement procedure. The completion rate was 75% and the ICCagreement was 0.99 (P < .001). The questionnaire showed that the measuring procedure was acceptable for the participants. Conclusions: This study demonstrated that it appears feasible to perform a maximal treadmill test (GXTT) followed by a SET for adults with ID. Therefore, it can be possible to verify the V̇o 2peak of the GXTT as a true V̇o 2max in adults with an ID.

Materializing Intimacy

What part do physical environments play in materializing relationships? How is intimacy created in specific places, through specific objects? What do these places and objects imply about our understandings of intimacy? To answer these questions, I draw on fieldwork I conducted in Québec, Canada, and mobilize the tools of ethnography and qualitative social research to create a methodological bricolage with the aim of making familiar cultural processes seem strange (Clifford 1986). My project of making intimacy “strange” draws from queer studies and materiality and affect theories, which aim to deconstruct heteronormativity and to de-center the focus on humans, based on the work of Bruno Latour (2005), Tim Ingold (2012), Judith Butler (2002) and Sara Ahmed (2004). I use the material as a point of entry to understand how intimacies are performed and subtly mediated by elements that go unnoticed in common sense definitions of intimacy. From this perspective, intimacy is created by a combination of things: humans, objects, spaces, affect and texts that are each more or less attached to collective and personal aspirations. My contribution lies in showing how some objects and places are involved in the performativity of intimacies, and how the material can create ephemeral intimacies and concretize relationships. The cases I work through indicate a capacity for the (re)creation of intimacy, the reproduction of normative ideas, as well as a kind of distributed agency through the multiplicity of things that are necessary to achieve intimacy.