"We try to touch on everyone's area of study in vision research, from brain and visual-motor plasticity to computer models and robotics," says 91亚色 psychology Professor Jennifer Steeves (right).

The conference will take place June 15 to 18 in the Computer Science & Engineering Building (CSEB), Keele campus. Registration will take place in the CSEB lobby and speaker presentations will be held in CSEB Lecture Hall C. It is hosted by 91亚色's in the .

One of the speakers, professor of biological sciences and neuroscience of Mt. Holyoke College, will discuss her own experiences and research with the extent of the brain's plasticity. At one time it was believed that the brain was only malleable during a "critical period" in early childhood, but then, at the age of 48, Barry overcame the stereoblindness she'd had since infancy through optometric vision therapy. She realized at that point there was no absolute "critical period" and that the brain could change and adapt well into adulthood.

Left: Susan Barry

Barry will review the natural history of infantile esotropia聽鈥� where one or both eyes turn in 鈥� demonstrate several rehabilitation procedures that promote stereovision and describe possible mechanisms for wiring changes in the brain. She is the author of Fixing My Gaze: A Scientist's Journey into Seeing in Three Dimensions (2009).

Professor of the University of California, San Francisco, will discuss brain plasticity across the human lifespan and how all plasticity mechanisms are, by their fundamental nature, reversible. A large body of behavioural, electrophysiological and neuroimaging studies have documented the progressive neurological changes that arise as a function of normal aging and as expressions of chronic neurological and psychiatric diseases.

"I shall argue that a number of these illnesses represent failure modes of our self-organizing neurological machinery," says Merzenich. These studies of the neurological distortions recorded in patient populations provide "roadmaps" for potentially addressing plasticity-induced changes therapeutically. "I shall illustrate this therapeutic potential by discussing our early progress in developing treatments designed to prevent and/or ameliorate the expressions of chronic neurological and psychiatric illness."

Professor (right) of Georgetown University will present his talk on "Functional Specialization in the Visual Cortex of the Blind", which looks at how the modules in the brain responsible for sight retain their functional specialization in people blind from birth. The difference is that these modules are "hijacked" by input from a non-visual modality, such as audition or touch.

Professor of the University of Montreal will discuss "Cross-Modal Plasticity in Blind and Deaf Subjects: Results on Cortical Reorganization and Performance Do Not Seem to Always Point in the Same Direction".

Left: Franco Lepore

"Numerous results obtained in our laboratory on blind individuals consistently indicate that when tested on behavioural tasks, such as tone discrimination, sound localization in far and near space, navigation on a tactile labyrinth or in angle discrimination, they generally outperform the sighted," says Lepore. "At the cortical level, it appears that this supra-performance rests on the recruitment of visual areas." However, the same does not seem to hold true for deaf individuals, who show somewhat poorer visual abilities for even low-level functions.

Registration information, including a compete and abstracts, is available online. For more information or to download the conference program, visit the website or contact Teresa Manini, Centre for Vision Research administrative assistant, at manini@cvr.yorku.ca.

Republished courtesy of YFile鈥� 91亚色鈥檚 daily e-bulletin.

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Hundreds of studies carried out since have established the power of what is now known as the 鈥渟pacing effect鈥澛犫�� how people can better remember faces, words and historical facts if they spread out their study time rather than attempting one long cram session.

But most of the experiments have involved adults, said 91亚色 psychologist Nicholas Cepeda [Faculty of Health], who has begun to study the spacing effect in Ontario classrooms. He wants to come up with simple recommendations that will help teachers capitalize on the effect to improve how much students learn and retain.

Cepeda's studies include: What kind of spacing is most effective? Should lessons and subsequent review sessions be a week apart? Or is a gap of several months better? Are cumulative tests an effective teaching tool because they cover material taught earlier in the year as well as the most recent lessons?

Cepeda is probing deeper questions as well. What is it about the brain that makes the spacing effect so powerful? What can it tell us about how memory works? Cepeda was recently awarded a $100,777 grant from the Canadian Foundation for Innovation to buy equipment that will allow him to measure the electrical activity in the brains of children when they learn something for the first time, compared to when they study it again several months later.

He expects that re-learning material a second or third time is the result of different, more intense brain activity. 鈥淚f you have forgotten the material, the brain may think it has to pay more attention.鈥�

Cepeda also wants to assess the value of cumulative tests, which include questions on material students learned earlier in the year and could be a valuable teaching tool.

He said it is frustrating how little research is done to translate the discoveries psychologists and neuroscientists make about memory and learning into effective teaching strategies. In the United States, the Institute of Education Sciences funds this kind of research, but there is no equivalent agency in Canada, said Cepeda, who has applied to the US institute to do more studies in Toronto classrooms.

鈥淎s psychologists, we are sometimes scared to tell teachers what to do because we may end up telling them to do something that works in the lab that doesn鈥檛 work in the real world. We really do need to be testing these things in the classroom.鈥�

Republished courtesy of YFile鈥� 91亚色鈥檚 daily e-bulletin

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A 91亚色 study, published recently in the journal , used fMRI (functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging) to track brain activity when study participants looked at an image of a facial expression with a word superimposed on it. Study participants processed the words faster than the facial expressions. However, when the word did not match the image 鈥� for example, when the word 鈥渟ad鈥� was superimposed on an image of someone smiling 鈭� participants reacted less quickly to a request to read the word.

鈥淭he emotion in the word doesn鈥檛 match the emotion in the facial expression, which creates a conflict,鈥� said psychology Professor Joseph DeSouza in 91亚色鈥檚 Faculty of Health. 鈥淥ur study showed 鈭� for the first time 鈭� an increase in signal from the left inferior frontal cortex when the study participant was confronted by this conflict between the word and the image and asked to respond to directions that went against their automatic instincts.鈥�

Previous research on the prefrontal cortex has found this region to be implicated in higher order cognitive functions, including long-term planning, response suppression and response selection. This experiment, conducted by graduate student Shima Ovaysikia under DeSouza鈥檚 supervision, allowed researchers to study inhibitory mechanisms for much more complex stimuli than have been studied in the past.

The inferior frontal cortex is located near the front left temple. People who have problems with inhibition, including stroke or schizophrenia patients, may have damage to this inferior frontal cortex zone, says DeSouza. As a result, when they see something that is inconsistent 鈥� such as the image of a smiling face with the word 鈥渟ad鈥� across it 鈥� they would be expected to take more time to react, because the part of their brains needed to process it has been damaged or destroyed.

The research, conducted by 91亚色鈥檚 with the use of fMRI technology at Queen鈥檚 University, was partially funded by the Faculty of Health at 91亚色, the and the program. Future fMRI research at 91亚色 will be conducted in a state-of-the-art neuroimaging laboratory at 91亚色鈥檚 new Sherman Health Science Research Centre, which opened in September.

Republished courtesy of YFile鈥� 91亚色鈥檚 daily e-bulletin

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She accepted the Institute of Aging at the annual conference of the Canadian Association on Gerontology in Montreal. The prize, which augments major scholarship聽funding she has already received,聽included the money, an invitation to the conference and, best of all, a chance to adjudicate research posters.

鈥淚t鈥檚 perfect timing for me,鈥� says the first-year doctoral student in the Faculty of Health's School of Kinesiology & Health Science. 鈥淚鈥檒l be able to see what鈥檚 going on in my field. Winning this award has been very motivating."

Hawkins started work this fall developing and evaluating a clinical assessment tool to measure visuomotor integration (hand-eye coordination) that could lead to early detection of Alzheimer鈥檚 disease. For this, CIHR is funding her research to the tune of $35,000 a year 鈥� $30,000 in salary plus $5,000 research allowance 鈥� for each of the next three years. It鈥檚 the biggest scholarship Hawkins has ever received.

Left: Kara Hawkins

Sit down with Hawkins at her corner desk in the office she shares with other graduate students and you鈥檒l notice only one image taped to the wall next to her computer. 鈥淭hat鈥檚 my brain,鈥� says the 27-year-old of the vertical MRI scan taken this fall in 91亚色鈥檚 new Neuroimaging Laboratory, located in the Sherman Health Science Research Centre.

The brain. Hawkins became fascinated with it early in her undergraduate years.聽"You can't understand behaviour without understanding the brain. That's what interested me most."聽She started studying psychology then branched into kinesiology. It was a natural detour. 鈥淚鈥檓 an athlete,鈥� says the former varsity goalie who now plays forward for the Aurora Panthers and for the Ice-O-Topes, an intramural team at 91亚色. 鈥淚 wanted to learn how the brain controls movement.鈥�

After graduating in 2006, she jumped at an offer to work as a neuropsychology assistant at Baycrest, a centre specializing in geriatric research and care. 鈥淚鈥檝e always been interested in clinical applications,鈥� says Hawkins. Baycrest sparked an interest in aging and two years later she returned to 91亚色 to pursue聽a master鈥檚 degree and neuroscience graduate diploma, delving deeper into the neurophysiology of complex motor control. She won three scholarships to do it and graduated last spring.

Now a doctoral student, she鈥檚 back in a clinical setting. At 91亚色 Central Hospital, she is collaborating with the geriatric physician to diagnose aging patients who show signs of mental deterioration. Currently, doctors use language, cognition, memory and attention tests to score patients鈥� mental status out of 30. It鈥檚 an imprecise science, and Hawkins has developed and is testing a new measurement tool that could be more precise.

The tool looks like a laptop. There are two touch-sensitive screens, one vertical and the other horizontal (where the keyboard would normally be). The patient is instructed to reach for a target that appears on the vertical screen, at first directly with her hand and then more indirectly using the horizontal touch screen to聽manipulate a cursor. The test is not educationally or language biased, and Hawkins can determine which part of the brain the patient is using and the level of dysfunction based by the accuracy and speed of the response.

The brain is a complex network of communicating parts. When someone has dementia, the lines of communication deteriorate and misfire. Hawkins鈥� test aims to detect the breakdown in the visual-motor and cognitive-motor communication lines. 鈥淭hese touch-screen tracking tests tap into that.鈥�

Hawkins is currently trying to recruit 60 to 90 patients diagnosed with Alzheimer鈥檚 disease and the same number who are aging normally. Over the next three years, she鈥檒l test her diagnostic tool. She is particularly interested in finding out if it can detect early and more subtle stages of Alzheimer鈥檚 disease. Interested participants may contact her at karah@yorku.ca.

The earlier we can catch signs of mental deterioration, the more time there will be for intervention that could delay the onset, says Hawkins. Earlier and more precise diagnosis could lead to better education and better care for patients, she says.

Hawkins, now a member of the , is doing her research under the supervision of 聽Prof. Lauren Sergio, an expert in hand-eye coordination and director of 91亚色鈥檚 Sensorimotor Neuroscience Laboratory. When she鈥檚 finished her PhD, she hopes to continue exploring diseases associated with聽aging.

By Martha Tancock, YFile contributing writer

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鈥淔rom Cats Eyes to Headaches: Adventures in Neuroscience鈥� will take place Thursday, Nov. 11, from 2 to 3:30pm at 214 Calumet College, Keele campus. RSVP by Nov. 10 to smiceli@yorku.ca. Everyone is welcome to attend. Light refreshments will be served.

Left: Fran Wilkinson

In her research, Wilkinson, a member of the at 91亚色, has examined the mechanisms of face and object recognition in the visual brain and how vision changes during aging. She is among the researchers working in the Sherman Health Science Research Centre.

鈥淭hroughout my career I have been fascinated by how the visual pathways of the brain capture and interpret the visual world. In this talk, I will briefly describe the sometimes winding path my own research career has taken, examining this central question in neuroscience from a variety of angles, using new technologies as they have come into being,鈥� says Wilkinson.

鈥淚 will then discuss my current work on vision and migraine headache as an example both of the interface between basic and clinical neuroscience, and of the role of serendipity in research.鈥�

The Faculty Research Profile Series, presented by Calumet College, features eminent 91亚色 faculty speaking on their broad research interests rather than about a single narrow topic.聽Audiences will hear聽what professors have devoted their careers to studying, how they do what they do and why.

Republished courtesy of YFile鈥� 91亚色鈥檚 daily e-bulletin

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The study, recently published in the journal Neuropsychologia looked at a rare disorder called prosopagnosia, in which the ability to visually identify faces is lost or severely impaired.

Researchers performed a series of experiments that gauged prosopagnosia sufferers' recognition of faces, objects and voices and other sounds, both separately and in varying combinations; the scientists compared these results to those of control subjects with normal brain functioning.

"We were interested in investigating the interactions between different types of sensory inputs," says lead researcher Jennifer Steeves (left), a professor of psychology in 91亚色鈥檚 . "For example, does seeing a person鈥檚 face and listening to them speaking at the same time offer more helpful information to identify that person, or is a single sensory input superior?"

Steeves鈥� experiments involved a patient who suffered brain damage from meningitis as a child. With extensive lesions on the right hemisphere and most of the ventral visual areas, he was unable to recognize familiar faces, facial expressions, objects, colours or words.

"Quite remarkably, even with these deficits, he was able to hold a job and maintain an independent lifestyle," Steeves says. "We wanted to find out what cognitive functions were compensating to help him achieve this."

In one experiment, participants were required to rapidly learn the identities of 10 individuals,聽using an聽image of a face paired with a voice.

Prior to this exercise, subjects were presented with grey-scale images of 110 female faces that had been stripped of distinguishing features. They were also fed auditory stimuli 鈥� a 20-second neutral passage spoken in English by one of 110 female voices. Participants were then tested on what they had learned in visual and auditory-only modes, and in combination.

Steeves and her colleagues found that control subjects relied more heavily on visual cues, while the patient with prosopagnosia used auditory information more expertly to recognize people. However, auditory cues didn鈥檛 help in identifying objects, leading researchers to believe that our processing of people and things occur in two different neurological pathways.

Untangling this web of sensory cues is important on more than one level, Steeves notes. "Our hope is that it will help not only our understanding of those with brain disorders, but also to understand how healthy brains function," she says.

The study, "Superior voice recognition in a patient with acquired prosopagnosia and object agnosia," is co-authored by Adria Hoover, a 91亚色 psychology graduate student, and Jean-Fran莽ois D茅monet, director of France鈥檚 Institut National de la Sant茅 et de la Recherche M茅dicale (INSERM).

Steeves is one of the researchers based in 91亚色鈥檚 new state-of-the-art Sherman Health Science Research Centre, which officially opened on Sept. 14.聽She leads the Perceptual Neuroscience Laboratory, which is based on the building鈥檚 main level. Both Steeves and her lab are part of the .

The research was funded by the and France鈥檚 .

By Melissa Hughes, media relations officer. Republished courtesy of YFile鈥� 91亚色鈥檚 daily e-bulletin

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The study, recently published in The Journal of Neuroscience, examined the inner workings of the posterior parietal cortex (PPC), located towards the top and back of the skull. It acts as the brain鈥檚 game card for hand-eye coordination, playing a critical role in planning visually guided actions.

Above: Professor Doug Crawford performs computer-controlled tests to measure the accuracy of Pat Byrne's聽gaze and reach. Byrne, a postdoctoral聽Fellow聽working in 91亚色's Centre for聽Vision Research, is hooked up to聽eye-tracking headgear.

鈥淔ootball is a good example to illustrate our results. A quarterback trying to deke out the opposition would actually use separate parts of the posterior parietal cortex in rapid succession...to achieve this,鈥� says principal investigator Doug Crawford, professor of psychology in 91亚色鈥檚 Faculty of Health and Canada Research Chair in Visuomotor Neuroscience.

The findings suggest that within the PPC, the superior parietal occipital cortex (SPOC) specializes in encoding reach goals. 鈥淚n the case of trying to fake a pass, SPOC would help you pick the real player you want to throw the ball to,鈥� says Crawford. 鈥淭he midposterior intraparietal sulcus (mIPS), would help you to look at the decoy player. Then the angular gyrus (AG) would compare your current hand position to the goal you鈥檙e aiming for in order to guide your throw."

Simply put, SPOC picks the goal, while mIPS and AG are involved more closely in planning the motor functions for both our view and our reach.

Scientists at 91亚色鈥檚 Centre for Vision Research (CVR) used a non-invasive procedure called transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) to create activity in these three areas of the brain. TMS delivers mild, split-second electromagnetic pulses, with little to no side effects for participants.

Participants then performed computer-controlled tests to measure the accuracy of their view and reach, while hooked up to eye-tracking headgear. Both left and right hands were tested, as well as reaching with and without visual feedback. By observing differences between subjects tested both with and without TMS over different brain areas, Crawford and his colleagues were able to map the unique responsibilities of each area.

鈥淏ecause mIPS and AG are involved in calculating both hand and eye movement, and SPOC is dedicated to encoding the reach goal, the whole assembly is likely important for hand-eye coordination,鈥� says Crawford.

鈥淚t鈥檚 also a good reason to wear a helmet. You wouldn鈥檛 want a hard knock on the parietal cortex,鈥� he says.

The study鈥檚 lead investigator was kinesiology PhD student Michael Vesia, currently a postdoctoral fellow with the Sunnybrook Research Institute Brain Sciences Research Program at the University of Waterloo. It was co-authored by CVR colleagues Steven Prime, a psychology PhD student, Xiaogang Yan, research associate, and Lauren Sergio, a kinesiology professor in the聽School of Kinesiology & Health Science in 91亚色's Faculty of Health.

The research was funded by the .

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Last week, 91亚色 the Sherman Health Science Research Centre, a facility for research in brain and vision, biomechanics, virtual reality and robotics. Planning for the facility, which was completed in December 2009, started in 2007.

The $11.5-million centre, which was converted from an old hockey arena, was named after Honey Sherman, a 91亚色 Foundation board member, and her husband, Barry Sherman, president and CEO of the聽 pharmaceutical company Apotex Inc., who donated $5 million to the project. 鈥淓verybody who gives donations has to pick and choose as to where the need is greatest,鈥� Barry Sherman said.

鈥淚t鈥檚 91亚色, an important Canadian university for teaching and research鈥e tend to concentrate our gifts towards health care. It鈥檚 good for the scientists, the public and the eventual patients who will benefit. It鈥檚 a gift to the City of Toronto.鈥�

Sherman sees the facility鈥檚 potential for interdisciplinary research as an asset to the University. 鈥淚t鈥檚 very impressive, and it makes a lot of sense. [These fields] are interrelated. To make significant progress in any area you need people of various [fields],鈥� he said, adding that he was particularly impressed with the neuroimaging lab.

鈥淭o try to understand the workings of the brain, you need that equipment,鈥� he said. 鈥淚t鈥檒l be very useful in developing that understanding when it comes to brain impairment and issues like dementia.鈥�

Stan Shapson, 91亚色鈥檚 vice-president, research & innovation, said the facility will provide an ideal work environment for both staff and graduate students. 鈥淲e didn鈥檛 have these kinds of facilities for them yet, so they were doing great work, but you鈥檙e doing work in a lab that鈥檚 in the basement of a building. There鈥檚 potential for interference when you鈥檙e collecting data. It slows down your work and you鈥檙e always adjusting equipment,鈥� Shapson said. 鈥淣ow you have state-of-the-art labs鈥The students and researchers] will be able to do better quality work more quickly.鈥�

Some of this research includes studying loss of vision in the elderly, developing a robot-guided wheelchair and building robots that can function underwater.

Shapson hopes the facility will help the University forge connections with local hospitals. 鈥淚 think we had four presidents of regional hospitals at [the official opening]. That鈥檚 wonderful. They鈥檙e looking at this facility as something that could help them,鈥� he said.

With the new facilities and 91亚色鈥檚 existing , which is internationally renowned, Shapson sees the potential to attract new researchers and students, as well as to apply existing research to the health care sector. 鈥淚 think [this centre] is going to drive new ideas, innovations and treatments. At the end of the day, the hope is to deliver better health outcomes to Canadians,鈥� he said.

The Sherman Centre includes space for 13 laboratories and accommodates over 150 researchers, graduate students, research associates and staff.

Posted by Elizabeth Monier-Williams, with files courtesy of YFile 鈥� 91亚色鈥檚 daily e-bulletin

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Here's an on June 24. The story's had 86 tweets and 335 Diggs:

It's long been an accepted truth among married couples that it's the wife who must usually steer the pair through social gatherings, reminding her husband if he's meeting someone for the first, second or 15th time 鈥� and science backs up that observation.

In lab settings, women routinely outperform men in facial recognition skills, both in terms of speed and reliability. Now, research from 91亚色 in Toronto has added a wrinkle to the existing wisdom. It's not just women whose brains are so nimble, the investigators have determined, it's gay men, too.

In the Canadian study, Jennifer Steeves, a psychology professor in 91亚色鈥檚 Faculty of Health, recruited a sample group composed of homosexual men, heterosexual men and heterosexual women. Significantly, she also took care to include both left- and right-handed people among the subjects. All of the volunteers were shown pictures of 10 faces and given time to try to memorize them. Those 10 faces were mixed with similarly edited images of 50 other people, and flashed on a screen for just milliseconds apiece. The subjects' job was to press a key when they saw a face they'd seen before.

The results confirmed what the investigators suspected they'd find: the gay men and the straight women scored about equally well in the test, and both did better than the straight men. What's more, within the straight male group, lefties outperformed righties. The explanation is rooted mostly in the genes.

All people are born with genetic coding that regulates body symmetry and asymmetry. This includes not just handedness, but which way the whorl in the hair at the crown of the head grows, or which hemisphere of the brain will be dominant for processing language. "Characteristics like this are determined very, very early on," says Steeves. "A baby's handedness can sometimes even be observed in utero."

If sex and symmetry get mixed up this way, there's no reason the phenomenon should sidestep the brain, and Steeves does not think it does. Gay men, she believes, probably do so well at recognizing faces because, like women, they're putting both hemispheres to work at once. Greater crosstalk between the two halves via the corpus callosum 鈥� the cable of nerve fibres that serves as sort of a superhighway between left and right 鈥� probably contributes to this as well. That, however, is not something Steeves and her colleagues have been able to demonstrate conclusively yet, since they have not had the chance to rerun their study while simultaneously scanning the brains of their subjects with a functional magnetic resonance imager (fMRI). "The University just doesn't have one," she says. "But we're getting one soon and we'll be able to take that next step then."

None of this means that it will ever be possible simply to take an fMRI of a brain and tell from that alone if it belongs to a homosexual or heterosexual 鈥� and given privacy concerns and the risk of bias, Steeves wouldn't even want to try. "I would hesitate to do post-hoc analysis," she says. "There are scary things that could happen with that." What it does mean, however, is that science's understanding of the roots of sexuality, so long shrouded in misinformation, is steadily edging into the light 鈥� and there's nothing scary about that.

The Times of India Online and DailyIndia.com covered the research June 23:

A new study by 91亚色 researchers has shown that gay men can recall familiar faces faster and more accurately than their heterosexual counterparts because, like women, they use both sides of their brains.

The study examined the influence of gender, sexual orientation and whether we鈥檙e right- or聽 left-handed on our ability to recognize faces. It found that when memorizing and discriminating between faces, homosexual men show patterns of bilaterality 鈥� the usage of both sides of the brain 鈥� similar to heterosexual women. Heterosexual men tend to favour the right hemisphere for such tasks.

Jennifer Steeves, psychology professor in 91亚色鈥檚 Faculty of Health, and her colleagues also investigated the influence of hand dominance on such tasks. They found that left-handed heterosexual participants had better face recognition abilities than left-handed homosexuals, and also outperformed right-handed heterosexuals. 鈥淥ur findings are consistent with what we know about the organization and laterality of how we process faces depending on our gender, sexual orientation and handedness,鈥� Steeves says.

The study was also covered in :

Gay men are on a par with women when it comes to never forgetting a face, according to a study.聽Homosexual men show patterns of bilaterality 鈥� using both sides of the brain 鈥� similar to heterosexual women.

"Our results suggest that both gay men and heterosexual women code faces bilaterally. That allows for faster retrieval of stored information," said study lead author Jennifer Steeves, at Toronto鈥檚 91亚色.

Stories on the research also appeared in Sun Media newspapers and June 22.

Posted by Elizabeth Monier-Williams, research communications officer, with files courtesy of YFile鈥� 91亚色鈥檚 daily e-bulletin.

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The study, published in the journal, , examined the influence of gender, sexual orientation and whether we鈥檙e right-or-left-handed on our ability to recognize faces. It found that when memorizing and discriminating between faces, homosexual men show patterns of bilaterality 鈥� the usage of both sides of the brain 鈥� similar to heterosexual women. Heterosexual men tend to favour the right hemisphere for such tasks.

鈥淥ur results suggest that both gay men and heterosexual women code faces bilaterally. That allows for faster retrieval of stored information,鈥� says study lead author Jennifer Steeves, Associate Professor, Department of Psychology, .

Study participants were asked to memorize photographs of ten faces, and differentiate them from 50 others, shown to them for only milliseconds each. The images were rendered in black and white and edited to remove ears, hair and blemishes, which can serve as obvious identifying cues. Participants then had to relay which faces were new, as quickly and accurately as possible.

Steeves and her colleagues also investigated the influence of hand dominance on such tasks. They found that left-handed heterosexual participants had better face recognition abilities than left-handed homosexuals, and also outperformed right-handed heterosexuals.

Hand dominance is thought to be linked with both hemispheric functioning and sexual orientation; previous studies have shown that homosexual individuals are 39 per cent more likely to be left-handed.

鈥淥ur findings are consistent with what we know about the organization and laterality of how we process faces depending on our gender, sexual orientation and handedness,鈥� Steeves says.

Anatomical studies of the corpus callosum, which facilitates communication between the left and right hemispheres of the brain, also indicate differences in handedness: women and left-handed men have been shown to possess larger corpus callosum and more symmetrical cortices than right-handed men.

鈥淭hese anatomical differences likely contribute to the more lateralized performance results seen among right-handed and heterosexual men,鈥� says Steeves.

The study, 鈥淪ex differences in face processing are mediated by handedness and sexual orientation,鈥� was co-authored by 91亚色 psychology graduate student Caitlin R. Mullin, and 91亚色 undergraduate psychology students Paul W. H. Brewster, and Roxana A. Dobrin.

By Melissa Hughes, media relations officer.

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