Previous research has shown that invariant facial features-for example, sex-and variant facial features-for example, emotional expressions-interact during face categorization. The nature of this interaction is a matter of dispute, however, and has been reported as either asymmetrical, such that sex cues influence emotion perception but emotional expressions do not affect the perception of sex, or symmetrical, such that sex and emotion cues each reciprocally influence the categorization of the other. In the present research, we identified stimulus set size as the critical factor leading to this disparity. Using faces drawn from different databases, in two separate experiments we replicated the finding of a symmetrical interaction between face sex and emotional expression when larger sets of posers were used. Using a subset of four posers, in the same setups, however, did not provide evidence for a symmetrical interaction, which is also consistent with prior research. This pattern of results suggests that different strategies may be used to categorize aspects of faces that are encountered repeatedly.

We are better at recognising faces of our own age group compared to faces of other age groups. It has been suggested that this own-age bias (OAB) might occur because of perceptual-expertise and/or social-cognitive mechanisms. While there is evidence to suggest effects of perceptual-expertise, little research has explored the role of social-cognitive factors. To do so, we looked at how the presence of an emotional expression on the face changes the magnitude of the OAB. Across three experiments young adult participants were presented with young and older adult faces to remember. Neutral faces were first presented alone (Experiment 1) to validate the proposed paradigm, and then presented along with angry (Experiment 2), and sad or happy faces (Experiment 3). The presence of an emotional expression improved the recognition of older adult faces, reducing the OAB which was evident for neutral faces. These results support the involvement of social-cognitive factors in the OAB, suggesting that a perceptual-expertise account cannot fully explain this face recognition bias.

Autonomous vehicles (AVs) have the potential to improve the health and well-being of older people. This exploratory study involved in-depth interviews with 43 key stakeholders across a broad range of sectors to identify the primary policy implications of AVs for aging populations. Four main issues were evident: a general lack of salience of the needs of older people in the AV discourse, the perceived dominance of the commercial drivers of AV technology, the implications of the particular characteristics of the senior segment, and a lack of available analyses to guide decision making. Threats and opportunities represented by these issues are discussed.

Selective sensitization has been proposed as an alternative explanation for enhanced responding to animal fear-relevant stimuli--snakes and spiders--during extinction of Pavlovian fear conditioning. The current study sought to replicate the phenomenon using a shock workup procedure as the sensitizing manipulation and to extend it to interpersonal and intergroup fear-relevant stimuli--angry faces and other-race faces. Assessment of selective sensitization was followed by a one-trial fear learning procedure. Selective sensitization, larger electrodermal responses to fear-relevant than to control stimuli after sensitization, or a larger increase in electrodermal responding to fear-relevant than to control stimuli after sensitization was observed across stimulus domains. However, the one-trial fear learning procedure failed to provide evidence for enhanced fear conditioning to fear-relevant stimuli. One-trial fear learning was either absent or present for fear-relevant and nonfear-relevant stimuli. The current study confirms that electrodermal responses to fear-relevant stimuli across stimulus domains are subject to selective sensitization.

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