This systematic review examined whether early cognitive impairment after stroke is predictive of outcome within the "activity" and "participation" domains of the International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health (ICF) at 6-12 months post-injury. Studies were included if cognitive functioning was assessed within 6 weeks of injury and outcome was measured at least 6 months post-injury. PsycINFO, MEDLINE, CINAHL and EMBASE databases were searched and 14 studies were identified. Studies were categorised according to whether "domain-general" or "domain-specific" cognitive assessment was undertaken and whether outcomes measured the ICF activities or participation domains, as determined by three independent raters using previous established linking rules. Quality of studies was assessed using a modified version of Downs and Black's Quality Index. Overall, early cognitive impairment predicted activities and participation 6-12 months post-stroke. This relationship was more consistent when domain-specific cognitive assessment was used. For the domain of activities, visuospatial perception/construction, visual memory, visual neglect, and attention/executive functioning predicted functioning 6-12 months post-stroke. Early domain-specific cognitive assessment may be clinically informative of longer term activities. For the domain of participation, further well-controlled studies are needed to determine the relationship with early post-stroke cognitive impairments.

A pilot study of the effects of metacognition-oriented social skills training (MOSST) on social functioning in patients with schizophrenia spectrum disorders (SSDs) reported promising results. The main purpose of the current trial was to compare the effectiveness and potential benefits of MOSST vs conventional social skills training (SST). Single-blind randomized controlled trial with 2 groups of patients aged 18-65 with SSDs on partial hospitalization. Participants were randomly assigned (1:1) to receive 16 group sessions with MOSST or conventional SST, both in addition to standard care, over 4 months, with a 6-month follow-up. Psychosocial functioning, metacognition, and symptom outcomes were measured by blind assessors. Statistical analyses used mixed models to estimate treatment effects in each postrandomization time point. Thirty-six patients were randomly assigned to the MOSST group and 33 patients to the conventional SST group. Between-group differences were significant in favor of MOSST on Social and Occupational Functioning Assessment Scale (SOFAS) and Personal and Social Performance Scale (PSP) total scores at post-treatment and follow-up. Concerning PSP subscales, there were significant between-group differences in favor of MOSST at follow-up on socially useful activities, personal and social relationships, and disturbing and aggressive behaviors. Metacognition only improved following MOSST group. For people with SDDs, MOSST appears to have short- and long-term beneficial effects on social functioning and symptoms. Further studies are required to replicate the current results in other samples.

Reverse simulation models of facial expression recognition suggest that we recognize the emotions of others by running implicit motor programmes responsible for the production of that expression. Previous work has tested this theory by examining facial expression recognition in participants with Möbius sequence, a condition characterized by congenital bilateral facial paralysis. However, a mixed pattern of findings has emerged, and it has not yet been tested whether these individuals can imagine facial expressions, a process also hypothesized to be underpinned by proprioceptive feedback from the face. We investigated this issue by examining expression recognition and imagery in six participants with Möbius sequence, and also carried out tests assessing facial identity and object recognition, as well as basic visual processing. While five of the six participants presented with expression recognition impairments, only one was impaired at the imagery of facial expressions. Further, five participants presented with other difficulties in the recognition of facial identity or objects, or in lower-level visual processing. We discuss the implications of our findings for the reverse simulation model, and suggest that facial identity recognition impairments may be more severe in the condition than has previously been noted.

In this paper we describe the case of EM: a female adolescent who acquired prosopagnosia following encephalitis at the age of eight. Initial neuropsychological and eye-movement investigations indicated that EM had profound difficulties in face perception as well as face recognition. EM underwent 14 weeks of perceptual training in an online programme that attempted to improve her ability to make fine-grained discriminations between faces.Following training, EM's face perception skills had improved, and the effect generalized to untrained faces. Eye-movement analyses also indicated that EM spent more time viewing the inner facial features post-training. Examination of EM's face recognition skills revealed an improvement in her recognition of personally-known faces when presented in a laboratorybased test, although the same gains were not noted in her everyday experiences with these faces. In addition, EM did not improve on a test assessing the recognition of newly encoded faces. One month after training, EM had maintained the improvement on the eye-tracking test, and to a lesser extent, her performance on the familiar faces test. This pattern of findings is interpreted as promising evidence that the programme can improve face perception skills, and with some adjustments, may at least partially improve face recognition skills.Keywords: Prosopagnosia, face recognition, rehabilitation, training, encephalitis. Rehabilitation of Prosopagnosia 3Rehabilitation of Face-Processing Skills in an Adolescent with Prosopagnosia:Evaluation of an Online Perceptual Training Programme Prosopagnosia is a cognitive condition characterised by a relatively selective deficit in face recognition. Traditionally, the disorder has been described in a small number of individuals who acquire face recognition difficulties following neurological injury or illness, typically affecting occipitotemporal regions (de Renzi, Perani, Carlesimo, Silveri, & Fazio, 1994;Gainotti & Marra, 2011). Although acquired prosopagnosia in its purest form is a rare condition (Gloning, Gloning, & Hoff, 1967;Zihl & von Cramon, 1986), many more individuals with brain damage are believed to experience moderate-to-severe face-processing deficits alongside other cognitive impairments (Hécaen & Angelergues, 1962;Valentine, Powell, Davidoff, Letson, & Greenwood, 2006). Further, as many as 2.9% (Bowles et al., 2009) of the population may experience a developmental form of the disorder (e.g. Bate & Cook, 2012;Duchaine & Nakayama, 2005). Hence, exploration of the remediation of prosopagnosia is an urgent clinical issue that, unfortunately, has received little attention to date.However, this issue is complicated by findings that prosopagnosia is a heterogeneous condition that not only differs in severity (e.g. Valentine et al., 2006), but also presents with a variable pattern of cognitive symptoms (Barton, 2008;Dalrymple et al., 2011;Le Grand et al., 2006;Susilo & Duchaine, 2013). For instance, individuals with acquired prosopagnosia can sometimes present with deficits...

Face recognition abilities vary widely. While face recognition deficits have been reported in children, it is unclear whether superior face recognition skills can be encountered during development. This paper presents O.B., a 14-year-old female with extraordinary face recognition skills: a "super-recognizer" (SR). O.B. demonstrated exceptional face-processing skills across multiple tasks, with a level of performance that is comparable to adult SRs. Her superior abilities appear to be specific to face identity: She showed an exaggerated face inversion effect and her superior abilities did not extend to object processing or non-identity aspects of face recognition. Finally, an eye-movement task demonstrated that O.B. spent more time than controls examining the nose - a pattern previously reported in adult SRs. O.B. is therefore particularly skilled at extracting and using identity-specific facial cues, indicating that face and object recognition are dissociable during development, and that super recognition can be detected in adolescence.