Academic literature on the topic 'Famous face naming'

Object It has been hypothesized that specific brain regions involved in face naming may exist in the brain. To spare these areas and to gain a better understanding of their organization, the authors studied patients who underwent surgery by using direct electrical stimulation mapping for brain tumors, and they compared an object-naming task to a famous face–naming task. Methods Fifty-six patients with brain tumors (39 and 17 in the left and right hemispheres, respectively) and with no significant preoperative overall language deficit were prospectively studied over a 2-year period. Four patients who had a partially selective famous face anomia and 2 with prosopagnosia were not included in the final analysis. Results Face-naming interferences were exclusively localized in small cortical areas (< 1 cm2). Among 35 patients whose dominant left hemisphere was studied, 26 face-naming specific areas (that is, sites of interference in face naming only and not in object naming) were found. These face naming–specific sites were significantly detected in 2 regions: in the left frontal areas of the superior, middle, and inferior frontal gyri (p < 0.001) and in the anterior part of the superior and middle temporal gyri (p < 0.01). Variable patterns of interference were observed (speech arrest, anomia, phonemic, or semantic paraphasia) probably related to the different stages in famous face processing. Only 4 famous face–naming interferences were found in the right hemisphere. Conclusions Relative anatomical segregation of naming categories within language areas was detected. This study showed that famous face naming was preferentially processed in the left frontal and anterior temporal gyri. The authors think it is necessary to adapt naming tasks in neurosurgical patients to the brain region studied.

The current investigation measured the effects of increasing stimulus duration on listeners′ ability to recognize famous voices. In addition, the investigation studied the influence of different types of cues on the naming of voices that could not be named before. Participants were presented with samples of famous and Unfamiliar voices and were asked to decide whether or not the samples were spoken by a famous person. The duration of each sample increased in seven steps from 0.25 s up to a maximum of 2 s. Voice recognition improvements with stimulus duration were with a growth function. Gains were most rapid within the first second and less pronounced thereafter. When participants were unable to name a famous voice, they were cued with either a second voice sample, the occupation, or the initials of the celebrity. Initials were most effective in eliciting the name only when semantic information about the speaker had been accessed prior to cue presentation. Paralleling previous research on face naming, this may indicate that voice naming is contingent on previous activation of person-specific semantic information.

Three experiments examined whether famous faces would be affected by the age at which knowledge of the face was first acquired (AoA). Using a multiple regression design, Experiment 1 showed that rated familiarity and AoA were significant predictors of the time required to name pictures of celebrities’ faces and the accuracy of producing their names. Experiment 2 replicated an effect of AoA using a factorial design in which other attributes of the celebrities were matched. In both Experiments 1 and 2, several ratings had been collected from participants before naming latency data were collected. Experiment 3 investigated the accuracy and latency of naming celebrities without any prior exposure to the stimuli. An advantage for naming early acquired celebrities was observed even on the first presentation. The participants named the same celebrities in three subsequent presentations of the stimuli. The effect of AoA was not significant on the fourth presentation. The implications of these results for models of face naming and directions for future research are discussed.

It has recently been suggested that patients with semantic breakdown may show the phenomenon of so-called “naming without semantics”. If substantiated, this finding would clearly have a major impact on theories of face and object processing, all of which assume that access to semantic knowledge is a prerequisite for successful naming. In order to investigate this issue, we studied recognition, identification (the ability to provide accurate information), and naming of 50 famous faces by 24 patients with mild to moderate dementia of Alzheimer type (DA T) and 30 age-matched controls. The DA T group was impaired in all three conditions. An analysis of the concordance between identification and naming by each patient, for each stimulus item, established that naming a famous face was possible only with semantic knowledge sufficient to identify the person. Our data support the hypothesis that naming is not possible unless semantic information associated with the target is available. Naming without semantics, therefore, did not occur in patients with DAT. By contrast, there were 206 instances (17% of the total responses) in which the patients were able to provide detailed, accurate identifying information yet were unable to name the person represented. The implication of these findings for models of face identification and naming are discussed.

Tests of word and face processing were given to patients with complex partial epilepsy focussed on the left or right temporal lobe, and to non-epileptic control subjects. The left TLE group showed the greatest impairment on object naming and on reading tests, but the right TLE group also showed a lesser impairment relative to the normal control subjects on both tests. The right TLE group was selectively impaired on distinguishing famous from non-famous faces while the left TLE group was impaired at naming famous faces they had successfully recognized as familiar. There was no significant difference between the three groups on recognition memory for words. The implications of the results for theories of the role of the temporal lobes in word and face processing, and the possible neural mechanisms responsible for the deficits in TLE patients, are discussed.

Burton and Bruce's (1992) model of face naming predicts a “fan effect”, in which naming of famous people about whom many descriptive properties are known should be slower than naming of celebrities about whom few properties are known. An experiment is reported that showed that, contrary to this prediction, knowledge of many descriptive properties facilitated face-naming latency. An alternative architecture for an interactive activation model is proposed in which descriptive properties are represented in separate pools of units for each domain of information and in which names are represented by a separate pool of lexical output units. Computer simulations showed that this model could simulate the previously available empirical data as effectively as Burton and Bruce's (1992) original model. However, the proposed model could also simulate the effect of the number of known descriptive properties upon face-naming latency observed in the experiment reported. The new architecture also has the advantage of being more compatible with current models of speech production, and it allows preserved access to unique semantic properties in the context of impaired face naming as reported in the neuropsychological literature.

Children aged between 5 and 10 years were shown photographs of familiar TV personalities, presenters, and celebrities for immediate recognition (naming). The pictures were of whole faces, outer features only (hair, chin, ears), or inner features (eyes, nose, mouth). Only the oldest group (9–10 years) resembled adults in recognising these familiar faces more efficiently from internal than external parts. In the youngest children (5–6 years) there were some indications that the outer face features were more salient, particularly when cartoon characters were included in the array.

Abstract This study explores the retrieval of proper names and the sensitivity of this lexical category to the modulatory effect of cognitive reserve in an aging population. Thirty-two elderly patients, undergoing their first neuropsychological evaluation were matched for age and education to thirty-two healthy controls. All participants were administered the Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA) to measure their global cognitive performance, the Famous Face Naming test to assess proper name retrieval, and the Cognitive Reserve Index (CRI) questionnaire to obtain an index of cognitive reserve. The two groups had comparable CRI total scores, but patients’ performance was worse in both MoCA and Famous Face naming test, compared to healthy controls. Results showed that cognitive reserve predicted global cognitive performance (i.e., MoCA score) in the patients, but not in the healthy participants. Naming proper names was independent from cognitive reserve. This might be due to their lexical nature, which lies in a poor semantic connection between proper names and their bearers.

Several studies have suggested different neural circuits for different categories of stimuli. The present studies explore in patients submitted to surgical removal of a glioma, the role of cortical and subcortical structures involved in processing abstract and concrete words. In the first study living and non-living objects were investigated. Direct electrical cortical stimulation was used to map naming of living/non-living entities during surgical removal, then subcortical connections for specific categories of objects were investigated. Two different pathways were identified, one for living and one for non-living things. These results constitute a neurophysiological evidence for the critical role of subcortical pathways as part of the neural circuits that represent lexical-conceptual knowledge of different categories of objects. The second study focused on proper names retrieval and its relationship with the uncinate fasciculus. Forty-four patients with a brain tumor in the left frontal or temporal lobe were examined. In 18 of them surgical removal included the uncinate fasciculus. Patients were assessed before surgery, three-seven days after surgery and three months after surgery. This procedure allowed understanding whether there was any difference due to the lesion of uncinate fasciculus. Patients with removal of the uncinate fasciculus were impaired in naming famous faces and objects. In the third study processing of abstract and concrete nouns was investigated. Fifty-six patients with a brain tumor in the left and right frontal or temporal lobe were examined by means of a semantic similarity judgment. The results suggest that the anterior temporal and the left fronto-insular regions are involved in processing abstract words.

Tese de mestrado, Neurociências, Faculdade de Medicina, Universidade de Lisboa, 2012
A perceção de contacto ocular tem um efeito modulador em vários aspetos do processamento cognitivo, podendo facilitar o reconhecimento facial ou o acesso à memória semântica. Nesse sentido, realizaram-se duas experiências para analisar o efeito do contacto ocular na capacidade de nomeação de faces famosas e a sua variação dependentemente do tipo de tarefa. Na primeira experiência foi apresentado um conjunto de faces famosas masculinas a um grupo de participantes, com mais de 50 anos de idade, sem doença neurológica conhecida.. As faces foram apresentadas aleatoriamente em contacto ocular ou em olhar desviado e foi pedido aos participantes para realizarem uma tarefa de nomeação das faces. Numa segunda tarefa de controlo foi solicitado aos participantes para indicarem a presença ou ausência de contacto ocular, nos estímulos apresentados. Na segunda experiência, repetiram-se as tarefas de nomeação e identificação da direção do olhar, tendo sido acrescentadas um igual número de faces femininas aos estímulos e adicionada uma tarefa de descriminação de género. Em ambas as experiências foi encontrado um efeito facilitador do contacto ocular na nomeação das faces que pertenciam ao mesmo género do participante. Pelo contrário, na tarefa de direção do olhar (na segunda experiência) verificou-se um efeito facilitador do contacto ocular, mas apenas para faces do género oposto ao participante. Na tarefa de género, o contacto ocular conduziu a uma redução no número de acertos para faces do género oposto. Estes resultados mostram um efeito facilitador do contacto ocular na nomeação, e a sua dependência de fatores como o género. A existência de um efeito facilitador do contacto ocular está então, dependente do tipo de tarefa (nomeação, género e descriminação da direção do olhar) e da interação entre a tarefa e o género observador/estímulo. Assim o efeito modulador do contacto ocular, nas diferentes atividades cognitivas é complexo, podendo facilitar ou interferir dependendo da tarefa e da sua interação com outras variáveis. O efeito facilitador, a confirmar em situações patológicas, poderá ser utilizado na reabilitação das dificuldades de nomeação.
Awareness of eye contact has a modulatory effect on several cognitive tasks, enhancing facial recognition and encoding, as well as the access to semantic memory related to these faces. To analyse the effect of eye contact on proper name retrieval, and how it may depend upon type of task, two experiments using famous faces as stimuli were designed. In the first experiment a set of well-known public male faces was presented randomly in eye contact or averted gaze. Participants were asked to perform two tasks, one in which they had to name the presented faces and a control task in which they had to discriminate gaze direction. Since in this experiment all stimuli were male, a second experiment added an equal number of female and male faces. In this experiment a gender decision task was added. Participants were adult volunteers with fifty or more years, without known mental or neurological disease. Results from both experiments showed a facilitator effect of eye contact in naming faces of the same sex as the participant. In the gaze direction task of the second experiment, eye contact was easier to discriminate compared to averted gaze but only when the presented face was of the opposite sex than the participant’s. In the gender task, eye contact diminished accuracy but only with opposite-sex faces. These results show that eye contact facilitates proper name retrieval, but that this effect depends upon the sex of the perceiver and the perceived face. The existence of a facilitation effect due to eye contact was shown to be dependent both of task and of the interaction of sex of the stimuli and the participant. The modulator effect of eye contact in different cognitive tasks seems to be complex, either being a facilitator or causing interference depending on type of task and its interaction with other variables. Its facilitator effect, if confirmed in cases of pathology, may be used in rehabilitation settings of proper name retrieval.

AbstractAs some scholars have noted, the technical principles that modern creative writing workshops identify as “the craft of fiction” owe a great deal to Henry James and the prefaces to the New York edition of his novels, later published in a single volume as The Art of the Novel. However, James, far from setting out to help aspiring writers to develop their technical knowledge, was in fact fairly hostile to the very idea of craft, famously declaring that he “cannot imagine composition existing in a series of blocks.” The prefaces were instead intended to provide a sort of Cliff’s Notes to his own work, naming the tricks of his trade for the edification of his most dedicated readers, and it was these readers, most notably including Percy Lubbock, Joseph Warren Beach, and Caroline Gordon, who adapted James’s principles in some of the first literary handbooks used in the creative writing classroom. Though Lubbock, Beach, and Gordon borrowed significantly from James, they balanced his emphasis on aesthetics with the more accessible and egalitarian approach of earlier authors of fiction-writing handbooks, including the work of Walter Besant. This essay argues that a scholarly examination of the historical development of the discourse of the craft of writing serves not only to correct an over-emphasis on James’s influence, but also to address the equally erroneous assumption that principles of technique are eternal and universal, and thus exist apart from subject position and historical contingency.

Some called it Downadup. Others preferred Kido. As soon as the Conficker worm started spreading over the internet on November 20, 2008, security firms agreed that they faced a pandemic and immediately began to cooperate on containing it, but they couldn’t reach a consensus about what to name it. The worm continued to propagate unabated, infecting an estimated 15 million computers, including systems in the German military and British Parliament. By the following April the media had reported on the worm so extensively that PC World compared its notoriety to the celebrity of Paris Hilton, dubbing Conficker “the world’s most famous piece of malware.” Nevertheless several security companies still insisted on calling it Downadup. And though nobody was any closer to eliminating it, the worm had acquired several more identifiers, official codes such as TA08–297A, VU827267, and CVE-2008–4250, seldom referenced by anyone. Conficker will always have conflicting monikers. Most malware does. Despite periodic attempts to standardize the naming process, no system has ever become ubiquitous. Even the first, codified in 1991 when a mere thousand viruses were in circulation, was ignored as often as it was followed by the half-dozen computer firms then in the nascent security business. And no wonder. Mandating the form Family_Name.Group_Name.Major_Variant.Minor_Variant[:Modifier] , it made Linnaean binomials seem, comparatively, to roll off the tongue. A 1999 revision only bloated the nomenclature, requiring that virus platform and malware type also be specified, while ignoring a much deeper problem: even researchers who followed the formula seldom agreed on what to call the groups and families. Each new worm or virus averaged four totally incompatible appellations—generally unpronounceable strings of letters—and every month the number of worms and viruses in the wild increased by thousands. Hackers spread much of the malware by email. You’d get a virus embedded in the attachment to a message ostensibly coming from a personal contact. If you opened the attachment the virus would take over your computer’s email software, automatically forwarding itself, now in your name, to every address on your own contact list, renewing the whole infection process.