Face individual identity recognition: a potential endophenotype in autism

Background Face individual identity recognition skill is heritable and independent of intellectual ability. Difficulties in face individual identity recognition are present in autistic individuals and their family members and are possibly linked to oxytocin polymorphisms in families with an autistic child. While it is reported that developmental prosopagnosia (i.e., impaired face identity recognition) occurs in 2–3% of the general population, no prosopagnosia prevalence estimate is available for autism. Furthermore, an autism within-group approach has not been reported towards characterizing impaired face memory and to investigate its possible links to social and communication difficulties. Methods The present study estimated the prevalence of prosopagnosia in 80 autistic adults with no intellectual disability, investigated its cognitive characteristics and links to autism symptoms’ severity, personality traits, and mental state understanding from the eye region by using standardized tests and questionnaires. Results More than one third of autistic participants showed prosopagnosia. Their face memory skill was not associated with their symptom’s severity, empathy, alexithymia, or general intelligence. Face identity recognition was instead linked to mental state recognition from the eye region only in autistic individuals who had prosopagnosia, and this relationship did not depend on participants’ basic face perception skills. Importantly, we found that autistic participants were not aware of their face memory skills. Limitations We did not test an epidemiological sample, and additional work is necessary to establish whether these results generalize to the entire autism spectrum. Conclusions Impaired face individual identity recognition meets the criteria to be a potential endophenotype in autism. In the future, testing for face memory could be used to stratify autistic individuals into genetically meaningful subgroups and be translatable to autism animal models.

Effects of bilingualism on statistical learning in preschoolers

Earlier work indicates that bilingualism may positively affect statistical learning, but leaves open whether a bilingual benefit is (1) found during learning rather than in a post-hoc test following a learning phase and (2) explained by enhanced verbal short-term memory skill in the bilinguals. Forty-one bilingual and 56 monolingual preschoolers completed a serial reaction time task and a nonword repetition task (NWR). Linear mixed-effect regressions indicated that the bilinguals showed a stronger decrease in reaction times over the regular blocks of the task than the monolinguals. No group differences in accuracy-based measures were found. NWR performance, which did not differ between the groups, did not account for the attested effect of bilingualism. These results provide partial support for effects of bilingualism on statistical learning, which appear during learning and are not due to enhanced verbal short-term memory. Taken together, these findings add to a growing body of research on effects of bilingualism on statistical learning, and constitute a first step towards investigating the factors which may underlie such effects.

Perilaku Mencatat dan Kemampuan Memori pada Proses Belajar

Learning is a process or activity that would not stop in a person lifetime. Learning can be done by anyone and anywhere. One of the learning process occur in the school environment. Each student has an individual learning style that suits their convenience. The result of the study will further improve if aided by the accompanying media that is taking notes. Taking notes is included in the learning process when done with awareness and without enforcement from others. Taking note behavior will help students understanding the perception of memory skill in learning process. Due to the reasons above, the researcher wants to look relationship between the attitude of taking note behavior towards the attitude of memory skill in learning process. The research methodology is quantitative, used 166 subjects whom are grade 2 science, high school students in Denpasar, with 15 to 17 years old age range. The correlation coefficient is 0,442 with 0,000 probabilities. This mentioned results shows that there is a relationship between the attitude of taking note behavior towards the attitude of memory skill in learning process. The determination coefficient is 0,195. The analysis method in this research is simple regression. Statistical analysis showed that the attitudes of taking note behavior can be used to predict attitudes of memory skill. When individuals have attitude of taking note behavior, then the individual will able to see as far as which the attitude of memory skill within each individual. Keyword: Attitude of taking note behavior, Attitude of Memory Skill, Student