Two rival theories of how humans recognize faces exist: (i) recognition is innate, relying on specialized neocortical circuitry, and (ii) recognition is a learned expertise, relying on general object recognition pathways. Here, we explore whether animals without a neocortex, can learn to recognize human faces. Human facial recognition has previously been demonstrated for birds, however they are now known to possess neocortex-like structures. Also, with much of the work done in domesticated pigeons, one cannot rule out the possibility that they have developed adaptations for human face recognition. Fish do not appear to possess neocortex-like cells, and given their lack of direct exposure to humans, are unlikely to have evolved any specialized capabilities for human facial recognition. Using a two-alternative forced-choice procedure, we show that archerfish (Toxotes chatareus) can learn to discriminate a large number of human face images (Experiment 1, 44 faces), even after controlling for colour, head-shape and brightness (Experiment 2, 18 faces). This study not only demonstrates that archerfish have impressive pattern discrimination abilities, but also provides evidence that a vertebrate lacking a neocortex and without an evolutionary prerogative to discriminate human faces, can nonetheless do so to a high degree of accuracy.

We experimentally study the behavior of a parametrically pumped nonlinear oscillator, which is based on a superconducting λ/4 resonator, and is terminated by a flux-tunable SQUID. We extract parameters for two devices. In particular, we study the effect of the nonlinearities in the system and compare to theory. The Duffing nonlinearity, α, is determined from the probe-power dependent frequency shift of the oscillator, and the nonlinearity, β, related to the parametric flux pumping, is determined from the pump amplitude for the onset of parametric oscillations. Both nonlinearities depend on the parameters of the device and can be tuned in-situ by the applied dc flux. We also suggest how to cancel the effect of β by adding a small dc flux and a pump tone at twice the pump frequency.

The microwave properties of a crystalline sapphire dielectric whispering gallery mode resonator have been measured at very low excitation strength (E/ ω ≈ 1) and low temperatures (T ≈ 30 mK). The measurements were sensitive enough to observe saturation due to a highly detuned electron spin resonance, which limited the loss tangent of the material to about 2 × 10 −8 measured at 13.868 and 13.259 GHz. Small power dependent frequency shifts were also measured which correspond to an added magnetic susceptibility of order 10 −9 . This work shows that quantum limited microwave resonators with Q-factors > 10 8 are possible with the implementation of a sapphire whispering gallery mode system.