Project description:Adult aging is associated with difficulties in recognizing negative facial expressions such as fear and anger. However, happiness and disgust recognition is generally found to be less affected. Eye-tracking studies indicate that the diagnostic features of fearful and angry faces are situated in the upper regions of the face (the eyes), and for happy and disgusted faces in the lower regions (nose and mouth). These studies also indicate age-differences in visual scanning behavior, suggesting a role for attention in emotion recognition deficits in older adults. However, because facial features can be processed extrafoveally, and expression recognition occurs rapidly, eye-tracking has been questioned as a measure of attention during emotion recognition. In this study, the Moving Window Technique (MWT) was used as an alternative to the conventional eye-tracking technology. By restricting the visual field to a moveable window, this technique provides a more direct measure of attention. We found a strong bias to explore the mouth across both age groups. Relative to young adults, older adults focused less on the left eye, and marginally more on the mouth and nose. Despite these different exploration patterns, older adults were most impaired in recognition accuracy for disgusted expressions. Correlation analysis revealed that among older adults, more mouth exploration was associated with faster recognition of both disgusted and happy expressions. As a whole, these findings suggest that in aging there are both attentional differences and perceptual deficits contributing to less accurate emotion recognition.
Project description:PurposeThe purpose of this study is to develop a program to concatenate acoustic vowel segments that were selected with the moving window technique, a previously developed technique used to segment and select the least perturbed segment from a sustained vowel segment. The concatenated acoustic segments were compared with the nonconcatenated, short, individual acoustic segments for their ability to differentiate normal and pathological voices. The concatenation process sometimes created a clicking noise or beat, which was also analyzed to determine any confounding effects.MethodA program was developed to concatenate the moving window segments. Listeners with no previous rating experience were trained and, then, rated 20 normal and 20 pathological voice segments, both concatenated (2 s) and short (0.2 s) for a total of 80 segments. Listeners evaluated these segments on both the Grade, Roughness, Breathiness, Asthenia, and Strain scale (GRBAS; 8 listeners) and the Consensus Auditory-Perceptual Evaluation of Voice (Kempster, Gerratt, Abbott, Barkmeier-Kraemer, & Hillman, 2009) scale (7 listeners). The sensitivity and specificity of these ratings were analyzed using a receiver-operating characteristic curve. To evaluate if there were increases in particular criteria due to the beat, differences between beat and nonbeat ratings were compared using a 2-tailed analysis of variance.ResultsConcatenated segments had a higher sensitivity and specificity for distinguishing pathological and normal voices than short segments. Compared with nonbeat segments, the beat had statistically similar increases for all criteria across Consensus Auditory-Perceptual Evaluation of Voice and GRBAS scales, except pitch and loudness.ConclusionsThe concatenated moving window method showed improved sensitivity and specificity for detecting voice disorders using auditory-perceptual analysis, compared with the short moving window segment. It is a helpful tool for perceptual analytic protocols, allowing for voice evaluation using standardized and automated voice-segmenting procedures.Supplemental materialhttps://doi.org/10.23641/asha.7100951.
Project description:We utilized a bacterial selection system to isolate Engrailed variants from a randomized library that are compatible with each of the 64 possible 3’ triplet sites (i.e. TAANNN). The DNA-binding specificity of 151 representative HD variants from these populations was subsequently characterized. Many of these variants contain novel combinations of specificity determinants that are uncommon or absent in extant HDs. These novel determinants, when grafted into different HD backbones, produce a corresponding alteration in their specificity. The identified determinates expand our understanding of HD recognition. Homeodomains where selected against each of the 64 possible 3' triplet sites (ie: TAANNN). The DNA-binding specificity of 151 representative HD variants from these populations was subsequently characterized. 7 novel determinants, when grafted into 3 different HD backbones. 5' speicifity was changed for 3 novel determinants.
Project description:It is now emerging that vision is usually limited by object spacing rather than size. The visual system recognizes an object by detecting and then combining its features. 'Crowding' occurs when objects are too close together and features from several objects are combined into a jumbled percept. Here, we review the explosion of studies on crowding--in grating discrimination, letter and face recognition, visual search, selective attention, and reading--and find a universal principle, the Bouma law. The critical spacing required to prevent crowding is equal for all objects, although the effect is weaker between dissimilar objects. Furthermore, critical spacing at the cortex is independent of object position, and critical spacing at the visual field is proportional to object distance from fixation. The region where object spacing exceeds critical spacing is the 'uncrowded window'. Observers cannot recognize objects outside of this window and its size limits the speed of reading and search.
Project description:Emotional facial expressions can inform researchers about an individual's emotional state. Recent technological advances open up new avenues to automatic Facial Expression Recognition (FER). Based on machine learning, such technology can tremendously increase the amount of processed data. FER is now easily accessible and has been validated for the classification of standardized prototypical facial expressions. However, applicability to more naturalistic facial expressions still remains uncertain. Hence, we test and compare performance of three different FER systems (Azure Face API, Microsoft; Face++, Megvii Technology; FaceReader, Noldus Information Technology) with human emotion recognition (A) for standardized posed facial expressions (from prototypical inventories) and (B) for non-standardized acted facial expressions (extracted from emotional movie scenes). For the standardized images, all three systems classify basic emotions accurately (FaceReader is most accurate) and they are mostly on par with human raters. For the non-standardized stimuli, performance drops remarkably for all three systems, but Azure still performs similarly to humans. In addition, all systems and humans alike tend to misclassify some of the non-standardized emotional facial expressions as neutral. In sum, emotion recognition by automated facial expression recognition can be an attractive alternative to human emotion recognition for standardized and non-standardized emotional facial expressions. However, we also found limitations in accuracy for specific facial expressions; clearly there is need for thorough empirical evaluation to guide future developments in computer vision of emotional facial expressions.
Project description:Background and objectivesBecause of the global population aging, more informal carers become older adults. In Nigeria, the African country with the largest population of adults aged 60 years and older, self-construal rooted in the African collectivist philosophy generally shapes informal caregiving for older adults. However, there is a general paucity of studies on older adults' informal caregiving roles, particularly about their motivations for caregiving. This study explored older adults' motives for informal caregiving to their care recipients in urban Southeast Nigeria.Research design and methodsThis study adopted a hermeneutic phenomenological research design. In-depth interviews were conducted with 30 purposively selected older adults aged 54-88 who were the primary carers of other older adults in the family and community. The collected data were analyzed using van Manen's thematic analysis method, using QSR NVivo 12 software.ResultsA total of 4 main themes emerged from the participants' responses: reciprocity of kindness, altruism, a sense of moral responsibility, and eagerness for peaceful longevity. The findings generally showed that religion and culture were the latent factors ingrained in these motivations for informal caregiving.Discussion and implicationsAlthough the African philosophy emphasizes altruism, reciprocity seems more prominent in specific traditional African communities, as observed in Southeast Nigeria. It serves as a means to prioritize family members' needs. The findings indicate the need for the government to establish sustainable programs and policies that support older people in their caregiving role. Doing so will enable carers to derive psychosocial gains from informal caregiving and sustain the caregiving culture of Nigeria.
Project description:The Coronavirus Disease (COVID) pandemic has aroused challenges to emotional well-being of the individuals. With 1,582 respondents from the Health and Retirement Survey (HRS), this study investigates the heterogeneity in older adults' vulnerability and examines the relationship between vulnerability types, aging attitudes, and emotional responses. International Positive and Negative Affect Schedule Short-form (I-PANAS-SF) and Attitudes toward own aging (ATOT) were used to assess the emotional experiences and aging attitudes, and 14 kinds of pandemic-related deprivations evaluated vulnerability of individuals. Latent class analysis (LCA) was used to explore the vulnerability types, and weighted linear regressions examined the relationship between vulnerability, aging attitudes, and emotional responses. The results showed that the proportion for individuals with mild vulnerability (MV), healthcare use vulnerability (HV), and dual vulnerability in healthcare use and financial sustainment (DVs) was 67, 22, and 11%, respectively. Older adults aged below 65, Hispanics and non-Hispanic Blacks, and those not eligible for Medicaid were more likely to have HV or DVs. The relationship between vulnerability and positive emotions (PAs) was non-significant, yet individuals with HV (beta = 0.10, standard error [SE] = 0.16) or DVs (beta = 0.09, SE = 0.28) were likely to have more negative emotions (NAs) than their mildly vulnerable counterparts. Furthermore, aging attitudes moderated the relationship between vulnerability and emotions. The salutary effect of positive aging attitudes on emotional well-being was more significant among people with DVs than those with MV (beta = 0.20, SE = 0.04 for positive responses; beta = -0.15, SE = 0.04 for negative responses). Thus, we urge more attention for vulnerable older adults in a pandemic context. Meanwhile, encouraging positive aging attitudes might be helpful for older adults to have better emotional well-being, especially for those with DVs.
Project description:We utilized a bacterial selection system to isolate Engrailed variants from a randomized library that are compatible with each of the 64 possible 3’ triplet sites (i.e. TAANNN). The DNA-binding specificity of 151 representative HD variants from these populations was subsequently characterized. Many of these variants contain novel combinations of specificity determinants that are uncommon or absent in extant HDs. These novel determinants, when grafted into different HD backbones, produce a corresponding alteration in their specificity. The identified determinates expand our understanding of HD recognition.