Recognition Cues Research Articles

The roles of shape and texture in the recognition of familiar faces

The surface texture of the face is proposed to be the dominant cue in face recognition. In this study, we investigated the role of shape information in face recognition. We compared the roles of shape and surface texture in the recognition of face identity using familiar and unfamiliar hybrid faces in which the average shape from one facial identity was combined with the average texture of a different identity. In the first experiment (n = 53), participants had to match the name of a familiar person to one of eight hybrid face images. In texture trials, all images had the correct shape, but only one image had the correct texture. In shape trials, all images had the correct texture, but only one image had the correct shape. Importantly, neither task could be performed by perceptual matching. Although performance was lower for the shape trials (81%) compared to texture trials (99%), both were significantly above chance (12.5%). In the second experiment (n = 110), participants had to name hybrid faces. There were two potentially correct answers for each face image: one based on the texture and one based on the shape. Participants reported the correct name based on the texture on 61% of trials and the correct name based on the shape on 12% of trials. In the third experiment (n = 19), fMR-adaptation was used to measure the neural sensitivity to changes in the shape or texture. The core face-selective regions showed a similar sensitivity to shape and texture. These findings confirm that texture is the dominant cue for face recognition, but also show that shape plays an important role in the recognition and neural response to familiar faces.

Age and Appearance Shape Behavioral Responses of Phasmids in a Dynamic Environment

Although morphological adaptations leading to crypsis or mimicry have been studied extensively, their interaction with particular behaviors to avoid detection or recognition is understudied. Yet animal behaviors interact with morphology to reduce detection risk, and the level of protection conferred likely changes according to the surrounding environment. Apart from providing a locational cue for predators, prey motion can also serve as concealing behavior in a dynamic environment to prevent detection by potential predators or prey. Phasmids are conventionally known to rely on their adaptive resemblance to plant parts for protection, and this resemblance may vary across life stages and species. However, little is known about how their behaviors interact with their appearance and their environment. We investigated two species of phasmids with varying morphology and color patterns at different ontogenetic stages and examined their behavioral responses to a wind stimulus as a proxy for a dynamic environment. While adult behaviors were mostly species-specific, behavioral responses of nymphs varied with appearance and environmental condition. Display of different behaviors classified as revealing was positively correlated, while the display of concealing behaviors, except for swaying, was mostly negatively correlated with other behaviors. Exhibition of specific behaviors varied with appearance and environmental condition, suggesting that these behavioral responses could help reduce detection or recognition cues. We discuss the differences in behavioral responses in the context of how the behaviors could reveal or conceal the phasmids from potential predators. Our results provide a novel investigation into adaptive resemblance strategies of phasmids through the interaction of behavior and morphology, and highlight the importance of considering the effects of dynamic environments on sending and receiving cues.

Region based Feature Fusion of Imperfect Face and Gait cues for human recognition using Median-LBPF and Median-LBPG based PCA followed by LDA


 Abstract— Conventional computer-based multimodal biometric systems for human recognition based on face and gait cues are mainly based on recognition of perfect images of face and gait. There are situations, where perfect face and gait images may not be available which means probe images are imperfect. This paper proposes new methods Median Local Binary Pattern of Face image (Median-LBPF) and Gait image (Median-LBPG) to extract the features of imperfect face and gait images efficiently representing such imperfect images for better recognition. Initially the given imperfect face and gait images are divided into six overlapped regions called top, bottom, left, right, vertical center, horizontally center overlapped half images. The features of these six overlapped regions of imperfect face and gait images in the spatial domain are extracted by using Median-LBPF and Median-LBPG. Subsequently the dimensionality of the feature sets are reduced by a two stage feature reduction algorithms Principal Component Analysis (PCA) followed by Linear Discriminant Analysis (LDA). Next the individual face features and gait features are normalized to have their values lie within similar ranges and are concatenated at feature level. For classification, Euclidean distance measure is used to calculate the minimum of minimum distance between the six overlapped regions of given imperfect face and gait probe images and the corresponding regions of all six overlapped regions in the training sets. The proposed methods are tested by using publically available data sets ORL face and CASIA gait. The experimental results show that features of a region of face and gait images are adequate for recognition and its average recognition performance is same as perfect face and gait images.

Object recognition based on topology preserving skeleton features

Object recognition is a procedure for recognising a particular object in an advanced video or image. Appearance-based or feature-based techniques are used for object recognition. An object skeleton is the useful cue for object recognition, which provides a structural representation to specify the relationship among object parts. The shape's geometry and topology can be efficiently encoded. In this paper, an effective object recognition method is introduced with the help of multi kernel SVM using the skeleton derived from topology preserving skeleton features method.

病原性糸状菌における宿主植物認識

病原性糸状菌における宿主植物認識

A different kind of smart: What pathologists can learn from an octopus: Cephalopods may depend on a vastly different form of perception, but their intelligent problem-solving can supply plenty of relatable lessons.: Cephalopods may depend on a vastly different form of perception, but their intelligent problem-solving can supply plenty of relatable lessons.

A different kind of smart: What pathologists can learn from an octopus: Cephalopods may depend on a vastly different form of perception, but their intelligent problem-solving can supply plenty of relatable lessons.: Cephalopods may depend on a vastly different form of perception, but their intelligent problem-solving can supply plenty of relatable lessons.

Mouse models for the study of clustered protocadherins.

Since their first description, the clustered protocadherins (cPcdhs) have sparked interest for their potential to generate diverse cell-surface recognition cues and their widespread expression in the nervous system. Through the use of mouse models, we have learned a great deal about the functions served by cPcdhs, and how their molecular diversity is regulated. cPcdhs are essential contributors to a host of processes during neural circuit formation, including neuronal survival, dendritic and axonal branching, self-avoidance and targeting, and synapse formation. Their expression is controlled by the interplay of epigenetic marks with proximal and distal elements involving high order DNA looping, regulating transcription factor binding. Here, we will review various mouse models targeting the cPcdh locus and how they have been instructive in uncovering the regulation and function of the cPcdhs.

168 A Novel Approach to Interactive, Online History-Taking in Medical Education During the COVID-19 Pandemic

The COVID-19 pandemic resulted in an unprecedented shift from face-to-face to online teaching with a subsequent deleterious impact on the quality of teaching delivery within medical education Our aim was to demonstrate the feasibility of utilizing a novel approach to interactive, online simulated history-taking.The session was designed for students attending a virtual work-experience programme and is founded upon gamification principles. History-taking is a humanistic social process requiring effective communication skills and recognition of verbal and non-verbal cues. The session enabled students to directly instruct a passive clinician to take a history from a simulated patient actor, incorporating both verbal and non-verbal actions. This novel teaching method is analogous to Freire’s work, highlighting the importance of the learner being an active participant, thus enabling experiential learning This interactive approach required a simulated patient actor, a passive clinician and a verbal instructor to be present. Students were presented with a case scenario and viewed the interaction between the simulated patient actor and passive clinician online via a video conferencing service (in this case, Zoom). Students provided instructions to the passive clinician using the typed chat function. These typed instructions were relayed by the verbal instructor to the passive clinician via an earpiece and the passive clinician would then embody these instructions. This allowed students to work as a group to directly elicit a history and witness their instructions being actioned. Examples of instructions included questions to verbalize, adjustments to body language and alteration of the tone of voice. Following good student instruction, the passive clinician gradually grew in competence and confidence throughout the scenario, thus allowing real-time, interactive feedback of their history-taking approach. The session concluded with a reflection of the communication traits that helped to gain an effective history from the patient using a debrief model.

The perception of word stress cues in Papuan Malay: A typological perspective and experimental investigation

Analyses of word prosody have shown that in some Indonesian languages listeners do not make use of word stress cues. The outcomes have contributed to the conclusion that these languages do not have word stress. The current study revisits this conclusion and investigates to what extent speakers of Papuan Malay, a language of Eastern Indonesia, use suprasegmental stress cues to recognize words. Acoustically, this language exhibits predictable word level prominence patterns, which could facilitate word recognition. However, the literature lacks a crucial perceptual verification, and related languages in the Trade Malay family have been analyzed as stressless. This could be indicative of either regional variation or different criteria to diagnose word stress. To investigate this issue, the current study reviews the literature on which criteria were decisive to diagnose (the absence of) word stress in Indonesian and Trade Malay. An acoustic analysis and a gating task investigate the usefulness of Papuan Malay stress cues for word recognition. Results show that Papuan Malay listeners are indeed able to use suprasegmental stress cues to identify words. The outcomes are discussed in a typological perspective to shed light on how production and perception studies contribute to stress diagnosis cross-linguistically.

The role of experiential knowledge in hospital nurses’ management of pain-related agitation in people with dementia: An expert performance simulation study

BackgroundPain-related agitation in hospital patients with dementia presents a diagnostic challenge as patients often cannot explain their agitation. Generally, a deductive process is required of staff, culminating in an analgesic trial. However, evidence suggests the deductions of hospital nurses may be flawed because they may not associate agitation in dementia with painful conditions, thereby missing key clinical cues. While analytical rule-based deduction applies explicit formal knowledge, cognitive scientists argue that tacit experiential knowledge, i.e., the unconscious classification of available cues, is equally important and is always involved. AimTo identify the cognitive characteristics unique to nurses who accurately recognise pain-related agitation in a patient with dementia compared with nurses who do not. MethodsIn this descriptive multivariate study, registered acute-care nurses undertook an original computerised virtual simulation requiring them to identify and manage pain-related agitation in a standardised patient with dementia. Process tracing methods captured nurses’ simulation performances alongside their retrospective accounts of thinking. These were correlated with demographic characteristics related to seniority, workplace, training, experience and knowledge captured on a questionnaire. Dual processing theory enabled interpretation of intuitive and analytical cognitive processes. FindingsRegistered medical and surgical nurses (N = 274) participated from 10 hospitals. Although formal knowledge about pain in dementia was high (88%), only 13(4.7%) nurses identified pain-related agitation from an injury. These individuals took the longest and used the most cues, undertaking a detailed deductive search. Their recognition of pain-related cues demonstrated accurate experiential knowledge while another 16 nurses identified a fracture without linking the injury to agitation. Over three quarters (78%) of nurses decided on initial antipsychotic treatment. They were quick to decide, using the fewest cues, suggesting agitation was recognised as typical and familiar, with the solution well-known (albeit ineffective). Independent of other variables, nurses working in dementia-specific units, surgical units or with more seniority had increased odds of recognising pain, revealing the influence of workplace experience. However, most surgical and dementia-unit nurses did not recognise pain. ConclusionsHospital nurses have difficulty recognising when agitation in a patient with dementia is caused by pain. High formal knowledge about pain in dementia may not be sufficient to enable clinical recognition of pain in patients. Instead, nurses with experience in specific workplaces or senior roles may be better equipped to recognise pain-related agitation and deploy evidence-based approaches for agitation in a patient with dementia. Overall, these results lend support to the influence of experiential knowledge on performance. Tweetable abstractIn a virtual simulation, registered nurses with high formal knowledge about pain in dementia lacked the experience required to recognise pain-related agitation in a patient with dementia

Naive poison frog tadpoles use bi-modal cues to avoid insect predators but not heterospecific predatory tadpoles.

ABSTRACTFor animals to survive until reproduction, it is crucial that juveniles successfully detect potential predators and respond with appropriate behavior. The recognition of cues originating from predators can be innate or learned. Cues of various modalities might be used alone or in multi-modal combinations to detect and distinguish predators but studies investigating multi-modal integration in predator avoidance are scarce. Here, we used wild, naive tadpoles of the Neotropical poison frog Allobates femoralis ( Boulenger, 1884) to test their reaction to cues with two modalities from two different sympatrically occurring potential predators: heterospecific predatory Dendrobates tinctorius tadpoles and dragonfly larvae. We presented A. femoralis tadpoles with olfactory or visual cues, or a combination of the two, and compared their reaction to a water control in a between-individual design. In our trials, A. femoralis tadpoles reacted to multi-modal stimuli (a combination of visual and chemical information) originating from dragonfly larvae with avoidance but showed no reaction to uni-modal cues or cues from heterospecific tadpoles. In addition, visual cues from conspecifics increased swimming activity while cues from predators had no effect on tadpole activity. Our results show that A. femoralis tadpoles can innately recognize some predators and probably need both visual and chemical information to effectively avoid them. This is the first study looking at anti-predator behavior in poison frog tadpoles. We discuss how parental care might influence the expression of predator avoidance responses in tadpoles.

Recognition of vocoded speech in English by Mandarin-speaking English-learners

The purpose of this study was to examine the impact of spectral degradation on speech processing in non-native listeners. The participants included 27 native English (L1) listeners and 43 native Mandarin listeners who learned English as a second language (L2). The speech stimuli included 12 English vowels embedded in a /hVd/ context, 20 English consonants embedded in a /Ca/ context, and HINT, CUNY, and R-SPIN sentences. All stimuli were processed using 2-, 4-, 6-, 8-, and 12-channel noise vocoders. The results showed that compared to the L1 listeners, the L2 listeners demonstrated less improvement in phoneme recognition with increasing number of channels, which was associated with the phoneme confusions due to the impact of their native language. Both consonant and vowel recognition made significant contributions to sentence recognition in the L2 listeners. In addition, the L2 listeners were less effective than the L1 listeners in applying contextual information and linguistic knowledge to sentence recognition. However, the facilitating role of contextual cues in sentence recognition was consistently present in the L2 listeners but they required more spectral information to maximize the contextual benefit in comparison to the L1 listeners. The overall perceptual performance of the L2 listeners was positively correlated with and predicted by the length of residence in the U.S.

The use of simulated research rehearsals to address barriers to cardiopulmonary physiology research in the neonatal intensive care unit

Background: Studying the physiology of the extremely premature neonate is critical to understanding the lifelong impact of prematurity, yet there are many barriers to physiologic research in the NICU. We describe the use of simulated research rehearsals to improve clinician understanding of cardiopulmonary physiology research in the NICU, to improve researcher comfort in the NICU and to maximize infant safety. MethodsA novel scenario was developed based on a pre assessment and neonatal nurses’ attitudes regarding research survey data. The simulation focused on performing physiological research on an infant in the NICU. Researchers, physicians, and nurses participated in the scenario using physiological research technology to support moving forward with a future basic research project. ResultsParticipation in a simulation focused on the integration of physiologic research increased comfort in the NICU and reported recognition of infant stress cues for research scientists (p=0.001, p=0.019) and improved clinician understanding of research technology (p=0.004). NICU nurses reported overwhelming support for research but identified key areas that could be improved with the use of healthcare simulation. ConclusionsWe share our experience of using simulation to facilitate partnerships between groups who do not share completely overlapping skill sets. Innovative use of simulation can be an effective means of promoting physiologic research in the neonatal intensive care unit and can fill an important role in optimizing basic and translational research methodologies.

Social cue recognition and attributional bias in remitted bipolar disorder: Impact on social functioning

The role of social cue recognition and attributional bias on social functioning has been sparsely studied in remitted bipolar disorder (BD). In view of this, we evaluated thirty subjects with BD (without a history of psychotic symptoms) who were in remission and thirty age and, gender-matched healthy controls for social cue recognition [using SoCueReTI (Social Cue Recognition Test- Indian Setting)], and attributional bias (using an Attributional style questionnaire). Social functioning was assessed in subjects with BD using the Functional assessment short test (FAST) - Interpersonal relationships. Subjects with BD had significant deficits in recognizing social cues in low-intensity and high-intensity vignettes when compared to healthy controls. Deficits in recognizing social cues in low-intensity vignettes were significantly correlated with the FAST scores, even after controlling for the number of episodes and duration of illness. Further replication studies are needed to ascertain the association between social cue recognition deficits and social functioning in BD.

Similarities in Recognition Cues Lead to the Infiltration of Non-Nestmates in an Ant Species.

Chemical cues are among the most important information-sharing mechanisms in insect societies, in which cuticular hydrocarbons play a central role, e.g., from nestmate recognition to queen signaling. The nestmate recognition mechanism usually prevents intruders from taking advantage of the resources stored in the nest. However, nestmate recognition is not unconditionally effective, and foreign individuals can sometimes infiltrate unrelated nests and take advantage of the colony resources. In this study, we investigated the role of overall colony odor profiles on the ability of conspecific workers to drift into unrelated colonies. We hypothesized that drifters would have higher chances of success by infiltrating colonies with the odor profiles most similar to their own nest, avoiding being detected as non-nestmates. By performing a drifting bioassay, we found that workers of the ant Formica fusca infiltrated unrelated conspecific colonies at a rate of 2.4%, significantly infiltrating colonies displaying CHC profiles most similar to their natal nests. Notably, methyl branched hydrocarbons seem to play a role as recognition cues in this species. In addition, we show that environmental rather than genetic factors are responsible for most contributions on the CHC phenotype, presenting ca. of 50% and 27.5% of explained variation respectively, and playing a major role in how worker ants detect and prevent the infiltration of non-nestmates in the colony. Hence, relying on cuticular hydrocarbons similarities could be a profitably evolutionary strategy by which workers can identify conspecific colonies, evade detection by guards, and avoid competition with genetic relatives.

Chemically Insignificant Social Parasites Exhibit More Anti-Dehydration Behaviors than Their Hosts.

Simple SummarySocial parasites use a variety of deceptive mechanisms to avoid detection by their social-insect hosts and get tolerance in their colonies. One of these mechanisms is chemical insignificance, where social parasites have reduced amounts of recognition cues—hydrocarbons—on their cuticle, thus evading host chemical detection. This exposes social parasites to dehydration stress, as cuticular hydrocarbons also limit body water loss. By analyzing behavioral data from field observations, here we show that a Polistes wasp social parasite exhibits water-saving behaviors; parasites were less active than their cohabiting host foundresses, spent more time at the nest, and rested in the shadow, contradicting the rule that dominant individuals occupy prominent positions at the nest.Social parasites have evolved adaptations to overcome host resistance as they infiltrate host colonies and establish there. Among the chemical adaptations, a few species are chemically “insignificant”; they are poor in recognition cues (cuticular hydrocarbons) and evade host detection. As cuticular hydrocarbons also serve a waterproofing function, chemical insignificance is beneficial as it protects parasites from being detected but is potentially harmful because it exposes parasites to desiccation stress. Here I tested whether the social parasites Polistes atrimandibularis employ behavioral water-saving strategies when they live at Polistes biglumis colonies. Observations in the field showed that parasites were less active than their cohabiting host foundresses, spent more time at the nest, and rested in the shadowy, back face of the nest, rather than at the front face, which contradicted expectations for the use of space for dominant females—typically, dominants rest at the nest front-face. These data suggest that behavioral adaptations might promote resistance to desiccation stress in chemical insignificant social parasites.

Nonverbal Auditory Cues Allow Relationship Quality to be Inferred During Conversations

The claim that nonverbal cues provide more information than the linguistic content of a conversational exchange (the Mehrabian Conjecture) has been widely cited and equally widely disputed, mainly on methodological grounds. Most studies that have tested the Conjecture have used individual words or short phrases spoken by actors imitating emotions. While cue recognition is certainly important, speech evolved to manage interactions and relationships rather than simple information exchange. In a cross-cultural design, we tested participants’ ability to identify the quality of the interaction (rapport) in naturalistic third party conversations in their own and a less familiar language, using full auditory content versus audio clips whose verbal content has been digitally altered to differing extents. We found that, using nonverbal content alone, people are 75–90% as accurate as they are with full audio cues in identifying positive vs negative relationships, and 45–53% as accurate in identifying eight different relationship types. The results broadly support Mehrabian’s claim that a significant amount of information about others’ social relationships is conveyed in the nonverbal component of speech.

Image sentiment classification via multi-level sentiment region correlation analysis

Human’s understanding of image content is a multi-level and multi-stage process. For visual sentiment analysis, this process can be specified as the gradual perception from semantic to emotion of regions in an image. The mining of emotion-related regions is valuable for sentiment recognition, and it is even more important to further investigate the semantic associations formed between these regions. In this paper, we propose a novel multi-level sentiment region correlation analysis model, which exploits the regions in an image that are most potentially affected by emotions from multiple perspectives and motivates the interaction between sentiment regions. It makes the visual content of multi-level sentiment regions and the implicit correlations within them robust cues for image sentiment recognition. We innovatively propose a module of correlation analysis of multi-level sentiment regions to exploit the effects of higher-order and rich interactions on emotions with encoders of the Transformer. Experiments on a variety of public visual sentiment analysis datasets at different scales show that the proposed MSRCA model achieve excellent performance in image sentiment classification and outperforms other existing methods.

Formic acid modulates latency and accuracy of nestmate recognition in carpenter ants.

Decision-making processes face the dilemma of being accurate or faster, a phenomenon that has been described as speed-accuracy trade-off in numerous studies on animal behaviour. In social insects, discriminating between colony members and aliens is subject to this trade-off as rapid and accurate rejection of enemies is of primary importance for the maintenance and ecological success of insect societies. Recognition cues distinguishing aliens from nestmates are embedded in the cuticular hydrocarbon (CHC) layer and vary among colonies. In walking carpenter ants, exposure to formic acid (FA), an alarm pheromone, improves the accuracy of nestmate recognition by decreasing both alien acceptance and nestmate rejection. Here, we studied the effect of FA exposure on the spontaneous aggressive mandible opening response (MOR) of harnessed Camponotus aethiops ants presented with either nestmate or alien CHCs. FA modulated both MOR accuracy and the latency to respond to odours of conspecifics. In particular, FA decreased the MOR towards nestmates but increased it towards aliens. Furthermore, FA decreased MOR latency towards aliens but not towards nestmates. As response latency can be used as a proxy of response speed, we conclude that contrary to the prediction of the speed-accuracy trade-off theory, ants did not trade off speed against accuracy in the process of nestmate recognition.

Analysis of Egg Variation and Foreign Egg Rejection in Rüppell’s Weaver (Ploceus galbula)

Egg appearance is notable for its variation and as a source of recognition cues in bird species that are subject to egg-mimicking brood parasitism. Here I analyze the egg appearance of an East African weaverbird species that has variable eggs and is a host of brood parasitism by an egg-mimicking cuckoo, in order to (1) compare population variation to variation within a clutch as a measure of the distinctiveness of eggs; (2) assess modularity versus correlation among egg appearance traits as an indication of the complexity of egg signatures; and (3) address whether the eggs are discretely polymorphic or continuously variable in appearance. I also compare three methods of assessing egg coloration: reduction of spectral data to orthogonal components, targeted spectral shape variables, and avian visual modeling. Then I report the results of egg replacement experiments that assess the relationship between egg rejection behavior and the difference in appearance between own and foreign eggs. Rüppell’s weaver (Ploceus galbula) eggs are variable in appearance between individuals and consistent within a clutch, but vary widely in the distinctiveness of particular traits. Most aspects of color and spotting are decoupled from each other, including coloration likely to derive from different pigments. Egg ground color is bimodal, with a broad continuous class of off-white/UV eggs and another broad class of blue-green eggs. Variation in all other traits is unimodal and usually normal in distribution. Females reject foreign eggs on the basis of the difference in brightness of the ground color and spotting of foreign eggs relative to their own, and the difference in degree to which spots are aggregated at the broad end of the egg. This aggregation is among the most distinctive features of their eggs, but the brightness of the ground color and spotting brightness are not; the birds’ use of brightness rather than the more distinctive chromatic variation to recognize eggs might reflect the salience of achromatic contrast in a dim enclosed nest.