Explore the vast range of titles available.

Race is rapidly and effortlessly extracted from faces. Previous fMRI studies have reported race-related modulations in the bilateral Fusiform Face Areas (FFAs) and Occipital Face Areas (OFAs) during the categorization of faces by race. However, our recent findings revealed a comparable Other-Race Categorization Advantage between a well-studied case of pure acquired prosopagnosia—patient PS—and healthy controls. Notably, PS demonstrated faster categorization by race of other—compared to same-race faces, similar to healthy participants, despite sustaining lesions in the right OFA (rOFA) and left FFA (lFFA). This observation suggests that race processing can occur effectively even with damage to core face-sensitive regions, challenging the functional significance of race-related activations in the rOFA and lFFA observed in healthy individuals with fMRI. To address this apparent contradiction, we tested PS and age-matched controls during the categorization by race of same- to other-race morphed faces. Our data showed that PS required more visual information to accurately categorize racially ambiguous faces, indicating that intact rOFA and/or lFFA are crucial for extracting fine-grained racial information. These results refine our understanding of the functional roles of these key cortical regions and offer novel insights into the neural mechanisms underlying the perception of face race and prosopagnosia.

Background: Leucine-enriched essential amino acids (LEAAs) acutely enhance post-exercise myofibrillar protein synthesis (MyoPS), which has been suggested to be important for muscle repair and recovery. However, the ability of LEAAs to concurrently enhance MyoPS and muscle damage recovery in free-living humans has not been studied. Methods: In a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled, parallel-group design, twenty recreationally active males consuming a controlled diet (1.2 g/kg/d of protein) were supplemented thrice daily with 4 g of LEAAs (containing 1.6 g leucine) or isocaloric placebo for four days following an acute bout of lower-body resistance exercise (RE). MyoPS at rest and integrated over 96 h of recovery was measured by D2O. Isometric and isokinetic torque, muscle soreness, Z-band streaming, muscle heat shock protein (HSP) 25 and 72, plasma creatine kinase (CK), and plasma interleukin-6 (IL-6) were measured over 96 h post-RE to assess various direct and indirect markers of muscle damage. Results: Integrated MyoPS increased ~72% over 96 h after RE (p < 0.05), with no differences between groups (p = 0.98). Isometric, isokinetic, and total peak torque decreased ~21% by 48 h after RE (p < 0.05), whereas total peak torque was ~10% greater overall during recovery in LEAAs compared to placebo (p < 0.05). There were moderate to large effects for peak torque in favour of LEAAs. Muscle soreness increased during recovery with no statistical differences between groups but small to moderate effects in favour of LEAAs that correlated with changes in peak torque. Plasma CK, plasma IL-6, and muscle HSP25 increased after RE (p < 0.05) but were not significantly different between groups (p ≥ 0.13). Consistent with a trend toward attenuated Z-band streaming in LEAAs (p = 0.07), muscle HSP72 expression was lower (p < 0.05) during recovery in LEAAs compared with placebo. There were no correlations between MyoPS and any measures of muscle damage (p ≥ 0.37). Conclusion: Collectively, our data suggest that LEAAs moderately attenuated muscle damage without concomitant increases in integrated MyoPS in the days following an acute bout of resistance exercise in free-living recreationally active men.

Rapid and accurate processing of potential social threats is paramount to social thriving, and provides a clear evolutionary advantage. Though automatic processing of facial expressions has been assumed for some time, some researchers now question the extent to which this is the case. Here, we provide electrophysiological data from a psychological refractory period dual-task paradigm in which participants had to decide whether a target face exhibited a neutral or fearful expression, as overlap with a concurrent auditory tone categorization task was experimentally manipulated. Specifically, we focused on four event-related potentials (ERP) linked to emotional face processing, covering distinct processing stages and topography: the early posterior negativity (EPN), early frontal positivity (EFP), late positive potential (LPP), and also the face-sensitive N170. As expected, there was an emotion modulation of each ERP. Most important, there was a significant attenuation of this emotion response proportional to the degree of task overlap for each component, except the N170. In fact, when central overlap was greatest, this emotion-specific amplitude was statistically null for the EFP and LPP, and only marginally different from zero for the EPN. N170 emotion modulation was, on the other hand, unaffected by central overlap. Thus, our results show that emotion-specific event-related potentials for three out of four processing stages—i.e., perceptual encoding (EPN), emotion detection (EFP), or content evaluation (LPP)—are attenuated and even eliminated by central resource scarcity. Models assuming automatic processing should be revised to account for these results.

Abstract Apparent race of a face impacts processing efficiency, typically leading to an own-race advantage. For instance, own-race facial expressions are more accurately recognized, and their intensity better appraised, compared to other-race faces. Furthermore, these effects appear susceptible to implicit bias. Here, we aimed to better understand impacts of race and implicit racial bias on facial expression processing by looking at automatic and nonautomatic expression processing stages. To this end, scalp electroencephalography was recorded off a group of White participants while they completed a psychological refractory period dual-task paradigm in which they viewed neutral or fearful White (i.e. own-race) and Black (i.e. other-race) faces. Results showed that, irrespective of race, early perceptual expression processing indexed by the N170 event-related potential was independent of central attention resources and racial attitudes. On the other hand, later emotional content evaluation indexed by the late positive potential (LPP) was dependent on central resources. Furthermore, negative attitudes toward Black individuals amplified LPP emotional response to White (vs. Black) faces irrespective of central attention resources. Thus, it seems it is racial bias, more than race per se, that impacts facial expression processing, but this effect only manifests itself during later semantic processing of facial expression content.

Apparent race of a face impacts processing efficiency, typically leading to an own-race advantage. For instance, own-race facial expressions are more accurately recognized, and their intensity better appraised, compared to other-race faces. Furthermore, these effects appear susceptible to implicit bias. Here, we aimed to better understand impacts of race and implicit racial bias on facial expression processing by looking at automatic and nonautomatic expression processing stages. To this end, scalp electroencephalography was recorded off a group of White participants while they completed a psychological refractory period dual-task paradigm in which they viewed neutral or fearful White (i.e. own-race) and Black (i.e. other-race) faces. Results showed that, irrespective of race, early perceptual expression processing indexed by the N170 event-related potential was independent of central attention resources and racial attitudes. On the other hand, later emotional content evaluation indexed by the late positive potential (LPP) was dependent on central resources. Furthermore, negative attitudes toward Black individuals amplified LPP emotional response to White (vs. Black) faces irrespective of central attention resources. Thus, it seems it is racial bias, more than race per se, that impacts facial expression processing, but this effect only manifests itself during later semantic processing of facial expression content.

A Correction to this paper has been published: https://doi.org/10.3758/s13414-021-02246-9

When two tasks, Task 1 and Task 2, are conducted in close temporal proximity and a separate speeded response is required for each target (T1 and T2), T2 report performance decreases as a function of its temporal proximity to T1. This so-called psychological refractory period (PRP) effect on T2 processing is largely assumed to reflect interference from T1 response selection on T2 response selection. However, interference on early perceptual processing of T2 has been observed in a modified paradigm, which required changes in visual-spatial attention, sensory modality, task modality, and response modality across targets. The goal of the present study was to investigate the possibility of early perceptual interference by systematically and iteratively removing each of these possible non perceptual confounds, in a series of four experiments. To assess T2 visual memory consolidation success, T2 was presented for a varying duration and immediately masked. T2 report accuracy, which was taken as a measure of perceptual—encoding or consolidation—success, decreased across all experimental control conditions as T1–T2 onset proximity increased. We argue that our results, in light of previous studies, show that central processing of a first target, responsible for the classical PRP effect, also interferes with early perceptual processing of a second target. We end with a discussion of broader implications for psychological refractory period and attentional blink effects.

This paper considers the life histories of seven beggars who find themselves strewn across the hundreds of traffic intersections around Johannesburg. Stereotypes exist of why individuals such as these would choose to beg instead of working like normal citizens. Good or bad, I wanted to discover if such stereotypes were a fair appraisal of those who often seem to exist just beyond our reality. Scheper-Hughes and Lock (1987) write in The Mindful Body about three embodiments – individual, social and politic – and these became powerful tools for analysing the narratives of my participants. The consequences for each of these embodiments are discussed in detail and they provide a lens through which to consider my participants’ lives as unique expressions contextualised by Giddens’ (1979) three intersecting moments of difference. Furthermore, I propose a concept I have called agency progression and the creation of power, wherein I attempt to identify the nature of agency and its possible relationship to power. Ultimately, this concept becomes a frame to be used alongside Scheper-Hughes and Lock’s 3 Bodies and is put to work in the analysis of my participants’ narratives.