1
|
Wang Z, Wu T, Zhang W, Deng W, Li Y, Zhang L, Sun YHP, Jin H. High familiar faces have both eye recognition and holistic processing advantages. Atten Percept Psychophys 2023; 85:2296-2306. [PMID: 37794299 DOI: 10.3758/s13414-023-02792-4] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Accepted: 09/12/2023] [Indexed: 10/06/2023]
Abstract
People recognize familiar faces better than unfamiliar faces. However, it remains unknown whether familiarity affects part-based and/or holistic processing. Wang et al., Frontiers in Psychology, 6, 559 (2015), Vision Research, 157, 89-96 (2019) found both enhanced part-based and holistic processing in eye relative to mouth regions (i.e., in a region-selective manner) for own-race and own-species faces, i.e., faces with more experience. Here, we examined the role of face familiarity in eyes (part-based, region-selective) and holistic processing. Face familiarity was tested at three levels: high-familiar (faces of students from the same department and the same class who attended almost all courses together), low-familiar (faces of students from the same department but different classes who attended some courses together), and unfamiliar (faces of schoolmates from different departments who seldom attended the same courses). Using the old/new task in Experiment 1, we found that participants recognized eyes of high-familiar faces better than low-familiar and unfamiliar ones, while similar performance was observed for mouths, indicating a region-selective, eyes familiarity effect. Using the "Perceptual field" paradigm in Experiment 2, we observed a stronger inversion effect for high-familiar faces, a weaker inversion effect for low-familiar faces, but a non-significant inversion effect for unfamiliar faces, indicating that face familiarity plays a role in holistic processing. Taken together, our results suggest that familiarity, like other experience-based variables (e.g., race and species), can improve both eye processing and holistic processing.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- Zhe Wang
- Department of Psychology, Zhejiang Sci-Tech University, Zhejiang, China
| | - Ting Wu
- Department of Psychology, Zhejiang Sci-Tech University, Zhejiang, China
| | - Weidong Zhang
- Department of Psychology, Zhejiang Sci-Tech University, Zhejiang, China
| | - Wenjing Deng
- Department of Psychology, Zhejiang Sci-Tech University, Zhejiang, China
| | - Yijun Li
- Department of Psychology, Zhejiang Sci-Tech University, Zhejiang, China
| | - Lushuang Zhang
- Department of Psychology, Zhejiang Sci-Tech University, Zhejiang, China
| | - Yu-Hao P Sun
- Department of Psychology, Zhejiang Sci-Tech University, Zhejiang, China.
| | - Haiyang Jin
- Division of Science, Department of Psychology, New York University Abu Dhabi, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates
| |
Collapse
|
2
|
Hagen S, Vuong QC, Jung L, Chin MD, Scott LS, Tanaka JW. A perceptual field test in object experts using gaze-contingent eye tracking. Sci Rep 2023; 13:11437. [PMID: 37454134 PMCID: PMC10349839 DOI: 10.1038/s41598-023-37695-9] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/17/2023] [Accepted: 06/26/2023] [Indexed: 07/18/2023] Open
Abstract
A hallmark of expert object recognition is rapid and accurate subordinate-category recognition of visually homogenous objects. However, the perceptual strategies by which expert recognition is achieved is less known. The current study investigated whether visual expertise changes observers' perceptual field (e.g., their ability to use information away from fixation for recognition) for objects in their domain of expertise, using a gaze-contingent eye-tracking paradigm. In the current study, bird experts and novices were presented with two bird images sequentially, and their task was to determine whether the two images were of the same species (e.g., two different song sparrows) or different species (e.g., song sparrow and chipping sparrow). The first study bird image was presented in full view. The second test bird image was presented fully visible (full-view), restricted to a circular window centered on gaze position (central-view), or restricted to image regions beyond a circular mask centered on gaze position (peripheral-view). While experts and novices did not differ in their eye-movement behavior, experts' performance on the discrimination task for the fastest responses was less impaired than novices in the peripheral-view condition. Thus, the experts used peripheral information to a greater extent than novices, indicating that the experts have a wider perceptual field to support their speeded subordinate recognition.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- Simen Hagen
- Department of Psychology, University of Victoria, Victoria, Canada.
- CNRS, CRAN, Université de Lorraine, F-54000 Nancy, France.
| | - Quoc C Vuong
- Biosciences Institute, Newcastle University, Newcastle Upon Tyne, UK
| | - Liandra Jung
- Department of Psychology, University of Victoria, Victoria, Canada
- Herbert Wertheim School of Optometry & Vision Science, University of California, Berkeley, USA
| | - Michael D Chin
- Department of Psychology, University of Victoria, Victoria, Canada
| | - Lisa S Scott
- Department of Psychology, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL, USA
| | - James W Tanaka
- Department of Psychology, University of Victoria, Victoria, Canada
| |
Collapse
|
3
|
Wang Z, Ni H, Zhou X, Yang X, Zheng Z, Sun YHP, Zhang X, Jin H. Looking at the upper facial half enlarges the range of holistic face processing. Sci Rep 2023; 13:2419. [PMID: 36765162 PMCID: PMC9918552 DOI: 10.1038/s41598-023-29583-z] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/27/2022] [Accepted: 02/07/2023] [Indexed: 02/12/2023] Open
Abstract
Previous studies suggested that upper and lower facial halves might be involved in the human holistic face processing differently. In this study, we replicated and extended the finding above. In Experiment 1, we used the standard composite-face task to measure holistic face processing when participants made judgements on the upper and lower facial halves separately. Results showed that the composite-face effect was stronger for the upper facial half compared to the lower half. In Experiment 2, we investigated how facial information was integrated when participants focused on different features, using the perceptual field paradigm. Results showed that: (1) more "peripheral faces" were chosen when participants fixated at the eyes than when they fixated at the mouth; (2) less "peripheral faces" were chosen for inverted faces regardless of the fixated features. Findings from both experiments together indicate that more peripheral facial information were integrated when participants focused on the upper facial half, highlighting the significance of focusing on the upper facial half in face processing.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- Zhe Wang
- Department of Psychology, Zhejiang Sci-Tech University, Zhejiang, China.
| | - Hao Ni
- Department of Psychology, Zhejiang Sci-Tech University, Zhejiang, China
| | - Xin Zhou
- Department of Psychology, Zhejiang Sci-Tech University, Zhejiang, China
| | - Xiteng Yang
- Department of Psychology, Zhejiang Sci-Tech University, Zhejiang, China
| | - Ziyi Zheng
- Department of Psychology, Zhejiang Sci-Tech University, Zhejiang, China
| | - Yu-Hao P Sun
- Department of Psychology, Zhejiang Sci-Tech University, Zhejiang, China
| | - Xiaohui Zhang
- Department of Psychology, Zhejiang Sci-Tech University, Zhejiang, China
| | - Haiyang Jin
- Division of Science, Department of Psychology, New York University Abu Dhabi, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates
| |
Collapse
|
4
|
Canoluk MU, Moors P, Goffaux V. Contributions of low- and high-level contextual mechanisms to human face perception. PLoS One 2023; 18:e0285255. [PMID: 37130144 PMCID: PMC10153715 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0285255] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/01/2022] [Accepted: 04/18/2023] [Indexed: 05/03/2023] Open
Abstract
Contextual modulations at primary stages of visual processing depend on the strength of local input. Contextual modulations at high-level stages of (face) processing show a similar dependence to local input strength. Namely, the discriminability of a facial feature determines the amount of influence of the face context on that feature. How high-level contextual modulations emerge from primary mechanisms is unclear due to the scarcity of empirical research systematically addressing the functional link between the two. We tested (62) young adults' ability to process local input independent of the context using contrast detection and (upright and inverted) morphed facial feature matching tasks. We first investigated contextual modulation magnitudes across tasks to address their shared variance. A second analysis focused on the profile of performance across contextual conditions. In upright eye matching and contrast detection tasks, contextual modulations only correlated at the level of their profile (averaged Fisher-Z transformed r = 1.18, BF10 > 100), but not magnitude (r = .15, BF10 = .61), suggesting the functional independence but similar working principles of the mechanisms involved. Both the profile (averaged Fisher-Z transformed r = .32, BF10 = 9.7) and magnitude (r = .28, BF10 = 4.58) of the contextual modulations correlated between inverted eye matching and contrast detection tasks. Our results suggest that non-face-specialized high-level contextual mechanisms (inverted faces) work in connection to primary contextual mechanisms, but that the engagement of face-specialized mechanisms for upright faces obscures this connection. Such combined study of low- and high-level contextual modulations sheds new light on the functional relationship between different levels of the visual processing hierarchy, and thus on its functional organization.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- Mehmet Umut Canoluk
- Research Institute for Psychological Science (IPSY), UCLouvain, Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium
| | - Pieter Moors
- Department of Brain and Cognition, Laboratory of Experimental Psychology, KU Leuven, Leuven, Belgium
| | - Valerie Goffaux
- Research Institute for Psychological Science (IPSY), UCLouvain, Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium
- Department of Cognitive Neuroscience, Faculty of Psychology and Neuroscience, Maastricht University, Maastricht, The Netherlands
- Institute of Neuroscience (IoNS), UCLouvain, Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium
| |
Collapse
|
5
|
Rossion B. Twenty years of investigation with the case of prosopagnosia PS to understand human face identity recognition. Part II: Neural basis. Neuropsychologia 2022; 173:108279. [PMID: 35667496 DOI: 10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2022.108279] [Citation(s) in RCA: 5] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/30/2021] [Revised: 04/30/2022] [Accepted: 05/25/2022] [Indexed: 10/18/2022]
Abstract
Patient PS sustained her dramatic brain injury in 1992, the same year as the first report of a neuroimaging study of human face recognition. The present paper complements the review on the functional nature of PS's prosopagnosia (part I), illustrating how her case study directly, i.e., through neuroimaging investigations of her brain structure and activity, but also indirectly, through neural studies performed on other clinical cases and neurotypical individuals, inspired and constrained neural models of human face recognition. In the dominant right hemisphere for face recognition in humans, PS's main lesion concerns (inputs to) the inferior occipital gyrus (IOG), in a region where face-selective activity is typically found in normal individuals ('Occipital Face Area', OFA). Her case study initially supported the criticality of this region for face identity recognition (FIR) and provided the impetus for transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS), intracerebral electrical stimulation, and cortical surgery studies that have generally supported this view. Despite PS's right IOG lesion, typical face-selectivity is found anteriorly in the middle portion of the fusiform gyrus, a hominoid structure (termed the right 'Fusiform Face Area', FFA) that is widely considered to be the most important region for human face recognition. This finding led to the original proposal of direct anatomico-functional connections from early visual cortices to the FFA, bypassing the IOG/OFA (lulu), a hypothesis supported by further neuroimaging studies of PS, other neurological cases and neuro-typical individuals with original visual stimulation paradigms, data recordings and analyses. The proposal of a lack of sensitivity to face identity in PS's right FFA due to defective reentrant inputs from the IOG/FFA has also been supported by other cases, functional connectivity and cortical surgery studies. Overall, neural studies of, and based on, the case of prosopagnosia PS strongly question the hierarchical organization of the human neural face recognition system, supporting a more flexible and dynamic view of this key social brain function.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- Bruno Rossion
- Université de Lorraine, CNRS, CRAN, F-54000, Nancy, France; CHRU-Nancy, Service de Neurologie, F-5400, France; Psychological Sciences Research Institute, Institute of Neuroscience, University of Louvain, Belgium.
| |
Collapse
|
6
|
Rossion B. Twenty years of investigation with the case of prosopagnosia PS to understand human face identity recognition. Part I: Function. Neuropsychologia 2022; 173:108278. [DOI: 10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2022.108278] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/23/2021] [Revised: 03/28/2022] [Accepted: 05/25/2022] [Indexed: 10/18/2022]
|
7
|
WANG Z, CHEN Y, LIU W, SUN YH. An eye region-specific cross-dimension covariation enhancement effect in facial featural and configural information change detection. ACTA PSYCHOLOGICA SINICA 2022. [DOI: 10.3724/sp.j.1041.2022.00236] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/25/2022]
|
8
|
Poltoratski S, Kay K, Finzi D, Grill-Spector K. Holistic face recognition is an emergent phenomenon of spatial processing in face-selective regions. Nat Commun 2021; 12:4745. [PMID: 34362883 PMCID: PMC8346587 DOI: 10.1038/s41467-021-24806-1] [Citation(s) in RCA: 15] [Impact Index Per Article: 5.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/13/2020] [Accepted: 07/06/2021] [Indexed: 11/10/2022] Open
Abstract
Spatial processing by receptive fields is a core property of the visual system. However, it is unknown how spatial processing in high-level regions contributes to recognition behavior. As face inversion is thought to disrupt typical holistic processing of information in faces, we mapped population receptive fields (pRFs) with upright and inverted faces in the human visual system. Here we show that in face-selective regions, but not primary visual cortex, pRFs and overall visual field coverage are smaller and shifted downward in response to face inversion. From these measurements, we successfully predict the relative behavioral detriment of face inversion at different positions in the visual field. This correspondence between neural measurements and behavior demonstrates how spatial processing in face-selective regions may enable holistic perception. These results not only show that spatial processing in high-level visual regions is dynamically used towards recognition, but also suggest a powerful approach for bridging neural computations by receptive fields to behavior.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
| | - Kendrick Kay
- Center for Magnetic Resonance Research (CMRR), Department of Radiology, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN, USA
| | - Dawn Finzi
- Department of Psychology, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA
| | - Kalanit Grill-Spector
- Department of Psychology, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA
- Wu Tsai Neurosciences Institute, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA
| |
Collapse
|
9
|
Rosenthal G, Avidan G. A possible neuronal account for the behavioural heterogeneity in congenital prosopagnosia. Cogn Neuropsychol 2019; 35:74-77. [PMID: 29658411 DOI: 10.1080/02643294.2017.1417248] [Citation(s) in RCA: 5] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 10/17/2022]
Affiliation(s)
- Gideon Rosenthal
- a Department of Cognitive and Brain Sciences , Ben-Gurion University of the Negev , Beer-Sheva , Israel.,b The Zlotowski Center for Neuroscience , Ben-Gurion University of the Negev , Beer-Sheva , Israel
| | - Galia Avidan
- a Department of Cognitive and Brain Sciences , Ben-Gurion University of the Negev , Beer-Sheva , Israel.,b The Zlotowski Center for Neuroscience , Ben-Gurion University of the Negev , Beer-Sheva , Israel.,c Department of Psychology , Ben-Gurion University of the Negev , Beer-Sheva , Israel
| |
Collapse
|
10
|
Ramon M. The power of how-lessons learned from neuropsychology and face processing. Cogn Neuropsychol 2019; 35:83-86. [PMID: 29658421 DOI: 10.1080/02643294.2017.1414777] [Citation(s) in RCA: 13] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.6] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 10/17/2022]
Affiliation(s)
- Meike Ramon
- a Visual and Social Neuroscience, Department of Psychology , University of Fribourg , Faucigny 2, 1700 Fribourg , Switzerland
| |
Collapse
|
11
|
Tests of whole upright face processing in prosopagnosia: A literature review. Neuropsychologia 2018; 121:106-121. [PMID: 30389553 DOI: 10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2018.10.018] [Citation(s) in RCA: 10] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/22/2018] [Revised: 09/30/2018] [Accepted: 10/23/2018] [Indexed: 01/15/2023]
Abstract
Prosopagnosia refers to an acquired or developmental deficit in face recognition. This neuropsychological impairment has received increasing attention over the last decade, in particular because of an increased scientific interest in developmental prosopagnosia. Studies investigating prosopagnosia have used a variety of different clinical and experimental tests to assess face processing abilities. With such a large variety of assessment methods available, test selection can be challenging. Some previous works have aimed to provide an overview of tests used to diagnose prosopagnosia. However, no overview that is based on a structured review of the literature is available. We review the literature to identify tests that have been used to assess the processing of whole upright faces in acquired and developmental prosopagnosia over the last five years (2013-2017). We not only review tests that have been used for diagnostic purposes, but also tests that have been used for experimental purposes. Tests are categorised according to i) their experimental designs and, ii) the stage of face processing that they assess. On this basis, we discuss considerations regarding test designs for future studies. A visual illustration providing a structured overview of paradigms available for testing the processing of whole upright faces is provided. This visual illustration can be used to inform test selection when designing a study and to apply a structured approach to interpreting findings from the literature. The different approaches to assessment of face processing in prosopagnosia have been necessary and fruitful in generating data and hypotheses about the cause of face processing deficits. However, impairments at different levels of face processing have often been interpreted as reflecting a deficit in the recognition stage of face processing. Based on the data now available on prosopagnosia, we advocate for a more structured approach to assessment, which may facilitate a better understanding of the key deficits in prosopagnosia and of the level(s) of face processing that are impaired.
Collapse
|
12
|
The nature of individual face recognition in preschool children: Insights from a gaze-contingent paradigm. COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT 2018. [DOI: 10.1016/j.cogdev.2018.06.007] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.2] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/18/2022]
|
13
|
Burra N, Kerzel D, Ramon M. Gaze-cueing requires intact face processing - Insights from acquired prosopagnosia. Brain Cogn 2017; 113:125-132. [PMID: 28193545 DOI: 10.1016/j.bandc.2017.01.008] [Citation(s) in RCA: 7] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/17/2016] [Revised: 01/16/2017] [Accepted: 01/17/2017] [Indexed: 11/28/2022]
Abstract
Gaze-cueing is the automatic spatial orienting of attention in the direction of perceived gaze. Participants respond faster to targets located at positions congruent with the direction of gaze, compared to incongruent ones (gaze cueing effect, GCE). However, it still remains unclear whether its occurrence depends on intact integration of information from the entire eye region or face, rather than simply the presence of the eyes per se. To address this question, we investigated the GCE in PS, an extensively studied case of pure acquired prosopagnosia. In our gaze-cueing paradigm, we manipulated the duration at which cues were presented (70ms vs. 400ms) and the availability of facial information (full-face vs. eyes-only). For 70ms cue duration, we found a context-dependent dissociation between PS and controls: PS showed a GCE for eyes-only stimuli, whereas controls showed a GCE only for full-face stimuli. For 400ms cue duration, PS showed gaze-cueing independently of stimulus context, whereas in healthy controls a GCE again emerged only for full-face stimuli. Our findings suggest that attentional deployment based on the gaze direction of briefly presented faces requires intact processing of facial information, which affords salience to the eye region.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- Nicolas Burra
- Université de Genève, Faculté de Psychologie et des Sciences de I'Education, Geneva, Switzerland.
| | - Dirk Kerzel
- Université de Genève, Faculté de Psychologie et des Sciences de I'Education, Geneva, Switzerland
| | - Meike Ramon
- University of Fribourg, Department of Psychology, Fribourg, Switzerland.
| |
Collapse
|
14
|
Ramon M, Busigny T, Gosselin F, Rossion B. All new kids on the block? Impaired holistic processing of personally familiar faces in a kindergarten teacher with acquired prosopagnosia. VISUAL COGNITION 2017. [DOI: 10.1080/13506285.2016.1273985] [Citation(s) in RCA: 11] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.6] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 01/03/2023]
Affiliation(s)
- Meike Ramon
- Department of Psychology, University of Fribourg, Fribourg, Switzerland
| | - Thomas Busigny
- Psychological Sciences Research Institute and Institute of Neuroscience, University of Louvain, Louvain-La-Neuve, Belgium
| | - Frederic Gosselin
- Département de Psychologie, Université de Montréal, Montreal, Canada
| | - Bruno Rossion
- Psychological Sciences Research Institute and Institute of Neuroscience, University of Louvain, Louvain-La-Neuve, Belgium
| |
Collapse
|
15
|
An in-depth cognitive examination of individuals with superior face recognition skills. Cortex 2016; 82:48-62. [DOI: 10.1016/j.cortex.2016.05.003] [Citation(s) in RCA: 49] [Impact Index Per Article: 6.1] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/15/2015] [Revised: 03/06/2016] [Accepted: 05/04/2016] [Indexed: 11/27/2022]
|
16
|
Namdar G, Avidan G, Ganel T. Effects of configural processing on the perceptual spatial resolution for face features. Cortex 2015; 72:115-123. [PMID: 25998751 DOI: 10.1016/j.cortex.2015.04.007] [Citation(s) in RCA: 7] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/31/2014] [Revised: 01/25/2015] [Accepted: 04/13/2015] [Indexed: 11/26/2022]
Abstract
Configural processing governs human perception across various domains, including face perception. An established marker of configural face perception is the face inversion effect, in which performance is typically better for upright compared to inverted faces. In two experiments, we tested whether configural processing could influence basic visual abilities such as perceptual spatial resolution (i.e., the ability to detect spatial visual changes). Face-related perceptual spatial resolution was assessed by measuring the just noticeable difference (JND) to subtle positional changes between specific features in upright and inverted faces. The results revealed robust inversion effect for spatial sensitivity to configural-based changes, such as the distance between the mouth and the nose, or the distance between the eyes and the nose. Critically, spatial resolution for face features within the region of the eyes (e.g., the interocular distance between the eyes) was not affected by inversion, suggesting that the eye region operates as a separate 'gestalt' unit which is relatively immune to manipulations that would normally hamper configural processing. Together these findings suggest that face orientation modulates fundamental psychophysical abilities including spatial resolution. Furthermore, they indicate that classic psychophysical methods can be used as a valid measure of configural face processing.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- Gal Namdar
- Department of Psychology, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Beer-Sheva, Israel
| | - Galia Avidan
- Department of Psychology, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Beer-Sheva, Israel
| | - Tzvi Ganel
- Department of Psychology, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Beer-Sheva, Israel.
| |
Collapse
|
17
|
Ramon M. Perception of global facial geometry is modulated through experience. PeerJ 2015; 3:e850. [PMID: 25825678 PMCID: PMC4375970 DOI: 10.7717/peerj.850] [Citation(s) in RCA: 15] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/26/2014] [Accepted: 03/03/2015] [Indexed: 12/05/2022] Open
Abstract
Identification of personally familiar faces is highly efficient across various viewing conditions. While the presence of robust facial representations stored in memory is considered to aid this process, the mechanisms underlying invariant identification remain unclear. Two experiments tested the hypothesis that facial representations stored in memory are associated with differential perceptual processing of the overall facial geometry. Subjects who were personally familiar or unfamiliar with the identities presented discriminated between stimuli whose overall facial geometry had been manipulated to maintain or alter the original facial configuration (see Barton, Zhao & Keenan, 2003). The results demonstrate that familiarity gives rise to more efficient processing of global facial geometry, and are interpreted in terms of increased holistic processing of facial information that is maintained across viewing distances.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- Meike Ramon
- Institute of Research in Psychology, Institute of Neuroscience, Université catholique de Louvain , Louvain-La-Neuve , Belgium
| |
Collapse
|