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Ma J, Huang J, Li Y. The other-ethnicity effect in facial recognition of Tibetan and Han individuals: Evidence from behavioural and eye-movement data. INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF PSYCHOLOGY 2024. [PMID: 38816955 DOI: 10.1002/ijop.13141] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/21/2023] [Accepted: 04/30/2024] [Indexed: 06/01/2024]
Abstract
Studies have shown that facial recognition among racial groups exhibits not only an other-race effect but also an other-ethnicity effect within the same racial group. To explore differences in facial recognition and visual scanning patterns due to the other-ethnicity effect, behavioural and eye-movement data were used to investigate the other-ethnicity effect in the facial perception of Tibetan and Han Chinese individuals and whether the visual scanning patterns varied between them. Behavioural data revealed an other-ethnicity effect on facial recognition of Tibetan and Han individuals. Eye-movement data indicated that Tibetan and Han individuals fixated more on the eye and mouth regions when recognising Han faces and on the eye and nose regions when recognising Tibetan faces. The other-ethnicity effect appeared to influence facial recognition in Tibetan and Han individuals, who adopted similar visual scanning patterns when scanning the faces of individuals of their own ethnicity and those of other ethnicities.
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Affiliation(s)
- Jialin Ma
- School of Psychology, Faculty of Education, Henan University, Kaifeng, China
| | - Jiayi Huang
- School of Psychology, Faculty of Education, Henan University, Kaifeng, China
| | - Yongxin Li
- School of Psychology, Faculty of Education, Henan University, Kaifeng, China
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Gingras F, Estéphan A, Fiset D, Lingnan H, Caldara R, Blais C. Differences in eye movements for face recognition between Canadian and Chinese participants are not modulated by social orientation. PLoS One 2023; 18:e0295256. [PMID: 38096320 PMCID: PMC10721205 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0295256] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/24/2023] [Accepted: 11/18/2023] [Indexed: 12/18/2023] Open
Abstract
Face recognition strategies do not generalize across individuals. Many studies have reported robust cultural differences between West Europeans/North Americans and East Asians in eye movement strategies during face recognition. The social orientation hypothesis posits that individualistic vs. collectivistic (IND/COL) value systems, respectively defining West European/North American and East Asian societies, would be at the root of many cultural differences in visual perception. Whether social orientation is also responsible for such cultural contrast in face recognition remains to be clarified. To this aim, we conducted two experiments with West European/North American and Chinese observers. In Experiment 1, we probed the existence of a link between IND/COL social values and eye movements during face recognition, by using an IND/COL priming paradigm. In Experiment 2, we dissected the latter relationship in greater depth, by using two IND/COL questionnaires, including subdimensions to those concepts. In both studies, cultural differences in fixation patterns were revealed between West European/North American and East Asian observers. Priming IND/COL values did not modulate eye movement visual sampling strategies, and only specific subdimensions of the IND/COL questionnaires were associated with distinct eye-movement patterns. Altogether, we show that the typical contrast between IND/COL cannot fully account for cultural differences in eye movement strategies for face recognition. Cultural differences in eye movements for faces might originate from mechanisms distinct from social orientation.
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Affiliation(s)
- Francis Gingras
- Département de psychoéducation et psychologie, Université du Québec en Outaouais, Gatineau, Canada
- Département de psychologie, Université du Québec à Montréal, Montreal, Canada
| | - Amanda Estéphan
- Département de psychoéducation et psychologie, Université du Québec en Outaouais, Gatineau, Canada
- Département de psychologie, Université du Québec à Montréal, Montreal, Canada
| | - Daniel Fiset
- Département de psychoéducation et psychologie, Université du Québec en Outaouais, Gatineau, Canada
| | - He Lingnan
- School of Communication and Design, Sun Yat-Sen University, Guangzhou, People’s Republic of China
| | - Roberto Caldara
- Eye and Brain Mapping Laboratory (iBMLab), Department of Psychology, University of Fribourg, Fribourg, Switzerland
| | - Caroline Blais
- Département de psychoéducation et psychologie, Université du Québec en Outaouais, Gatineau, Canada
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Ma J, Zhang R, Li Y. Age Weakens the Other-Race Effect among Han Subjects in Recognizing Own- and Other-Ethnicity Faces. Behav Sci (Basel) 2023; 13:675. [PMID: 37622815 PMCID: PMC10452021 DOI: 10.3390/bs13080675] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/10/2023] [Revised: 08/09/2023] [Accepted: 08/10/2023] [Indexed: 08/26/2023] Open
Abstract
The development and change in the other-race effect (ORE) in different age groups have always been a focus of researchers. Previous studies have mainly focused on the influence of maturity of life (from infancy to early adulthood) on the ORE, while few researchers have explored the ORE in older people. Therefore, this study used behavioral and eye movement techniques to explore the influence of age on the ORE and the visual scanning pattern of Han subjects recognizing own- and other-ethnicity faces. All participants were asked to complete a study-recognition task for faces, and the behavioral results showed that the ORE of elderly Han subjects was significantly lower than that of young Han subjects. The results of eye movement showed that there were significant differences in the visual scanning pattern of young subjects in recognizing the faces of individuals of their own ethnicity and other ethnicities, which were mainly reflected in the differences in looking at the nose and mouth, while the differences were reduced in the elderly subjects. The elderly subjects used similar scanning patterns to recognize the own- and other-ethnicity faces. This indicates that as age increases, the ORE of older people in recognizing faces of those from different ethnic groups becomes weaker, and elderly subjects have more similar visual scanning patterns in recognizing faces of their own and other ethnicities.
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Affiliation(s)
- Jialin Ma
- Facuty of Education, School of Psychology, Henan University, Kaifeng 475000, China; (R.Z.); (Y.L.)
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Romagnano V, Sokolov AN, Fallgatter AJ, Pavlova MA. Do subtle cultural differences sculpt face pareidolia? SCHIZOPHRENIA (HEIDELBERG, GERMANY) 2023; 9:28. [PMID: 37142598 PMCID: PMC10160123 DOI: 10.1038/s41537-023-00355-y] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/20/2023] [Accepted: 04/10/2023] [Indexed: 05/06/2023]
Abstract
Face tuning to non-face images such as shadows or grilled toasts is termed face pareidolia. Face-pareidolia images represent a valuable tool for investigation of social cognition in mental disorders. Here we examined (i) whether, and, if so, how face pareidolia is affected by subtle cultural differences; and (ii) whether this impact is modulated by gender. With this purpose in mind, females and males from Northern Italy were administered a set of Face-n-Thing images, photographs of objects such as houses or waves to a varying degree resembling a face. Participants were presented with pareidolia images with canonical upright orientation and display inversion that heavily affects face pareidolia. In a two-alternative forced-choice paradigm, beholders had to indicate whether each image resembled a face. The outcome was compared with the findings obtained in the Southwest of Germany. With upright orientation, neither cultural background nor gender affected face pareidolia. As expected, display inversion generally mired face pareidolia. Yet, while display inversion led to a drastic reduction of face impression in German males as compared to females, in Italians, no gender differences were found. In a nutshell, subtle cultural differences do not sculpt face pareidolia, but instead affect face impression in a gender-specific way under unusual viewing conditions. Clarification of the origins of these effects requires tailored brain imaging work. Implications for transcultural psychiatry, in particular, for schizophrenia research, are highlighted and discussed.
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Affiliation(s)
- Valentina Romagnano
- Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, Tübingen Center for Mental Health (TüCMH), Medical School and University Hospital, Eberhard Karls University of Tübingen, Tübingen, Germany
| | - Alexander N Sokolov
- Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, Tübingen Center for Mental Health (TüCMH), Medical School and University Hospital, Eberhard Karls University of Tübingen, Tübingen, Germany
| | - Andreas J Fallgatter
- Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, Tübingen Center for Mental Health (TüCMH), Medical School and University Hospital, Eberhard Karls University of Tübingen, Tübingen, Germany
| | - Marina A Pavlova
- Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, Tübingen Center for Mental Health (TüCMH), Medical School and University Hospital, Eberhard Karls University of Tübingen, Tübingen, Germany.
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Rodger H, Sokhn N, Lao J, Liu Y, Caldara R. Developmental eye movement strategies for decoding facial expressions of emotion. J Exp Child Psychol 2023; 229:105622. [PMID: 36641829 DOI: 10.1016/j.jecp.2022.105622] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/28/2022] [Revised: 12/21/2022] [Accepted: 12/23/2022] [Indexed: 01/15/2023]
Abstract
In our daily lives, we routinely look at the faces of others to try to understand how they are feeling. Few studies have examined the perceptual strategies that are used to recognize facial expressions of emotion, and none have attempted to isolate visual information use with eye movements throughout development. Therefore, we recorded the eye movements of children from 5 years of age up to adulthood during recognition of the six "basic emotions" to investigate when perceptual strategies for emotion recognition become mature (i.e., most adult-like). Using iMap4, we identified the eye movement fixation patterns for recognition of the six emotions across age groups in natural viewing and gaze-contingent (i.e., expanding spotlight) conditions. While univariate analyses failed to reveal significant differences in fixation patterns, more sensitive multivariate distance analyses revealed a U-shaped developmental trajectory with the eye movement strategies of the 17- to 18-year-old group most similar to adults for all expressions. A developmental dip in strategy similarity was found for each emotional expression revealing which age group had the most distinct eye movement strategy from the adult group: the 13- to 14-year-olds for sadness recognition; the 11- to 12-year-olds for fear, anger, surprise, and disgust; and the 7- to 8-year-olds for happiness. Recognition performance for happy, angry, and sad expressions did not differ significantly across age groups, but the eye movement strategies for these expressions diverged for each group. Therefore, a unique strategy was not a prerequisite for optimal recognition performance for these expressions. Our data provide novel insights into the developmental trajectories underlying facial expression recognition, a critical ability for adaptive social relations.
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Affiliation(s)
- Helen Rodger
- Eye and Brain Mapping Laboratory (iBMLab), Department of Psychology, University of Fribourg, 1700 Fribourg, Switzerland.
| | - Nayla Sokhn
- Eye and Brain Mapping Laboratory (iBMLab), Department of Psychology, University of Fribourg, 1700 Fribourg, Switzerland
| | - Junpeng Lao
- Eye and Brain Mapping Laboratory (iBMLab), Department of Psychology, University of Fribourg, 1700 Fribourg, Switzerland
| | - Yingdi Liu
- Eye and Brain Mapping Laboratory (iBMLab), Department of Psychology, University of Fribourg, 1700 Fribourg, Switzerland
| | - Roberto Caldara
- Eye and Brain Mapping Laboratory (iBMLab), Department of Psychology, University of Fribourg, 1700 Fribourg, Switzerland.
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Ikeda S. Development of Emotion Recognition from Facial Expressions with Different Eye and Mouth Cues in Japanese People. J Genet Psychol 2023; 184:187-197. [PMID: 36661090 DOI: 10.1080/00221325.2023.2168174] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 01/21/2023]
Abstract
Research has reported that Japanese people are more likely to focus on and look longer at eyes when reading emotions from facial expressions than their western counterparts. However, how these tendencies develop and whether there is a relationship between the two tendencies (to focus on the eyes and to look longer at the eyes) is unclear. The present study examined emotion recognition and gaze patterns in Japanese preschool children (n = 51) and university students (n = 57), using facial expressions with different eye and mouth cues. The results showed developmental changes in emotion recognition, with adults being more sensitive to negative emotions, whereas gaze patterns showed no developmental changes. Furthermore, there was no relationship between emotion recognition and gaze patterns. This suggests that the implicit and explicit processing of emotion recognition develops at different times, and that there is no direct relationship between the two processes.
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Affiliation(s)
- Shinnosuke Ikeda
- Faculty of Humanities, Kyoto University of Advanced Science, Kyoto, Japan
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Stacchi L, Caldara R. Stimulus size modulates idiosyncratic neural face identity discrimination. J Vis 2022; 22:9. [PMID: 36580295 PMCID: PMC9804033 DOI: 10.1167/jov.22.13.9] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 12/30/2022] Open
Abstract
Humans show individual differences in neural facial identity discrimination (FID) responses across viewing positions. Critically, these variations have been shown to be reliable over time and to directly relate to observers' idiosyncratic preferences in facial information sampling. This functional signature in facial identity processing might relate to observer-specific diagnostic information processing. Although these individual differences are a valuable source of information for interpreting data, they can also be difficult to isolate when it is not possible to test many conditions. To address this potential issue, we explored whether reducing stimulus size would help decrease these interindividual variations in neural FID. We manipulated the size of face stimuli (covering 3°, 5°, 6.7°, 8.5°, and 12° of visual angle), as well as the fixation location (left eye, right eye, below the nasion, nose, and mouth) while recording electrophysiological responses. Same identity faces were presented with a base frequency of 6 Hz. Different identity faces were periodically inserted within this sequence to trigger an objective index of neural FID. Our data show robust and consistent individual differences in neural face identity discrimination across viewing positions for all face sizes. Nevertheless, FID was optimal for a larger number of observers when faces subtended 6.7° of visual angle and fixation was below the nasion. This condition is the most suited to reduce natural interindividual variations in neural FID patterns, defining an important benchmark to measure neural FID when it is not possible to assess and control for observers' idiosyncrasies.
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Affiliation(s)
- Lisa Stacchi
- Eye and Brain Mapping Laboratory (iBMLab), Department of Psychology, University of Fribourg, Fribourg, Switzerland,
| | - Roberto Caldara
- Eye and Brain Mapping Laboratory (iBMLab), Department of Psychology, University of Fribourg, Fribourg, Switzerland,
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Nitzan-Tamar O, Kramarski B, Vakil E. The flexibility of the intermediate vs. wholistic/analytic styles – an eye tracking study. JOURNAL OF COGNITIVE PSYCHOLOGY 2022. [DOI: 10.1080/20445911.2022.2147187] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 12/24/2022]
Affiliation(s)
| | | | - Eli Vakil
- Department of Psychology and Leslie and Susan Gonda (Goldschmied) Multidisciplinary Brain Research Center, Bar-Ilan University, Ramat-Gan, Israel
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Li YF, Ying H. Disrupted visual input unveils the computational details of artificial neural networks for face perception. Front Comput Neurosci 2022; 16:1054421. [PMID: 36523327 PMCID: PMC9744930 DOI: 10.3389/fncom.2022.1054421] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/26/2022] [Accepted: 11/10/2022] [Indexed: 09/19/2023] Open
Abstract
Background Convolutional Neural Network (DCNN), with its great performance, has attracted attention of researchers from many disciplines. The studies of the DCNN and that of biological neural systems have inspired each other reciprocally. The brain-inspired neural networks not only achieve great performance but also serve as a computational model of biological neural systems. Methods Here in this study, we trained and tested several typical DCNNs (AlexNet, VGG11, VGG13, VGG16, DenseNet, MobileNet, and EfficientNet) with a face ethnicity categorization task for experiment 1, and an emotion categorization task for experiment 2. We measured the performance of DCNNs by testing them with original and lossy visual inputs (various kinds of image occlusion) and compared their performance with human participants. Moreover, the class activation map (CAM) method allowed us to visualize the foci of the "attention" of these DCNNs. Results The results suggested that the VGG13 performed the best: Its performance closely resembled human participants in terms of psychophysics measurements, it utilized similar areas of visual inputs as humans, and it had the most consistent performance with inputs having various kinds of impairments. Discussion In general, we examined the processing mechanism of DCNNs using a new paradigm and found that VGG13 might be the most human-like DCNN in this task. This study also highlighted a possible paradigm to study and develop DCNNs using human perception as a benchmark.
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Affiliation(s)
| | - Haojiang Ying
- Department of Psychology, Soochow University, Suzhou, China
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Rabadan V, Ricou C, Latinus M, Aguillon-Hernandez N, Wardak C. Facial mask disturbs ocular exploration but not pupil reactivity. Front Neurosci 2022; 16:1033243. [DOI: 10.3389/fnins.2022.1033243] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/31/2022] [Accepted: 10/28/2022] [Indexed: 11/22/2022] Open
Abstract
IntroductionThe COVID-19 pandemic has imposed to wear a face mask that may have negative consequences for social interactions despite its health benefits. A lot of recent studies focused on emotion recognition of masked faces, as the mouth is, with the eyes, essential to convey emotional content. However, none have studied neurobehavioral and neurophysiological markers of masked faces perception, such as ocular exploration and pupil reactivity. The purpose of this eye tracking study was to quantify how wearing a facial accessory, and in particular a face mask, affected the ocular and pupillary response to a face, emotional or not.MethodsWe used videos of actors wearing a facial accessory to characterize the visual exploration and pupillary response in several occlusion (no accessory, sunglasses, scarf, and mask) and emotional conditions (neutral, happy, and sad) in a population of 44 adults.ResultsWe showed that ocular exploration differed for face covered with an accessory, and in particular a mask, compared to the classical visual scanning pattern of a non-covered face. The covered areas of the face were less explored. Pupil reactivity seemed only slightly affected by the mask, while its sensitivity to emotions was observed even in the presence of a facial accessory.DiscussionThese results suggest a mixed impact of the mask on attentional capture and physiological adjustment, which does not seem to be reconcilable with its strong effect on behavioral emotional recognition previously described.
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Oswald F, Adams RB. Feminist Social Vision: Seeing Through the Lens of Marginalized Perceivers. PERSONALITY AND SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY REVIEW 2022:10888683221126582. [PMID: 36218340 PMCID: PMC10391697 DOI: 10.1177/10888683221126582] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/15/2022]
Abstract
Social vision research, which examines, in part, how humans visually perceive social stimuli, is well-positioned to improve understandings of social inequality. However, social vision research has rarely prioritized the perspectives of marginalized group members. We offer a theoretical argument for diversifying understandings of social perceptual processes by centering marginalized perspectives. We examine (a) how social vision researchers frame their research questions and who these framings prioritize and (b) how perceptual processes (person perception; people perception; perception of social objects) are linked to group membership and thus comprehensively understanding these processes necessitates attention to marginalized perceivers. We discuss how social vision research translates into theoretical advances and to action for reducing negative intergroup consequences (e.g., prejudice). The purpose of this article is to delineate how prioritizing marginalized perspectives in social vision research could develop novel questions, bridge theoretical gaps, and elevate social vision's translational impact to improve outcomes for marginalized groups.
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Affiliation(s)
- Flora Oswald
- The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, USA
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12
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Dunn JD, Varela VPL, Nicholls VI, Papinutto M, White D, Miellet S. Face-Information Sampling in Super-Recognizers. Psychol Sci 2022; 33:1615-1630. [PMID: 36044042 DOI: 10.1177/09567976221096320] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/15/2022] Open
Abstract
Perceptual processes underlying individual differences in face-recognition ability remain poorly understood. We compared visual sampling of 37 adult super-recognizers-individuals with superior face-recognition ability-with that of 68 typical adult viewers by measuring gaze position as they learned and recognized unfamiliar faces. In both phases, participants viewed faces through "spotlight" apertures that varied in size, with face information restricted in real time around their point of fixation. We found higher accuracy in super-recognizers at all aperture sizes-showing that their superiority does not rely on global sampling of face information but is also evident when they are forced to adopt piecemeal sampling. Additionally, super-recognizers made more fixations, focused less on eye region, and distributed their gaze more than typical viewers. These differences were most apparent when learning faces and were consistent with trends we observed across the broader ability spectrum, suggesting that they are reflective of factors that vary dimensionally in the broader population.
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Affiliation(s)
- James D Dunn
- School of Psychology, University of New South Wales
| | | | - Victoria I Nicholls
- Faculty of Science & Technology, Bournemouth University.,Department of Psychology, University of Cambridge
| | | | - David White
- School of Psychology, University of New South Wales
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Carther-Krone TA, Marotta JJ. The influence of magnocellular and parvocellular visual information on global processing in White and Asian populations. PLoS One 2022; 17:e0270422. [PMID: 35834469 PMCID: PMC9282618 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0270422] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/15/2021] [Accepted: 06/10/2022] [Indexed: 11/18/2022] Open
Abstract
Humans have the remarkable ability to efficiently group elements of a scene together to form a global whole. However, cross-cultural comparisons show that East Asian individuals process scenes more globally than White individuals. This experiment presents new insights into global processing, revealing the relative contributions of two types of visual cells in mediating global and local visual processing in these two groups. Participants completed the Navon hierarchical letters task under divided-attention conditions, indicating whether a target letter “H” was present in the stimuli. Stimuli were either ‘unbiased’, displayed as black letters on a grey screen, or biased to predominantly process low spatial frequency information using psychophysical thresholds that converted unbiased stimuli into achromatic magnocellular-biased stimuli and red-green isoluminant parvocellular-biased stimuli. White participants processed stimuli more globally than Asian participants when low spatial frequency information was conveyed via the parvocellular pathway, while Asian participants showed a global processing advantage when low spatial frequency information was conveyed via the magnocellular pathway, and to a lesser extent through the parvocellular pathway. These findings suggest that the means by which a global processing bias is achieved depends on the subcortical pathway through which visual information is transmitted, and provides a deeper understanding of the relationship between global/local processing, subcortical pathways and spatial frequencies.
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Affiliation(s)
- Tiffany A. Carther-Krone
- Perception and Action Lab, Department of Psychology, University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada
- * E-mail:
| | - Jonathan J. Marotta
- Perception and Action Lab, Department of Psychology, University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada
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Ma X, Modersitzki N, Maurer U, Sommer W. Neural sensitivity to faces is increased by immersion into a novel ethnic environment: Evidence from ERPs. Psychophysiology 2022; 60:e14147. [PMID: 35819753 DOI: 10.1111/psyp.14147] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/28/2022] [Revised: 06/09/2022] [Accepted: 06/22/2022] [Indexed: 12/01/2022]
Abstract
Previous reports suggest that East-Asians may show larger face-elicited N170 components in the ERP as compared to Caucasian participants. Since the N170 can be modulated by perceptual expertise, such group differences may be accounted for by differential experience, for example, with logographic versus alphabetic scripts (script system hypothesis) or by exposure to abundant novel faces during the immersion into a new social and/or ethnic environment (social immersion hypothesis). We conducted experiments in Hong Kong and Berlin, recording ERPs in a series of one-back tasks, using same- and other-ethnicity face stimuli in upright and inverted orientation and doodle stimuli. In Hong Kong we tested local Chinese residents and foreign guest students who could not read the logographic script; in Berlin we tested German residents who could not read the logographic script and foreign Chinese visitors. In both experiments, we found significantly larger N170 amplitudes to faces, regardless of ethnicity, in the foreign than in the local groups. Moreover, this effect did not depend on stimulus orientation, suggesting that the N170 group differences do not reflect differences in configural visual processing. A group of short-term German residents in Berlin did not differ in N170 amplitude from long-term residents. Together, these findings indicate that the extensive confrontation with novel other-ethnicity faces during immersion in a foreign culture may enhance the neural response to faces, reflecting the short-term plasticity of the underlying neural system.
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Affiliation(s)
- Xiaoli Ma
- Institut für Psychologie, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Berlin, Germany
| | - Nick Modersitzki
- Abteilung Psychologie, Universität Bielefeld, Bielefeld, Germany
| | - Urs Maurer
- Department of Psychology, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China.,Brain and Mind Institute, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China
| | - Werner Sommer
- Institut für Psychologie, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Berlin, Germany.,Department of Psychology, Zhejiang Normal University, Jin Hua, China
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15
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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]
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Kawakami K, Friesen JP, Fang X. Perceiving ingroup and outgroup faces within and across nations. Br J Psychol 2022; 113:551-574. [PMID: 35383905 DOI: 10.1111/bjop.12563] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/13/2021] [Accepted: 03/19/2022] [Indexed: 12/28/2022]
Abstract
The human face is arguably the most important of all social stimuli because it provides so much valuable information about others. Therefore, one critical factor for successful social communication is the ability to process faces. In general, a wide body of social cognitive research has demonstrated that perceivers are better at extracting information from their own-race compared to other-race faces and that these differences can be a barrier to positive cross-race relationships. The primary objective of the present paper was to provide an overview of how people process faces in diverse contexts, focusing on racial ingroup and outgroup members within one nation and across nations. To achieve this goal, we first broadly describe social cognitive research on categorization processes related to ingroups vs. outgroups. Next, we briefly examine two prominent mechanisms (experience and motivation) that have been used to explain differences in recognizing facial identities and identifying emotions when processing ingroup and outgroup racial faces within nations. Then, we explore research in this domain across nations and cultural explanations, such as norms and practices, that supplement the two proposed mechanisms. Finally, we propose future cross-cultural research that has the potential to help us better understand the role of these key mechanisms in processing ingroup and outgroup faces.
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Affiliation(s)
| | | | - Xia Fang
- Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, China
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17
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Lin T, Zhang X, Fields EC, Sekuler R, Gutchess A. Spatial frequency impacts perceptual and attentional ERP components across cultures. Brain Cogn 2022; 157:105834. [PMID: 34999289 PMCID: PMC8792318 DOI: 10.1016/j.bandc.2021.105834] [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: 07/14/2021] [Revised: 12/21/2021] [Accepted: 12/21/2021] [Indexed: 11/22/2022]
Abstract
Culture impacts visual perception in several ways.To identify stages of perceptual processing that differ between cultures, we usedelectroencephalography measures of perceptual and attentional responses to simple visual stimuli.Gabor patches of higher or lower spatialfrequencywere presented at high contrast to 25 American and 31 East Asian participants while they were watching for the onset of aninfrequent, oddball stimulus. Region of interest and mass univariate analyses assessed how cultural background and stimuli spatial frequency affected the visual evoked response potentials. Across both groups, the Gabor of lower spatial frequency produced stronger evoked response potentials in the anterior N1 and P3 than did the higher frequency Gabor. The mass univariate analyses also revealed effects of spatial frequency, including a frontal negativity around 150 ms and a widespread posterior positivity around 300 ms. The effects of spatial frequency generally differed little across cultures; although there was some evidence for cultural differences in the P3 response to different frequencies at the Pz electrode, this effect did not emerge in the mass univariate analyses. We discuss these results in relation to those from previous studies, and explore the potential advantages of mass univariate analyses for cultural neuroscience.
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Affiliation(s)
- Tong Lin
- Brandeis University, United States
| | | | - Eric C Fields
- Brandeis University, United States; Boston College, United States; Westminster College, United States
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18
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The effect of implicit racial bias on recognition of other-race faces. COGNITIVE RESEARCH-PRINCIPLES AND IMPLICATIONS 2021; 6:67. [PMID: 34716834 PMCID: PMC8557239 DOI: 10.1186/s41235-021-00337-7] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/28/2021] [Accepted: 10/13/2021] [Indexed: 11/21/2022]
Abstract
Previous research has established a possible link between recognition performance, individuation experience, and implicit racial bias of other-race faces. However, it remains unclear how implicit racial bias might influence other-race face processing in observers with relatively extensive experience with the other race. Here we examined how recognition of other-race faces might be modulated by observers’ implicit racial bias, in addition to the effects of experience and face recognition ability. Caucasian participants in a culturally diverse city completed a memory task for Asian and Caucasian faces, an implicit association test, a questionnaire assessing experience with Asians and Caucasians, and a face recognition ability test. As expected, recognition performance for Asian faces was positively predicted by increased face recognition ability, and experience with Asians. More importantly, it was also negatively predicted by increased positive bias towards Asians, which was modulated by an interaction between face recognition ability and implicit bias, with the effect of implicit bias observed predominantly in observers with high face recognition ability. Moreover, the positions of the first two fixations when participants learned the other-race faces were affected by different factors, with the first fixation modulated by the effect of experience and the second fixation modulated by the interaction between implicit bias and face recognition ability. Taken together, these findings suggest the complexity in understanding the perceptual and socio-cognitive influences on the other-race effect, and that observers with high face recognition ability may more likely evaluate racial features involuntarily when recognizing other-race faces.
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Stelter M, Rommel M, Degner J. (Eye-) Tracking the Other-Race Effect: Comparison of Eye Movements During Encoding and Recognition of Ingroup Faces With Proximal and Distant Outgroup Faces. SOCIAL COGNITION 2021. [DOI: 10.1521/soco.2021.39.3.366] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/20/2022] Open
Abstract
People experience difficulties recognizing faces of ethnic outgroups, known as the other-race effect. The present eye-tracking study investigates if this effect is related to differences in visual attention to ingroup and outgroup faces. We measured gaze fixations to specific facial features and overall eye-movement activity level during an old/new recognition task comparing ingroup faces with proximal and distal ethnic outgroup faces. Recognition was best for ingroup faces and decreased gradually for proximal and distal outgroup faces. Participants attended more to the eyes of ingroup faces than outgroup faces, but this effect was unrelated to recognition performance. Ingroup-outgroup differences in eye-movement activity level did not emerge during the study phase, but during the recognition phase, with ingroup-outgroup differences varying as a function of recognition accuracy and old/new effects. Overall, ingroup-outgroup effects on recognition performance and eye movements were more pronounced for recognition of new items, emphasizing the role of retrieval processes.
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20
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Blais C, Linnell KJ, Caparos S, Estéphan A. Cultural Differences in Face Recognition and Potential Underlying Mechanisms. Front Psychol 2021; 12:627026. [PMID: 33927668 PMCID: PMC8076495 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2021.627026] [Citation(s) in RCA: 10] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/07/2020] [Accepted: 03/15/2021] [Indexed: 12/03/2022] Open
Abstract
The ability to recognize a face is crucial for the success of social interactions. Understanding the visual processes underlying this ability has been the focus of a long tradition of research. Recent advances in the field have revealed that individuals having different cultural backgrounds differ in the type of visual information they use for face processing. However, the mechanisms that underpin these differences remain unknown. Here, we revisit recent findings highlighting group differences in face processing. Then, we integrate these results in a model of visual categorization developed in the field of psychophysics: the RAP framework. On the basis of this framework, we discuss potential mechanisms, whether face-specific or not, that may underlie cross-cultural differences in face perception.
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Affiliation(s)
- Caroline Blais
- Groupe de Neurosciences Sociales, Département de Psychoéducation et de Psychologie, Université du Québec en Outaouais, Gatineau, QC, Canada
| | - Karina J Linnell
- Department of Psychology, Goldsmiths University of London, London, United Kingdom
| | - Serge Caparos
- Laboratoire DysCo, Université Paris 8, Saint-Denis, France.,Institut Universitaire de France, Paris, France
| | - Amanda Estéphan
- Groupe de Neurosciences Sociales, Département de Psychoéducation et de Psychologie, Université du Québec en Outaouais, Gatineau, QC, Canada.,Département de psychologie, Université du Québec à Montréal, Montréal, QC, Canada
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21
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Haensel JX, Ishikawa M, Itakura S, Smith TJ, Senju A. Cultural influences on face scanning are consistent across infancy and adulthood. Infant Behav Dev 2020; 61:101503. [PMID: 33190091 PMCID: PMC7768814 DOI: 10.1016/j.infbeh.2020.101503] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/09/2020] [Revised: 10/27/2020] [Accepted: 10/28/2020] [Indexed: 10/26/2022]
Abstract
The emergence of cultural differences in face scanning is thought to be shaped by social experience. However, previous studies mainly investigated eye movements of adults and little is known about early development. The current study recorded eye movements of British and Japanese infants (aged 10 and 16 months) and adults, who were presented with static and dynamic faces on screen. Cultural differences were observed across all age groups, with British participants exhibiting more mouth scanning, and Japanese individuals showing increased central face (nose) scanning for dynamic stimuli. Age-related influences independent of culture were also revealed, with a shift from eye to mouth scanning between 10 and 16 months, while adults distributed their gaze more flexibly. Against our prediction, no age-related increases in cultural differences were observed, suggesting the possibility that cultural differences are largely manifest by 10 months of age. Overall, the findings suggest that individuals adopt visual strategies in line with their cultural background from early in infancy, pointing to the development of a highly adaptive face processing system that is shaped by early sociocultural experience.
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Affiliation(s)
- Jennifer X Haensel
- Department of Psychological Sciences, Birkbeck, University of London, Malet Street, London, WC1E 7HX, United Kingdom.
| | - Mitsuhiko Ishikawa
- Department of Psychology, Graduate School of Letters, Kyoto University, Yoshida-honmachi, Sakyo-ku, Kyoto, 606-8501, Japan
| | - Shoji Itakura
- Center for Baby Science, Doshisha University, 4-1-1 Kizugawadai, Kizugawa, Kyoto, 619-0225, Japan
| | - Tim J Smith
- Department of Psychological Sciences, Birkbeck, University of London, Malet Street, London, WC1E 7HX, United Kingdom
| | - Atsushi Senju
- Department of Psychological Sciences, Birkbeck, University of London, Malet Street, London, WC1E 7HX, United Kingdom
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22
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Visual exploration of emotional body language: a behavioural and eye-tracking study. PSYCHOLOGICAL RESEARCH 2020; 85:2326-2339. [PMID: 32920675 DOI: 10.1007/s00426-020-01416-y] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/24/2020] [Accepted: 09/01/2020] [Indexed: 10/23/2022]
Abstract
Bodily postures are essential to correctly comprehend others' emotions and intentions. Nonetheless, very few studies focused on the pattern of eye movements implicated in the recognition of emotional body language (EBL), demonstrating significant differences in relation to different emotions. A yet unanswered question regards the presence of the "left-gaze bias" (i.e. the tendency to look first, to make more fixations and to spend more looking time on the left side of centrally presented stimuli) while scanning bodies. Hence, the present study aims at exploring both the presence of a left-gaze bias and the modulation of EBL visual exploration mechanisms, by investigating the fixation patterns (number of fixations and latency of the first fixation) of participants while judging the emotional intensity of static bodily postures (Angry, Happy and Neutral, without head). While results on the latency of first fixations demonstrate for the first time the presence of the left-gaze bias while scanning bodies, suggesting that it could be related to the stronger expressiveness of the left hand (from the observer's point of view), results on fixations' number only partially fulfil our hypothesis. Moreover, an opposite viewing pattern between Angry and Happy bodily postures is showed. In sum, the present results, by integrating the spatial and temporal dimension of gaze exploration patterns, shed new light on EBL visual exploration mechanisms.
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Florio TM. Stereotyped, automatized and habitual behaviours: are they similar constructs under the control of the same cerebral areas? AIMS Neurosci 2020; 7:136-152. [PMID: 32607417 PMCID: PMC7321770 DOI: 10.3934/neuroscience.2020010] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/31/2020] [Accepted: 05/18/2020] [Indexed: 11/19/2022] Open
Abstract
Comprehensive knowledge about higher executive functions of motor control has been covered in the last decades. Critical goals have been targeted through many different technological approaches. An abundant flow of new results greatly progressed our ability to respond at better-posited answers to look more than ever at the challenging neural system functioning. Behaviour is the observable result of the invisible, as complex cerebral functioning. Many pathological states are approached after symptomatology categorisation of behavioural impairments is achieved. Motor, non-motor and psychiatric signs are greatly shared by many neurological/psychiatric disorders. Together with the cerebral cortex, the basal ganglia contribute to the expression of behaviour promoting the correct action schemas and the selection of appropriate sub-goals based on the evaluation of action outcomes. The present review focus on the basic classification of higher motor control functioning, taking into account the recent advances in basal ganglia structural knowledge and the computational model of basal ganglia functioning. We discuss about the basal ganglia capability in executing ordered motor patterns in which any single movement is linked to each other into an action, and many actions are ordered into each other, giving them a syntactic value to the final behaviour. The stereotypic, automatized and habitual behaviour's constructs and controls are the expression of successive stages of rule internalization and categorisation aimed in producing the perfect spatial-temporal control of motor command.
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Affiliation(s)
- Tiziana M Florio
- Department of Life, Health and Environmental Sciences, University of L'Aquila, Italy
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24
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Oxytocin biases eye-gaze to dynamic and static social images and the eyes of fearful faces: associations with trait autism. Transl Psychiatry 2020; 10:142. [PMID: 32398642 PMCID: PMC7217872 DOI: 10.1038/s41398-020-0830-x] [Citation(s) in RCA: 11] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Submit a Manuscript] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/04/2019] [Revised: 04/21/2020] [Accepted: 04/28/2020] [Indexed: 12/22/2022] Open
Abstract
A key functional effect of intranasal oxytocin with potential therapeutic relevance for autism-spectrum disorder is its reported facilitation of attention towards social stimuli, notably the eye region of faces. In the current randomized placebo-controlled within-subject experiment on 40 healthy males, we investigated the robustness of this facilitation of attention by intranasal oxytocin (24IU) towards social cues. Eye-tracking measures of preference for dynamic and static social vs. non-social stimuli were taken in four different paradigms where autistic individuals tend to exhibit reduced interest in social stimuli. Additionally, we investigated whether oxytocin increases attention towards the eyes relative to other salient face regions in an emotional face paradigm. Results showed that the time spent viewing both dynamic and static social vs. non-social stimuli was negatively associated with trait autism and significantly increased following intranasal oxytocin. For face stimuli, oxytocin primarily increased gaze towards the eyes of fearful expression faces but not for other face emotions. Overall, our findings demonstrate that oxytocin significantly shifts gaze preference towards social vs. non-social stimuli and to the eyes of fearful faces. Importantly, oxytocin appears generally to shift attention more towards salient social stimuli of particular relevance in the context of autism providing further support for its potential therapeutic use in autism-spectrum disorder.
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Haensel JX, Danvers M, Ishikawa M, Itakura S, Tucciarelli R, Smith TJ, Senju A. Culture modulates face scanning during dyadic social interactions. Sci Rep 2020; 10:1958. [PMID: 32029826 PMCID: PMC7005015 DOI: 10.1038/s41598-020-58802-0] [Citation(s) in RCA: 14] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/29/2019] [Accepted: 12/11/2019] [Indexed: 11/08/2022] Open
Abstract
Recent studies have revealed significant cultural modulations on face scanning strategies, thereby challenging the notion of universality in face perception. Current findings are based on screen-based paradigms, which offer high degrees of experimental control, but lack critical characteristics common to social interactions (e.g., social presence, dynamic visual saliency), and complementary approaches are required. The current study used head-mounted eye tracking techniques to investigate the visual strategies for face scanning in British/Irish (in the UK) and Japanese adults (in Japan) who were engaged in dyadic social interactions with a local research assistant. We developed novel computational data pre-processing tools and data-driven analysis techniques based on Monte Carlo permutation testing. The results revealed significant cultural differences in face scanning during social interactions for the first time, with British/Irish participants showing increased mouth scanning and the Japanese group engaging in greater eye and central face looking. Both cultural groups further showed more face orienting during periods of listening relative to speaking, and during the introduction task compared to a storytelling game, thereby replicating previous studies testing Western populations. Altogether, these findings point to the significant role of postnatal social experience in specialised face perception and highlight the adaptive nature of the face processing system.
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Affiliation(s)
- Jennifer X Haensel
- Birkbeck, University of London, Department of Psychological Sciences, London, WC1E 7HX, United Kingdom.
| | - Matthew Danvers
- Birkbeck, University of London, Department of Psychological Sciences, London, WC1E 7HX, United Kingdom
| | | | - Shoji Itakura
- Kyoto University, Department of Psychology, Kyoto, 606-8501, Japan
| | - Raffaele Tucciarelli
- Birkbeck, University of London, Department of Psychological Sciences, London, WC1E 7HX, United Kingdom
| | - Tim J Smith
- Birkbeck, University of London, Department of Psychological Sciences, London, WC1E 7HX, United Kingdom
| | - Atsushi Senju
- Birkbeck, University of London, Department of Psychological Sciences, London, WC1E 7HX, United Kingdom
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26
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McIntyre NA, Mulder KT, Mainhard MT. Looking to relate: teacher gaze and culture in student-rated teacher interpersonal behaviour. SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY OF EDUCATION 2020. [DOI: 10.1007/s11218-019-09541-2] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 10/25/2022]
Abstract
AbstractMobile eye-tracking was used to investigate the link between teacher gaze and student-rated teacher interpersonal behaviour. Teacher gaze was recorded for 10 min during a teacher-centred part of a naturally occurring lesson. The Questionnaire on Teacher Interaction was then administered to assess how UK students evaluated their teacher interpersonally in that lesson. Teachers conveyed greater dominance (or interpersonal agency) through increasing eye contact while asking questions (‘attentional gaze’). Teachers conveyed more interpersonal friendliness (or communion) through increasing eye contact while lecturing (‘communicative gaze’). Culture did not affect the way gaze was associated with students’ interpersonal perceptions.
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27
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Huang P, Cai B, Zhou C, Wang W, Wang X, Gao D, Bao B. Contribution of the mandible position to the facial profile perception of a female facial profile: An eye-tracking study. Am J Orthod Dentofacial Orthop 2019; 156:641-652. [PMID: 31677673 DOI: 10.1016/j.ajodo.2018.11.018] [Citation(s) in RCA: 7] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.4] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/01/2018] [Revised: 11/01/2018] [Accepted: 11/01/2018] [Indexed: 10/25/2022]
Abstract
INTRODUCTION Studies concerning the visual attention of laypersons viewing the soft tissue facial profile of men and women with malocclusion are lacking. This study aimed to determine the visual attention to the facial profile of patients with different levels of mandibular protrusion and facial background attractiveness using an eye-tracking device. METHODS The scanning paths of 54 Chinese laypersons (50% female, 50% male, aged 18-23 years) were recorded by an eye-tracking device when they observed composite female facial profile images (n = 24), which were combinations of different degrees of mandibular protrusion (normal, slight, moderate, and severe) and different levels of facial background attractiveness (attractive, average, and unattractive). Dependent variables (fixation duration and first fixation time) were analyzed using repeated-measures factorial analysis of variance. RESULTS For normal mandibular profiles, the fixation duration of the eyes was significantly higher than that of other facial features (P <0.001). The lower face and nose received the least attention. As the degree of protrusion increased from slight to moderate, more attention was drawn to the lower face accompanied by less attention to eyes in the unattractive group (P <0.05). When protrusion degree increased from moderate to severe, attention shifted from nose to lower face significantly in the attractive group (P <0.05). Attention shift from eyes to lower face was also found in the average group when protrusion degree rose to moderate protrusion from normal profile (P <0.05). A significant interaction between facial attractiveness and mandibular protrusion was found in the lower face duration (P = 0.020). The threshold point (the point of mandibular protrusion degree that evoked attention to the lower face) of the attractive facial background was higher than that of the unattractive background. Once evoked, the effect of mandibular protrusion of the attractive group tended to be stronger than that of the unattractive group, though without statistical difference. CONCLUSIONS Eyes are the most salient area. The increasing degree of mandibular protrusion tends to draw attention to the lower face from other facial features. Background attractiveness can modify this behavior.
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Affiliation(s)
- Peishan Huang
- Orthodontic Department, Guanghua School of Stomatology, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Stomatology, Guangzhou, Guangdong, China
| | - Bin Cai
- Orthodontic Department, Hospital of Stomatology, Guanghua School of Stomatology, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Stomatology, Guangzhou, Guangdong, China
| | - Chen Zhou
- Orthodontic Department, Hospital of Stomatology, Guanghua School of Stomatology, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Stomatology, Guangzhou, Guangdong, China
| | - Weicai Wang
- Orthodontic Department, Hospital of Stomatology, Guanghua School of Stomatology, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Stomatology, Guangzhou, Guangdong, China
| | - Xi Wang
- Orthodontic Department, Hospital of Stomatology, Guanghua School of Stomatology, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Stomatology, Guangzhou, Guangdong, China
| | - Dingguo Gao
- Psychology Department, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Brain Function and Disease, Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Social Cognitive Neuroscience, Mental Health, Guangzhou, Guangdong, China.
| | - Baicheng Bao
- Orthodontic Department, Hospital of Stomatology, Guanghua School of Stomatology, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Stomatology, Guangzhou, Guangdong, China.
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Hills PJ, Roberts AL, Boobyer C. Being observed detrimentally affects face perception. JOURNAL OF COGNITIVE PSYCHOLOGY 2019. [DOI: 10.1080/20445911.2019.1685528] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 10/25/2022]
Affiliation(s)
- Peter J. Hills
- Department of Psychology, Bournemouth University, Poole, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
| | - Aimee Lee Roberts
- Anglia Ruskin University, Chelmsford, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
| | - Charlotte Boobyer
- Department of Psychology, Bournemouth University, Poole, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
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Liu X, Liang X, Feng C, Zhou G. Self-Construal Priming Affects Holistic Face Processing and Race Categorization, but Not Face Recognition. Front Psychol 2019; 10:1973. [PMID: 31507505 PMCID: PMC6718463 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2019.01973] [Citation(s) in RCA: 5] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/21/2019] [Accepted: 08/12/2019] [Indexed: 11/16/2022] Open
Abstract
Self-construal priming can affect an individual’s cognitive processing. Participants who were primed with interdependent self-construal showed more holistic process bias than those who were primed with independent self-construal. The holistic processing of a face also differs across cultures. As such, the purpose of the present study was to explore whether the cultural differences in holistic face processing can be interpreted from the perspective of self-construal, as well as to investigate the relationship between self-construal and holistic face processing/face recognition/race categorization. In Experiment 1, participants were primed with control, interdependent, or independent self-construal, respectively, and then they completed a feature-space same-different task (Experiment 1A) or a composite face effect task (Experiment 1B). Results showed no priming effect in Experiment 1A, whereas independent self-construal priming resulted in less holistic processing in Experiment 1B. In Experiment 2, participants were primed with control, collective/interdependent, relational, or independent self-construal, respectively, and then they completed a Vanderbilt Holistic Face Processing Test and Cambridge Face Memory Test. Participants who were primed as independent showed greater congruency effect than the relational group. Self-construal priming had no effect on face recognition. In Experiment 3, we manipulated self-construal in the same way as that in Experiment 2 and monitored the eye movement of Chinese participants while they learned, recognized, and categorized their own-/other-race faces. Self-construal priming had no effect on face recognition. Compared with other groups, collective-/interdependent-self priming increased the fixation time of eyes and decreased the fixation time of nose in the race categorization task. These results indicated that the cultural differences in self-construal could not mirror the cultural differences in face processing in a simple way.
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Affiliation(s)
- Xinge Liu
- Department of Psychology, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou, China
| | - Xingfen Liang
- Department of Psychology, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou, China
| | - Cong Feng
- Department of Philosophy, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou, China
| | - Guomei Zhou
- Department of Psychology, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou, China.,Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Social Cognitive Neuroscience and Mental Health, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou, China
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Thornton IM, Srismith D, Oxner M, Hayward WG. Other-race faces are given more weight than own-race faces when assessing the composition of crowds. Vision Res 2019; 157:159-168. [DOI: 10.1016/j.visres.2018.02.008] [Citation(s) in RCA: 8] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.6] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/15/2017] [Revised: 02/15/2018] [Accepted: 02/16/2018] [Indexed: 10/17/2022]
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Neural Representations of Faces Are Tuned to Eye Movements. J Neurosci 2019; 39:4113-4123. [PMID: 30867260 DOI: 10.1523/jneurosci.2968-18.2019] [Citation(s) in RCA: 17] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.4] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/22/2018] [Revised: 02/07/2019] [Accepted: 03/05/2019] [Indexed: 01/23/2023] Open
Abstract
Eye movements provide a functional signature of how human vision is achieved. Many recent studies have consistently reported robust idiosyncratic visual sampling strategies during face recognition. Whether these interindividual differences are mirrored by idiosyncratic neural responses remains unknown. To this aim, we first tracked eye movements of male and female observers during face recognition. Additionally, for every observer we obtained an objective index of neural face discrimination through EEG that was recorded while they fixated different facial information. We found that foveation of facial features fixated longer during face recognition elicited stronger neural face discrimination responses across all observers. This relationship occurred independently of interindividual differences in preferential facial information sampling (e.g., eye vs mouth lookers), and started as early as the first fixation. Our data show that eye movements play a functional role during face processing by providing the neural system with the information that is diagnostic to a specific observer. The effective processing of identity involves idiosyncratic, rather than universal face representations.SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT When engaging in face recognition, observers deploy idiosyncratic fixation patterns to sample facial information. Whether these individual differences concur with idiosyncratic face-sensitive neural responses remains unclear. To address this issue, we recorded observers' fixation patterns, as well as their neural face discrimination responses elicited during fixation of 10 different locations on the face, corresponding to different types of facial information. Our data reveal a clear interplay between individuals' face-sensitive neural responses and their idiosyncratic eye-movement patterns during identity processing, which emerges as early as the first fixation. Collectively, our findings favor the existence of idiosyncratic, rather than universal face representations.
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Gutchess A, Sekuler R. Perceptual and mnemonic differences across cultures. PSYCHOLOGY OF LEARNING AND MOTIVATION 2019. [DOI: 10.1016/bs.plm.2019.06.001] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.6] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/25/2022]
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Leleu A, Dzhelyova M, Rossion B, Brochard R, Durand K, Schaal B, Baudouin JY. Tuning functions for automatic detection of brief changes of facial expression in the human brain. Neuroimage 2018; 179:235-251. [DOI: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2018.06.048] [Citation(s) in RCA: 16] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/05/2017] [Revised: 05/03/2018] [Accepted: 06/15/2018] [Indexed: 12/27/2022] Open
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Hills PJ. Children process the self face using configural and featural encoding: Evidence from eye tracking. COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT 2018. [DOI: 10.1016/j.cogdev.2018.07.002] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 10/28/2022]
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35
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Royer J, Blais C, Charbonneau I, Déry K, Tardif J, Duchaine B, Gosselin F, Fiset D. Greater reliance on the eye region predicts better face recognition ability. Cognition 2018; 181:12-20. [PMID: 30103033 DOI: 10.1016/j.cognition.2018.08.004] [Citation(s) in RCA: 37] [Impact Index Per Article: 6.2] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/30/2017] [Revised: 08/03/2018] [Accepted: 08/06/2018] [Indexed: 01/17/2023]
Abstract
Interest in using individual differences in face recognition ability to better understand the perceptual and cognitive mechanisms supporting face processing has grown substantially in recent years. The goal of this study was to determine how varying levels of face recognition ability are linked to changes in visual information extraction strategies in an identity recognition task. To address this question, fifty participants completed six tasks measuring face and object processing abilities. Using the Bubbles method (Gosselin & Schyns, 2001), we also measured each individual's use of visual information in face recognition. At the group level, our results replicate previous findings demonstrating the importance of the eye region for face identification. More importantly, we show that face processing ability is related to a systematic increase in the use of the eye area, especially the left eye from the observer's perspective. Indeed, our results suggest that the use of this region accounts for approximately 20% of the variance in face processing ability. These results support the idea that individual differences in face processing are at least partially related to the perceptual extraction strategy used during face identification.
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Affiliation(s)
- Jessica Royer
- Département de Psychoéducation et de Psychologie, Université du Québec en Outaouais, Canada
| | - Caroline Blais
- Département de Psychoéducation et de Psychologie, Université du Québec en Outaouais, Canada
| | - Isabelle Charbonneau
- Département de Psychoéducation et de Psychologie, Université du Québec en Outaouais, Canada
| | - Karine Déry
- Département de Psychoéducation et de Psychologie, Université du Québec en Outaouais, Canada
| | - Jessica Tardif
- Département de Psychologie, Université de Montréal, Canada
| | - Brad Duchaine
- Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, Dartmouth College, United States
| | | | - Daniel Fiset
- Département de Psychoéducation et de Psychologie, Université du Québec en Outaouais, Canada.
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36
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Laeng B, Kiambarua KG, Hagen T, Bochynska A, Lubell J, Suzuki H, Okubo M. The "face race lightness illusion": An effect of the eyes and pupils? PLoS One 2018; 13:e0201603. [PMID: 30071065 PMCID: PMC6072068 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0201603] [Citation(s) in RCA: 8] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/19/2017] [Accepted: 07/18/2018] [Indexed: 12/20/2022] Open
Abstract
In an internet-based, forced-choice, test of the ‘face race lightness illusion’, the majority of respondents, regardless of their ethnicity, reported perceiving the African face as darker in skin tone than the European face, despite the mean luminance, contrast and numbers of pixels of the images were identical. In the laboratory, using eye tracking, it was found that eye fixations were distributed differently on the African face and European face, so that gaze dwelled relatively longer onto the locally brighter regions of the African face and, in turn, mean pupil diameters were smaller than for the European face. There was no relationship between pupils’ size and implicit social attitude (IAT) scores. In another experiment, the faces were presented either tachistoscopically (140 ms) or longer (2500 ms) so that, when gaze was prevented from looking directly at the faces in the former condition, the tendency to report the African face as “dark” disappeared, but it was present when gaze was free to move for just a few seconds. We conclude that the presence of the illusion depends on oculomotor behavior and we also propose a novel account based on a predictive strategy of sensory acquisition. Specifically, by differentially directing gaze towards to facial regions that are locally different in luminance, the resulting changes in retinal illuminance yield respectively darker or brighter percepts while attending to each face, hence minimizing the mismatch between visual input and the learned perceptual prototypes of ethnic categories.
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Affiliation(s)
- Bruno Laeng
- Department of Psychology, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway
- * E-mail:
| | - Kenneth Gitiye Kiambarua
- Department of Psychology, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway
- Kenya Methodist University, Meru, Kenya
| | - Thomas Hagen
- Department of Psychology, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway
| | - Agata Bochynska
- Department of Psychology, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway
- Department of Language and Literature, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Trondheim, Norway
| | - Jamie Lubell
- Department of Psychology, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway
- Helen Wills Neuroscience Institute, University of California at Berkeley, Berkeley, United States of America
| | - Hikaru Suzuki
- Department of Psychology, Senshu University, Tokyo, Japan
| | - Matia Okubo
- Department of Psychology, Senshu University, Tokyo, Japan
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37
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Abstract
Culture shapes social cognition in many ways. Yet cultural impact on face tuning remains largely unclear. Here typically developing females and males from the French-speaking part of Switzerland were presented with a set of Arcimboldo-like Face-n-Food images composed of food ingredients and in different degree resembling a face. The outcome had been compared with previous findings obtained in young adults of the South-West Germany. In that study, males exhibit higher thresholds for face tuning on the Face-n-Food task than females. In Swiss participants, no gender differences exist in face tuning. Strikingly, males from the French-speaking part of Switzerland possess higher sensitivity to faces than their German peers, whereas no difference in face tuning occurs between females. The outcome indicates that even relatively subtle cultural differences as well as culture by gender interaction can modulate social cognition. Clarification of the nature of cultural impact on face tuning as well as social cognition at large is of substantial value for understanding a wide range of neuropsychiatric and neurodevelopmental conditions.
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38
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Kawakami K, Friesen J, Vingilis-Jaremko L. Visual attention to members of own and other groups: Preferences, determinants, and consequences. SOCIAL AND PERSONALITY PSYCHOLOGY COMPASS 2018. [DOI: 10.1111/spc3.12380] [Citation(s) in RCA: 8] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 12/21/2022]
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39
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Estéphan A, Fiset D, Saumure C, Plouffe-Demers MP, Zhang Y, Sun D, Blais C. Time Course of Cultural Differences in Spatial Frequency Use for Face Identification. Sci Rep 2018; 8:1816. [PMID: 29379032 PMCID: PMC5788938 DOI: 10.1038/s41598-018-19971-1] [Citation(s) in RCA: 16] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/07/2017] [Accepted: 12/15/2017] [Indexed: 11/13/2022] Open
Abstract
Several previous studies of eye movements have put forward that, during face recognition, Easterners spread their attention across a greater part of their visual field than Westerners. Recently, we found that culture’s effect on the perception of faces reaches mechanisms deeper than eye movements, therefore affecting the very nature of information sampled by the visual system: that is, Westerners globally rely more than Easterners on fine-grained visual information (i.e. high spatial frequencies; SFs), whereas Easterners rely more on coarse-grained visual information (i.e. low SFs). These findings suggest that culture influences basic visual processes; however, the temporal onset and dynamics of these culture-specific perceptual differences are still unknown. Here, we investigate the time course of SF use in Western Caucasian (Canadian) and East Asian (Chinese) observers during a face identification task. Firstly, our results confirm that Easterners use relatively lower SFs than Westerners, while the latter use relatively higher SFs. More importantly, our results indicate that these differences arise as early as 34 ms after stimulus onset, and remain stable through time. Our research supports the hypothesis that Westerners and Easterners initially rely on different types of visual information during face processing.
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Affiliation(s)
- Amanda Estéphan
- Département de psychoéducation et de psychologie, Université du Québec en Outaouais, Québec, Canada.,Département de psychologie, Université du Québec à Montréal, Québec, Canada
| | - Daniel Fiset
- Département de psychoéducation et de psychologie, Université du Québec en Outaouais, Québec, Canada
| | - Camille Saumure
- Département de psychoéducation et de psychologie, Université du Québec en Outaouais, Québec, Canada
| | | | - Ye Zhang
- Institute of Psychological Science, Hangzhou Normal University, Hangzhou, China.,Zhejiang Key Laboratory for Research in Assessment of Cognitive Impairments, Hangzhou, China
| | - Dan Sun
- Institute of Psychological Science, Hangzhou Normal University, Hangzhou, China.,Zhejiang Key Laboratory for Research in Assessment of Cognitive Impairments, Hangzhou, China
| | - Caroline Blais
- Département de psychoéducation et de psychologie, Université du Québec en Outaouais, Québec, Canada.
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40
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Busin Y, Lukasova K, Asthana MK, Macedo EC. Hemiface Differences in Visual Exploration Patterns When Judging the Authenticity of Facial Expressions. Front Psychol 2018; 8:2332. [PMID: 29367851 PMCID: PMC5767895 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2017.02332] [Citation(s) in RCA: 5] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/11/2017] [Accepted: 12/21/2017] [Indexed: 11/29/2022] Open
Abstract
Past studies have found asymmetry biases in human emotion recognition. The left side bias refers to preferential looking at the left-hemiface when actively exploring face images. However, these studies have been mainly conducted with static and frontally oriented stimuli, whereas real-life emotion recognition takes place on dynamic faces viewed from different angles. The aim of this study was to assess the judgment of genuine vs. masked expressions in dynamic movie clips of faces rotated to the right or left side. Forty-eight participants judged the expressions on faces displaying genuine or masked happy, sad, and fearful emotions. The head of the actor was either rotated to the left by a 45° angle, thus showing the left side of the face (standard orientation), or inverted, with the same face shown from the right side perspective. The eye movements were registered by the eye tracker and the data were analyzed for the inverse efficiency score (IES), the number of fixations, gaze time on the whole face and in the regions of interest. Results showed shorter IESs and gaze times for happy compared to sad and fearful emotions, but no difference was found for these variables between sad and fearful emotions. The left side preference was evident from comparisons of the number of fixations. Standard stimuli received a higher number of fixations than inverted ones. However, gaze time was long on inverted compared to standard faces. Number of fixations on exposed hemiface interacted with the emotions decreasing from happy to sad and fearful. An opposite pattern was found for the occluded hemiface. These results suggest a change in fixation patterns in the rotated faces that may be beneficial for the judgments of expressions. Furthermore, this study replicated the effects of the judgment of genuine and masked emotions using dynamic faces.
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Affiliation(s)
- Yuri Busin
- Social and Cognitive Neuroscience Laboratory and Developmental Disorders Program, Center for Health and Biological Sciences, Mackenzie Presbyterian University, São Paulo, Brazil
| | - Katerina Lukasova
- Social and Cognitive Neuroscience Laboratory and Developmental Disorders Program, Center for Health and Biological Sciences, Mackenzie Presbyterian University, São Paulo, Brazil.,Center of Mathematics, Computation and Cognition, Federal University of ABC (UFABC), São Bernardo, Brazil
| | - Manish K Asthana
- Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur, Kanpur, India
| | - Elizeu C Macedo
- Social and Cognitive Neuroscience Laboratory and Developmental Disorders Program, Center for Health and Biological Sciences, Mackenzie Presbyterian University, São Paulo, Brazil
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41
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Cross-cultural and hemispheric laterality effects on the ensemble coding of emotion in facial crowds. ACTA ACUST UNITED AC 2017; 5:125-152. [PMID: 29230379 DOI: 10.1007/s40167-017-0054-y] [Citation(s) in RCA: 9] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 10/18/2022]
Abstract
In many social situations, we make a snap judgment about crowds of people relying on their overall mood (termed "crowd emotion"). Although reading crowd emotion is critical for interpersonal dynamics, the sociocultural aspects of this process have not been explored. The current study examined how culture modulates the processing of crowd emotion in Korean and American observers. Korean and American (non-East Asian) participants were briefly presented with two groups of faces that were individually varying in emotional expressions and asked to choose which group between the two they would rather avoid. We found that Korean participants were more accurate than American participants overall, in line with the framework on cultural viewpoints: Holistic versus analytic processing in East Asians versus Westerners. Moreover, we found a speed advantage for other-race crowds in both cultural groups. Finally, we found different hemispheric lateralization patterns: American participants were more accurate to perceive the facial crowd to be avoided when it was presented in the left visual field than the right visual field, indicating a right hemisphere advantage for processing crowd emotion of both European American and Korean facial crowds. However, Korean participants showed weak or nonexistent laterality effects, with a slight right hemisphere advantage for European American facial crowds and no advantage in perceiving Korean facial crowds. Instead, Korean participants showed positive emotion bias for own-race faces. This work suggests that culture plays a role in modulating our crowd emotion perception of groups of faces and responses to them.
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42
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Hills PJ, Hill DM. Sad people are more accurate at expression identification with a smaller own-ethnicity bias than happy people. Q J Exp Psychol (Hove) 2017; 71:1797-1806. [PMID: 28697705 DOI: 10.1080/17470218.2017.1350869] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 10/19/2022]
Abstract
Sad individuals are more accurate at face identity recognition, possibly because they scan more of the face during encoding. During expression identification tasks, sad individuals do not fixate on the eyes as much as happier individuals. Fixating on features other than the eyes leads to a reduced own-ethnicity bias. This background indicates that sad individuals would not view the eyes as much as happy individuals, and this would result in improved expression recognition and reduced own-ethnicity bias. This prediction was tested using an expression identification task with eye tracking. We demonstrate that sad-induced participants show enhanced expression recognition and a reduced own-ethnicity bias than happy-induced participants due to scanning more facial features. We conclude that mood affects eye movements and face encoding by causing a wider sampling strategy and deeper encoding of facial features diagnostic for expression identification.
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Affiliation(s)
- Peter J Hills
- 1 Department of Psychology, Bournemouth University, Poole, UK
| | - Dominic M Hill
- 2 Department of Psychology, Anglia Ruskin University, Cambridge, UK
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43
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Mega LF, Volz KG. Intuitive Face Judgments Rely on Holistic Eye Movement Pattern. Front Psychol 2017; 8:1005. [PMID: 28676773 PMCID: PMC5476727 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2017.01005] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/02/2017] [Accepted: 05/31/2017] [Indexed: 12/02/2022] Open
Abstract
Non-verbal signals such as facial expressions are of paramount importance for social encounters. Their perception predominantly occurs without conscious awareness and is effortlessly integrated into social interactions. In other words, face perception is intuitive. Contrary to classical intuition tasks, this work investigates intuitive processes in the realm of every-day type social judgments. Two differently instructed groups of participants judged the authenticity of emotional facial expressions, while their eye movements were recorded: an ‘intuitive group,’ instructed to rely on their “gut feeling” for the authenticity judgments, and a ‘deliberative group,’ instructed to make their judgments after careful analysis of the face. Pixel-wise statistical maps of the resulting eye movements revealed a differential viewing pattern, wherein the intuitive judgments relied on fewer, longer and more centrally located fixations. These markers have been associated with a global/holistic viewing strategy. The holistic pattern of intuitive face judgments is in line with evidence showing that intuition is related to processing the “gestalt” of an object, rather than focusing on details. Our work thereby provides further evidence that intuitive processes are characterized by holistic perception, in an understudied and real world domain of intuition research.
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Affiliation(s)
- Laura F Mega
- Werner Reichardt Centre for Integrative NeuroscienceTübingen, Germany.,University of Tübingen, Tübingen, Germany
| | - Kirsten G Volz
- Werner Reichardt Centre for Integrative NeuroscienceTübingen, Germany.,University of Tübingen, Tübingen, Germany
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44
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Caldara R. Culture Reveals a Flexible System for Face Processing. CURRENT DIRECTIONS IN PSYCHOLOGICAL SCIENCE 2017. [DOI: 10.1177/0963721417710036] [Citation(s) in RCA: 29] [Impact Index Per Article: 4.1] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/16/2022]
Abstract
The human face transmits a wealth of signals that readily provide crucial information for social interactions, such as facial identity and emotional expression. Nonetheless, a fundamental question remains debated: Is face processing governed by universal perceptual processes? It has long been presumed that this is the case. However, over the past decade, our work at the Eye and Brain Mapping Laboratory has called into question this widely held assumption. We have investigated the eye movements of Western and Eastern observers across various face-processing tasks to determine the effect of culture on perceptual processing. Commonalities aside, we found that Westerners distribute local fixations across the eye and mouth regions, whereas Easterners preferentially deploy central, global fixations during face recognition. Moreover, during the recognition of facial expressions of emotion, Westerners fixate the mouth relatively more to discriminate across expressions, whereas Easterners favor the eye region. Both observations demonstrate that the face system relies on different strategies to perform a range of socially relevant face-processing tasks with comparable levels of efficiency. Overall, these cultural perceptual biases challenge the view that the processes dedicated to face processing are universal, favoring instead the existence of distinct, flexible strategies. The way humans perceive the world and process faces is determined by experience and environmental factors.
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Affiliation(s)
- Roberto Caldara
- Eye and Brain Mapping Laboratory (iBMLab), Department of Psychology, University of Fribourg
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45
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Hills PJ, Marquardt Z, Young I, Goodenough I. Explaining Sad People's Memory Advantage for Faces. Front Psychol 2017; 8:207. [PMID: 28261138 PMCID: PMC5313490 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2017.00207] [Citation(s) in RCA: 8] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.1] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/28/2016] [Accepted: 02/01/2017] [Indexed: 11/22/2022] Open
Abstract
Sad people recognize faces more accurately than happy people (Hills et al., 2011). We devised four hypotheses for this finding that are tested between in the current study. The four hypotheses are: (1) sad people engage in more expert processing associated with face processing; (2) sad people are motivated to be more accurate than happy people in an attempt to repair their mood; (3) sad people have a defocused attentional strategy that allows more information about a face to be encoded; and (4) sad people scan more of the face than happy people leading to more facial features to be encoded. In Experiment 1, we found that dysphoria (sad mood often associated with depression) was not correlated with the face-inversion effect (a measure of expert processing) nor with response times but was correlated with defocused attention and recognition accuracy. Experiment 2 established that dysphoric participants detected changes made to more facial features than happy participants. In Experiment 3, using eye-tracking we found that sad-induced participants sampled more of the face whilst avoiding the eyes. Experiment 4 showed that sad-induced people demonstrated a smaller own-ethnicity bias. These results indicate that sad people show different attentional allocation to faces than happy and neutral people.
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Affiliation(s)
- Peter J. Hills
- Department of Psychology, Bournemouth UniversityPoole, UK
| | - Zoe Marquardt
- Department of Psychology, Bournemouth UniversityPoole, UK
| | - Isabel Young
- Department of Psychology, Bournemouth UniversityPoole, UK
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46
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Paige LE, Ksander JC, Johndro HA, Gutchess AH. Cross-cultural differences in the neural correlates of specific and general recognition. Cortex 2017; 91:250-261. [PMID: 28256199 PMCID: PMC5580400 DOI: 10.1016/j.cortex.2017.01.018] [Citation(s) in RCA: 14] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/29/2016] [Revised: 10/25/2016] [Accepted: 01/23/2017] [Indexed: 10/20/2022]
Abstract
Research suggests that culture influences how people perceive the world, which extends to memory specificity, or how much perceptual detail is remembered. The present study investigated cross-cultural differences (Americans vs East Asians) at the time of encoding in the neural correlates of specific versus general memory formation. Participants encoded photos of everyday items in the scanner and 48 h later completed a surprise recognition test. The recognition test consisted of same (i.e., previously seen in scanner), similar (i.e., same name, different features), or new photos (i.e., items not previously seen in scanner). For Americans compared to East Asians, we predicted greater activation in the hippocampus and right fusiform for specific memory at recognition, as these regions were implicated previously in encoding perceptual details. Results revealed that East Asians activated the left fusiform and left hippocampus more than Americans for specific versus general memory. Follow-up analyses ruled out alternative explanations of retrieval difficulty and familiarity for this pattern of cross-cultural differences at encoding. Results overall suggest that culture should be considered as another individual difference that affects memory specificity and modulates neural regions underlying these processes.
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47
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Dole M, Méary D, Pascalis O. Modifications of Visual Field Asymmetries for Face Categorization in Early Deaf Adults: A Study With Chimeric Faces. Front Psychol 2017; 8:30. [PMID: 28163692 PMCID: PMC5247456 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2017.00030] [Citation(s) in RCA: 6] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.9] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/01/2016] [Accepted: 01/05/2017] [Indexed: 12/02/2022] Open
Abstract
Right hemisphere lateralization for face processing is well documented in typical populations. At the behavioral level, this right hemisphere bias is often related to a left visual field (LVF) bias. A conventional mean to study this phenomenon consists of using chimeric faces that are composed of the left and right parts of two faces. In this paradigm, participants generally use the left part of the chimeric face, mostly processed through the right optic tract, to determine its identity, gender or age. To assess the impact of early auditory deprivation on face processing abilities, we tested the LVF bias in a group of early deaf participants and hearing controls. In two experiments, deaf and hearing participants performed a gender categorization task with chimeric and normal average faces. Over the two experiments the results confirmed the presence of a LVF bias in participants, which was less frequent in deaf participants. This result suggested modifications of hemispheric lateralization for face processing in deaf participants. In Experiment 2 we also recorded eye movements to examine whether the LVF bias could be related to face scanning behavior. In this second study, participants performed a similar task while we recorded eye movements using an eye tracking system. Using areas of interest analysis we observed that the proportion of fixations on the mouth relatively to the other areas was increased in deaf participants in comparison with the hearing group. This was associated with a decrease of the proportion of fixations on the eyes. In addition these measures were correlated to the LVF bias suggesting a relationship between the LVF bias and the patterns of facial exploration. Taken together, these results suggest that early auditory deprivation results in plasticity phenomenon affecting the perception of static faces through modifications of hemispheric lateralization and of gaze behavior.
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Affiliation(s)
- Marjorie Dole
- Laboratoire de Psychologie et NeuroCognition, CNRS UMR 5105, Université Grenoble-AlpesGrenoble, France; Gipsa-Lab, Département Parole et Cognition, CNRS UMR 5216, Université Grenoble-AlpesGrenoble, France
| | - David Méary
- Laboratoire de Psychologie et NeuroCognition, CNRS UMR 5105, Université Grenoble-Alpes Grenoble, France
| | - Olivier Pascalis
- Laboratoire de Psychologie et NeuroCognition, CNRS UMR 5105, Université Grenoble-Alpes Grenoble, France
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48
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Chelnokova O, Laeng B, Løseth G, Eikemo M, Willoch F, Leknes S. The µ-opioid system promotes visual attention to faces and eyes. Soc Cogn Affect Neurosci 2016; 11:1902-1909. [PMID: 27531386 DOI: 10.1093/scan/nsw116] [Citation(s) in RCA: 25] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.1] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/25/2016] [Revised: 07/17/2016] [Accepted: 08/10/2016] [Indexed: 12/25/2022] Open
Abstract
Paying attention to others' faces and eyes is a cornerstone of human social behavior. The µ-opioid receptor (MOR) system, central to social reward-processing in rodents and primates, has been proposed to mediate the capacity for affiliative reward in humans. We assessed the role of the human MOR system in visual exploration of faces and eyes of conspecifics. Thirty healthy males received a novel, bidirectional battery of psychopharmacological treatment (an MOR agonist, a non-selective opioid antagonist, or placebo, on three separate days). Eye-movements were recorded while participants viewed facial photographs. We predicted that the MOR system would promote visual exploration of faces, and hypothesized that MOR agonism would increase, whereas antagonism decrease overt attention to the information-rich eye region. The expected linear effect of MOR manipulation on visual attention to the stimuli was observed, such that MOR agonism increased while antagonism decreased visual exploration of faces and overt attention to the eyes. The observed effects suggest that the human MOR system promotes overt visual attention to socially significant cues, in line with theories linking reward value to gaze control and target selection. Enhanced attention to others' faces and eyes represents a putative behavioral mechanism through which the human MOR system promotes social interest.
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Affiliation(s)
- Olga Chelnokova
- Department of Psychology, University of Oslo, Oslo N-0317, Norway
| | - Bruno Laeng
- Department of Psychology, University of Oslo, Oslo N-0317, Norway
| | - Guro Løseth
- Department of Psychology, University of Oslo, Oslo N-0317, Norway
| | - Marie Eikemo
- Department of Psychology, University of Oslo, Oslo N-0317, Norway.,Norwegian Center for Addiction Research, University of Oslo, Oslo N-0318, Norway.,Division of Mental Health and Addiction, Oslo University Hospital, Oslo N-0318, Norway
| | - Frode Willoch
- Department of Medicine, University of Oslo, Oslo N-0316, Norway
| | - Siri Leknes
- Department of Psychology, University of Oslo, Oslo N-0317, Norway.,Department of Medicine, University of Oslo, Oslo N-0316, Norway.,The Intervention Centre, Oslo University Hospital, Oslo N-0424, Norway
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49
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Nitzan-Tamar O, Kramarski B, Vakil E. Eye Movement Patterns Characteristic of Cognitive Style. Exp Psychol 2016; 63:159-68. [PMID: 27404984 DOI: 10.1027/1618-3169/a000323] [Citation(s) in RCA: 5] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.6] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/23/2022]
Abstract
Various tools have been designed to classify the wholistic/analytic cognitive style, based mostly on behavioral data that reveals little about how these processes function. The main goal of this study is to characterize patterns of eye movements (EM) that are typical of learners with tendencies toward wholistic/analytic styles. Forty students completed the E-CSA-W/A test, while their EM were simultaneously monitored. The results revealed that the overall response time of the wholist group was lower in both tasks. The differences in response time between the groups are interpreted as being influenced by impulsive/reflective styles. While the behavioral data provide us with the end result and quantitative differences between the groups, EM provide us with the qualitative information about the process that led to the response. The study showed that the wholist group is characterized by less fixations and transitions than the analytic group, which is interpreted as reflecting use of whole/partial strategy.
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Affiliation(s)
| | | | - Eli Vakil
- 2 Department of Psychology and Leslie and Susan Gonda (Goldschmied) Multidisciplinary Brain Research Center, Bar-Ilan University, Ramat-Gan, Israel
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50
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Chaya K, Xue Y, Uto Y, Yao Q, Yamada Y. Fear of eyes: triadic relation among social anxiety, trypophobia, and discomfort for eye cluster. PeerJ 2016; 4:e1942. [PMID: 27168967 PMCID: PMC4860305 DOI: 10.7717/peerj.1942] [Citation(s) in RCA: 12] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/30/2015] [Accepted: 03/25/2016] [Indexed: 11/23/2022] Open
Abstract
Imagine you are being gazed at by multiple individuals simultaneously. Is the provoked anxiety a learned social-specific response or related to a pathological disorder known as trypophobia? A previous study revealed that spectral properties of images induced aversive reactions in observers with trypophobia. However, it is not clear whether individual differences such as social anxiety traits are related to the discomfort associated with trypophobic images. To investigate this issue, we conducted two experiments with social anxiety and trypophobia and images of eyes and faces. In Experiment 1, participants completed a social anxiety scale and trypophobia questionnaire before evaluation of the discomfort experienced upon exposure to pictures of eye. The results showed that social anxiety had a significant indirect effect on the discomfort associated with the eye clusters, and that the effect was mediated by trypophobia. Experiment 2 replicated Experiment 1 using images of human face. The results showed that, as in Experiment 1, a significant mediation effect of trypophobia was obtained, although the relationship between social anxiety and the discomfort rating was stronger than in Experiment 1. Our findings suggest that both social anxiety and trypophobia contribute to the induction of discomfort when one is gazed at by many people.
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Affiliation(s)
- Kengo Chaya
- Graduate School of Human-Environment Studies, Kyushu University , Fukuoka , Japan
| | - Yuting Xue
- Graduate School of Human-Environment Studies, Kyushu University , Fukuoka , Japan
| | - Yusuke Uto
- Graduate School of Human-Environment Studies, Kyushu University , Fukuoka , Japan
| | - Qirui Yao
- Graduate School of Human-Environment Studies, Kyushu University , Fukuoka , Japan
| | - Yuki Yamada
- Faculty of Arts and Science, Kyushu University , Fukuoka , Japan
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