Search results for "face perception"

Anger superiority effect for change detection and change blindness

2013

Abstract In visual search, an angry face in a crowd “pops out” unlike a happy or a neutral face. This “anger superiority effect” conflicts with views of visual perception holding that complex stimulus contents cannot be detected without focused top-down attention. Implicit visual processing of threatening changes was studied by recording event-related potentials (ERPs) using facial stimuli using the change blindness paradigm, in which conscious change detection is eliminated by presenting a blank screen before the changes. Already before their conscious detection, angry faces modulated relatively early emotion sensitive ERPs when appearing among happy and neutral faces, but happy faces only…

The preview benefit for familiar and unfamiliar faces

2013

Abstract Previewing distracters improves visual search – the preview benefit ( Watson & Humphreys, 1997 ). Recent fMRI evidence suggests that the preview benefit rests on active inhibition in brain regions concerned with spatial memory, as well as in content selective areas ( Allen, Humphreys, & Matthews, 2008 ). Using familiar and unfamiliar faces in a preview search task we show that search performance is much better with familiar than with unfamiliar faces. With both types of stimuli we obtained preview benefits of at least 10%, measured in terms of the advantage in reaction time relative to the no preview condition. The preview benefit increased up to 30% when distracter faces and their…

2014

Evidence exists for age-related decline in face cognition ability. However, the extents to which attentional demand and flexibility to adapt viewing strategies contribute to age-related decline in face cognition tests is poorly understood. Here, we studied holistic face perception in older (age range 65-78 years, mean age 69.9) and young adults (age range 20-32 years, mean age 23.1) using the complete design for a sequential study-test composite face task (Richler et al., 2008). Attentional demand was varied using trials that required participants to attend to both face halves and to redirect attention to one face half during the test (high attentional demand), and trials that allowed parti…

The effect of texture on face identification and configural information processing

2014

Shape and texture are an integral part of face identity. In the present study, the importance of face texture for face identification and detection of configural manipulation (i.e., spatial relation among facial features) was examined by comparing grayscale face photographs (i.e., real faces) and line drawings of the same faces. Whereas real faces provide information about texture and shape of faces, line drawings are lacking texture cues. A change-detection task and a forced-choice identification task were used with both stimuli categories. Within the change detection task, participants had to decide whether the size of the eyes of two sequentially presented faces had changed or not. After…

2015

Recent evidence suggests a rather gradual developmental trajectory for processing vertical relational face information, lasting well into late adolescence (de Heering and Schlitz, 2012). Results from another recent study (Tanaka et al., 2014) indicate that children and young adolescents use a smaller spatial integration field for faces than do adults, which particularly affects assessment of long-range vertical relations. Here we studied sensitivity to replacement of eyes and eyebrows (F), variation of inter-eye distance (H) and eye height (V) in young adolescents (11-12 years), young (21-25 years) and middle-age adults (51-62 years). In order to provide a baseline for potential age effects…

The time course of face matching by internal and external features: Effects of context and inversion.

2010

AbstractEffects of context and inversion were studied in face matching tasks by measuring proportion correct as a function of exposure duration. Subjects were instructed to attend either internal features (task A) or external features (task B) and matched two consecutive face stimuli, which included either congruent, incongruent, or no facial context features. In congruent contexts matching performance rose fast and took very similar courses for both types of facial features. With no contexts internal and external features were found to be matched at an equal speed, while incongruent contexts seriously delayed matching performance for internal, but not for external features. Analysing the e…

Identity–expression interaction in face perception: Sex, visual field, and psychophysical factors

2012

International audience; We investigated the psychophysical factors underlying the identity-emotion interaction in face perception. Visual field and sex were also taken into account. Participants had to judge whether a probe face, presented in either the left or the right visual field, and a central target face belonging to same person while emotional expression varied (Experiment 1) or to judge whether probe and target faces expressed the same emotion while identity was manipulated (Experiment 2). For accuracy we replicated the mutual facilitation effect between identity and emotion; no sex or hemispheric differences were found. Processing speed measurements, however, showed a lesser degree…

The context effect in face matching: Effects of feedback.

2011

AbstractFaces are perceived holistically, even when they are presented briefly (Hole, 1994; Richler, Mack, et al., 2009). Results obtained with a context congruency paradigm support dominance of holistic processing for brief timings, but indicate that larger viewing times enable observers to regulate contextual influences, and to use a feature selective focus (Meinhardt-Injac, Persike, & Meinhardt, 2010). Here we provide further evidence for this claim, and illuminate the role of feedback. With trial by trial feedback observers show poor performance in incongruent facial contexts at brief timings, but become quite effective in suppressing information that interferes with the correct judgeme…

Developmental changes in the microgenesis of face perception revealed by effects of context and inversion

2011

AbstractPresent studies on the development of face perception mechanisms are ambiguous about the question of whether holistic face vision arises early, or in the second decade of life (Crookes & McKone, 2009). Measuring the time course of face matching we assess effects of context and inversion as correlates of holistic processing in the microgenesis of face perception within the first 650ms, and compare among 8- to 10-year-old children and adults. Results for adults indicate dominance of holistic viewing at brief timings, which is gradually replaced by feature selective strategies enabling them to selectively attend either internal or external features, as demanded by instruction. For chil…

Implicit binding of facial features during change blindness

2014

Change blindness refers to the inability to detect visual changes if introduced together with an eye-movement, blink, flash of light, or with distracting stimuli. Evidence of implicit detection of changed visual features during change blindness has been reported in a number of studies using both behavioral and neurophysiological measurements. However, it is not known whether implicit detection occurs only at the level of single features or whether complex organizations of features can be implicitly detected as well. We tested this in adult humans using intact and scrambled versions of schematic faces as stimuli in a change blindness paradigm while recording event-related potentials (ERPs). …