The effect of variations of emotional expressions on mnemonic discrimination and traditional recognition memory

Abstract

Face recognition occurs when a face is recognised despite changes between learning and test exposures. Yet there has been relatively little research on how variations in emotional expressions influence people's ability to recognise these changes. We evaluated the ability to discriminate old and similar expressions of emotions (i.e. mnemonic discrimination) of the same face, as well as the discrimination ability between old and dissimilar (new) expressions of the same face, reflecting traditional discrimination. An emotional mnemonic discrimination task with morphed faces that were similar but not identical to the original face was used. Results showed greater mnemonic discrimination for learned neutral expressions that at test became slightly more fearful rather than happy. For traditional discrimination, there was greater accuracy for learned happy faces becoming fearful, rather than those changing from fearful-tohappy. These findings indicate that emotional expressions may have asymmetrical influences on mnemonic and traditional discrimination of the same face.

The cognitive neural mechanisms of age-related decline in mnemonic discrimination and its application

“…机制 (Marr, 1971;McClelland et al, 1995;Norman & O'Reilly, 2003; 对记忆辨别功能进行测量与机制研究 (Kirwan & Stark, 2007;Stark et al, 2013;Yassa et al, 2010aYassa et al, , 2011a, 其基本内容是要求被试对旧图、 新图以及 诱饵图片(与学习过的图片相似)进行识别(如图 1 所示), 其中, 对诱饵进行准确辨别(将诱饵判断 为相似)的能力即代表了记忆辨别力 (Sinha et al, 2018;Stark et al, 2013;Stark et al, 2019;Yassa et al, 2010a)。近些年, 众多研究者基于物体版 MST 的 基本思路, 设计了空间版本 (Granger et al, 2022;Reagh & Yassa, 2014)、场景版本 (Berron et al, 2018;Güsten et al, 2021;Maass et al, 2019)、面孔 版 本 (Chang et al, 2015;Stiernströmer et al, 2018)、 情绪材料版本 (Leal et al, 2019;Pagen et al, 2022;Szollosi et al, 2022)、单词版本 (Ly et al, 2013) 同程度的下降 (Park & Bischof, 2013;Park et al, 2002), 记忆辨 别功能 也不 例 外。有 研究 者 通过 MST 测量不同年龄被试的记忆辨别力, 结果发现 记忆辨别力与年龄之间存在显著负相关, 即记忆 辨别力随年龄增长而下降 (Riphagen et al, 2020;Stark et al, 2013)。不仅如此, 当老年人出现神经 退行性病变并发展为轻度认知障碍(mild cognitive impairment, MCI) 或 阿 尔 茨 海 默 症 (Alzheimer's Disease, AD)时, 其记忆辨别力也会进一步降低 (Bakker et al, 2015;Corona-Long et al, 2020;Lalani et al, 2022;Stark et al, 2013;…”