People are poor at matching the identity of unfamiliar faces, but very good at identifying familiar faces. Theoretical accounts suggest that representations derived from exposure to variation are ...instrumental in driving this familiarity based improvement. In support of this, recent work shows that providing multiple photographs of an unfamiliar face improves identity verification accuracy. Here, we test whether the extent of variation is critical to this improvement, by manipulating the degree of within-identity variation that participants are exposed to in a sequential matching test. Participants were more accurate and adopted more liberal response criteria, when matching high-variability pairs to probe images, compared with either low-variability pairs or single images. Importantly, benefits of variation are not explained by independent contributions of single images, suggesting that people extrapolate information across images to produce gains in identification accuracy. These results suggest that photo-ID can be improved by incorporating broader ranges of variation in facial appearance.
The rapid cell turnover of the intestinal epithelium is achieved from small numbers of stem cells located in the base of glandular crypts. These stem cells have been variously described as rapidly ...cycling or quiescent. A functional arrangement of stem cells that reconciles both of these behaviours has so far been difficult to obtain. Alternative explanations for quiescent cells have been that they act as a parallel or reserve population that replace rapidly cycling stem cells periodically or after injury; their exact nature remains unknown. Here we show mouse intestinal quiescent cells to be precursors that are committed to mature into differentiated secretory cells of the Paneth and enteroendocrine lineage. However, crucially we find that after intestinal injury they are capable of extensive proliferation and can give rise to clones comprising the main epithelial cell types. Thus, quiescent cells can be recalled to the stem-cell state. These findings establish quiescent cells as an effective clonogenic reserve and provide a motivation for investigating their role in pathologies such as colorectal cancers and intestinal inflammation.
In order to capture and preserve eyewitness memory, psychologists have developed cued recall tools that witnesses can fill out immediately after a critical incident. This study assesses the efficacy ...of a novel tool, 'iWitnessed'. iWitnessed is a smartphone application that elicits information from witnesses about the event using a guided recall procedure. Naïve undergraduate participants (N = 72) witnessed a staged theft and were then randomly allocated to one of three immediate recall conditions: no recall (control), free recall, or iWitnessed. One week later all participants returned to the lab and were interviewed about the theft they had witnessed. The results showed that iWitnessed increased the amount of correct information reported in the participants' immediate accounts (Hedge's g = 1.26) without compromising overall accuracy. However, iWitnessed did not improve delayed recall relative to the free recall and control groups.
This research shows that novel technological advancements can be used to capture and preserve accurate and detailed eyewitness accounts.
Cancer is a disease in which cells accumulate genetic aberrations that are believed to confer a clonal advantage over cells in the surrounding tissue. However, the quantitative benefit of frequently ...occurring mutations during tumor development remains unknown. We quantified the competitive advantage of Ape loss, Kras activation, and P53 mutations in the mouse intestine. Our findings indicate that the fate conferred by these mutations is not deterministic, and many mutated stem cells are replaced by wild-type stem cells after biased, but still stochastic events. Furthermore, P53 mutations display a condition-dependent advantage, and especially in colitis-affected intestines, clones harboring mutations in this gene are favored. Our work confirms the previously theoretical notion that the tissue architecture of the intestine suppresses the accumulation of mutated lineages.
People are typically poor at matching the identity of unfamiliar faces from photographs. This observation has broad implications for face matching in operational settings (e.g., border control). ...Here, we report significant improvements in face matching ability following feedback training. In Experiment
1
, we show cumulative improvement in performance on a standard test of face matching ability when participants were provided with trial-by-trial feedback. More important, Experiment
2
shows that training benefits can generalize to novel, widely varying, unfamiliar face images for which no feedback is provided. The transfer effect specifically benefited participants who had performed poorly on an initial screening test. These findings are discussed in the context of existing literature on unfamiliar face matching and perceptual training. Given the reliability of the performance enhancement and its generalization to diverse image sets, we suggest that feedback training may be useful for face matching in occupational settings.
Application of transition metal nanoparticles as catalysts for organic transformations has been attracting wide interest as nanoparticle‐based catalytic systems might exhibit superior catalytic ...activities than the corresponding bulk materials. However, the main difficulty is that such small particles are almost impossible to separate by conventional means, which can lead to the blocking of filters and valves by the nanoparticle catalyst. We have conveniently prepared ultra small palladium(0) particles (less than 1 nm) on magnetic nanoparticle supports, in which immobilized auxiliaries are used as stabilizing ligands. These catalysts were active for Suzuki cross‐coupling and Heck reactions giving isolated yields of 83 % and 56 %, respectively. In addition, the catalyst can be easily separated using a magnet and reused several times with sustained activity.
•Forensic scientists often need to communicate their opinions to non-scientists.•Effective communication depends on accurate and transparent reporting.•Scholars have recommended certain ...scientifically robust reporting styles.•Despite this, forensic scientists continue to engage in poor reporting practices.•There are numerous barriers that may prevent them from using recommended practices.
Forensic scientists endeavour to explain complex scientific principles to legal decision-makers with limited scientific training (e.g., police, lawyers, judges, and jurors). Much of the time this communication is limited to written opinions in expert reports. Notwithstanding considerable scientific research and debate about the best way to communicate forensic science opinions, it is unclear how much of the advice has translated into forensic science practice. In conducting this descriptive study, we examined the reporting practices adopted by forensic scientists across a range of forensic science disciplines. Specifically, we used a quantitative content analysis approach to identify the conclusion types and additional information submitted by forensic scientists in proficiency tests during 2016 (“What would be the wording of the Conclusions in your report?”). Our analysis of 500 randomly selected responses in eight disciplines indicated that the conclusion type which has received the most criticism in recent years (categorical statements) remains the preferred means of expression in a clear majority of responses. We also found that the provision of additional information often considered necessary for rational evaluation of the evidence (e.g., information about reliability and validity) was rarely reported. These results suggest limited engagement with recent recommendations and are concerning given the gravity of the legal decisions that hinge on accurate and transparent forensic science communication.
Improving face identification with specialist teams Balsdon, Tarryn; Summersby, Stephanie; Kemp, Richard I. ...
Cognitive research: principles and implications,
06/2018, Letnik:
3, Številka:
1
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Odprti dostop
People vary in their ability to identify faces, and this variability is relatively stable across repeated testing. This suggests that recruiting high performers can improve identity verification ...accuracy in applied settings. Here, we report the first systematic study to evaluate real-world benefits of selecting high performers based on performance in standardized face identification tests. We simulated a recruitment process for a specialist team tasked with detecting fraudulent passport applications. University students (
n
= 114) completed a battery of screening tests followed by a real-world face identification task that is performed routinely when issuing identity documents. Consistent with previous work, individual differences in the real-world task were relatively stable across repeated tests taken 1 week apart (
r
= 0.6), and accuracy scores on screening tests and the real-world task were moderately correlated. Nevertheless, performance gains achieved by selecting groups based on screening tests were surprisingly small, leading to a 7% improvement in accuracy. Statistically aggregating decisions across individuals—using a ‘wisdom of crowds’ approach—led to more substantial gains than selection alone. Finally, controlling for individual accuracy of team members, the performance of a team in one test predicted their performance in a subsequent test, suggesting that a ‘good team’ is not only defined by the individual accuracy of team members. Overall, these results underline the need to use a combination of approaches to improve face identification performance in professional settings.
When matching and recognizing familiar faces, performance is unaffected by changes to image-specific details such as lighting, head angle, and expression. In contrast, these changes have a ...substantial impact on performance when faces are unfamiliar. What process can account for this difference? Recent evidence shows a memory disadvantage for remembering specific images of familiar people compared to unfamiliar people, suggesting that image invariance in familiar face processing may be supported by loss of image-specific details in memory. Here, we examine whether this cost results from loss of image specific details during encoding of familiar faces. Participants completed four tasks that required participants to retain image-specific information in working memory: duplicate detection (Experiment 1), change detection (Experiment 2), short-term recognition memory (Experiment 3 and 5), and visual search (Experiment 4). Across all experiments (combined n = 270), our results consistently show equivalent memory performance for specific images of familiar and unfamiliar faces. We conclude that familiarity does not influence encoding of pictorial details, suggesting that loss of image-specificity reported in previous work is a result of longer-term storage mechanisms.
Public Significance Statement
We recognize familiar faces despite substantial variation in appearance from one encounter to the next. How perceptual systems achieve accurate recognition despite this variation remains unclear. One proposal is that the perceptual system represents abstract visual properties of familiar faces by discarding image-specific details such as a particular lighting quality or head pose. Here, we test this hypothesis by comparing participants' short-term memory for specific images of familiar and unfamiliar faces. We find that performance is unaffected by familiarity and conclude that image-specific details are encoded in memory to an equivalent extent for both familiar and unfamiliar faces.
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