2,010,438 research outputs found
The control of attention to faces
Full text linkHumans attend to faces. This study examines the extent to which attention biases to faces are under top-down control. In a visual cueing paradigm, observers responded faster to a target probe appearing in the location of a face cue than of a competing object cue (Experiments 1a and 2a). This effect could be reversed when faces were negatively predictive of the likely target location, making it beneficial to attend to the object cues (Experiments 1b and 2b). It was easier still to strategically shift attention to predictive face cues (Experiment 2c), indicating that the endogenous allocation of attention was augmented here by an additional effect. However, faces merely delayed the voluntary deployment of attention to object cues, but they could not prevent it, even at short cue–target intervals. This finding suggests that attention biases for faces can be rapidly countered by an observer’s endogenous control
Adolescents’ preferences for sexual dimorphism are influenced by relative exposure to male and female faces
Full text linkExposure to a particular population of faces can increase ratings of the normality and attractiveness of similar-looking faces. Such exposure can also refine the perceived boundaries of that face population, such that other faces are more readily perceived as dissimilar. We predicted that relatively less exposure to opposite-sex faces, as experienced by children at single-sex compared with mixed-sex schools, would decrease ratings of the attractiveness of sexual dimorphism in opposite-sex faces (that is, boys at single-sex schools would show a decreased preference for feminised faces, and girls at single-sex schools would show a decreased preference for masculinised faces). Consistent with this prediction, girls at single-sex compared with mixed-sex schools demonstrated significantly stronger preferences for facial femininity in both male and female faces. Boys at single-sex compared with mixed-sex schools demonstrated marginally stronger preferences for facial masculinity in male faces, but did not differ in their ratings of female faces. These effects were attenuated among some single-sex school pupils by the presence of adolescent opposite-sex siblings. These data add to the evidence that long-term exposure to a particular face population can influence judgements of other faces, and contribute to our understanding of the factors leading to individual differences in face preferences
Perceived ability and actual recognition accuracy for unfamiliar and famous faces
Full text linkIn forensic person recognition tasks, mistakes in the identification of unfamiliar faces occur frequently. This study explored whether these errors might arise because observers are poor at judging their ability to recognize unfamiliar faces, and also whether they might conflate the recognition of familiar and unfamiliar faces. Across two experiments, we found that observers could predict their ability to recognize famous but not unfamiliar faces. Moreover, observers seemed to partially conflate these abilities by adjusting ability judgements for famous faces after a test of unfamiliar face recognition (Experiment 1) and vice versa (Experiment 2). These findings suggest that observers have limited insight into their ability to identify unfamiliar faces. These experiments also show that judgements of recognition abilities are malleable and can generalize across different face categories
Discriminating grotesque from typical faces: evidence from the Thatcher illusion
Full text linkThe discrimination of thatcherized faces from typical faces was explored in two simultaneous alternative forced choice tasks. Reaction times (RTs) and errors were measured in a behavioural task. Brain activation was measured in an equivalent fMRI task. In both tasks, participants were tested with upright and inverted faces. Participants were also tested on churches in the behavioural task. The behavioural task confirmed the face specificity of the illusion (by comparing inversion effects for faces against churches) but also demonstrated that the discrimination was primarily, although not exclusively, driven by attending to eyes. The fMRI task showed that, relative to inverted faces, upright grotesque faces are discriminated via activation of a network of emotion/social evaluation processing areas. On the other hand, discrimination of inverted thatcherized faces was associated with increased activation of brain areas that are typically involved in perceptual processing of faces.<br/
Atypical disengagement from faces and its modulation by the control of eye fixation in children with Autism Spectrum Disorder
No full textBy using the gap overlap task, we investigated disengagement from faces and objects in children (9–17 years old) with and without autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and its neurophysiological correlates. In typically developing (TD) children, faces elicited larger gap effect, an index of attentional engagement, and larger saccade-related event-related potentials (ERPs), compared to objects. In children with ASD, by contrast, neither gap effect nor ERPs differ between faces and objects. Follow-up experiments demonstrated that instructed fixation on the eyes induces larger gap effect for faces in children with ASD, whereas instructed fixation on the mouth can disrupt larger gap effect in TD children. These results suggest a critical role of eye fixation on attentional engagement to faces in both groups
Unconscious processing of emotional faces
No full textDue to capacity limits, the brain must select important information for further processing. Evolutionary-based theories suggest that emotional (and specifically threat-relevant) information is prioritised in the competition for attention and awareness (e.g. Ohman & Mineka, 2001). A range of experimental paradigms have been used to investigate whether emotional visual stimuli (relative to neutral stimuli) are selectively processed without awareness, and attract visual attention (e.g. Yang et al., 2007). However, very few studies have used appropriate control conditions that help clarify the extent to which observed effects are driven by the extraction of emotional meaning from these stimuli, or their low-level visual characteristics (such as contrast, or luminance). The experiments in this thesis investigated whether emotional faces are granted preferential access to awareness and which properties of face stimuli drive these effects. A control stimulus was developed to help dissociate between the extraction of emotional information and low-level accounts of the data. It was shown that preferential processing of emotional information is better accounted for by low-level characteristics of the stimuli, rather than the extraction of emotional meaning per se. Additionally, a robust ‘face’ effect was found across several experiments. Investigation of this effect suggested that it may not be driven by the meaningfulness of the stimuli as it was also apparent in an individual that finds it difficult to extract information from faces. Together these findings suggest that high-level information can be extracted from visual stimuli outside of awareness, but the prioritisation afforded to emotional faces is driven by low-level characteristics. These results are particularly timely given continued high-profile debate surrounding the origins of emotion prioritisation (e.g. Tamettio & de Gelder, 2010; Pessoa & Adolphs, 2010)
Table 7: CAD description of Object 6: 32 vertices, 20 faces.
No full text>x y z faces 2.00000 0.00000 0.00000 6 5 4 3 2 1 -2.88072 55.78690 0.00000 7 8 9 10 11 12 13.61927 84.36574 0.00000 1 2 8 7 54.67112 95.36555 0.00000 2 3 9 8 94.88845 61.61920 0.00000 3 4 10 9 78.00000 0.00000 0.00000 4 5 11 10 2.00000 0.00000 64.00000 5 6 12 11 -2.88072 55.78690 64.00000 6 1 7 12 13.61927 84.36574 64.00000 54.67112 95.36555 64.00000 94.88845 61.61920 64.00000 78.00000 0.00000 64.00000 Table 4: CAD description of Object 3: 12 vertices, 8 faces. x y z faces -17.00000 0.00000 0.00000 6 5 4 3 2 1 73.00000 0.00000 0.00000 1 2 7 8 9 10 11 12 73.00000 59.50000 0.00000 5 6 13 14 15 16 20 17 37.00000 59.50000 0.00000 12 13 6 1 37.00000 29.75000 0.00000 19 18 17 20 8 7 -17.00000 29.75000 0.00000 2 3 19 7 73.00000 0.00000 36.00000 3 4 18 19 19.00000 0.00000 36.00000 4 5 17 18 37.00000 0.00000 72.00000 20 16 9 8 73.00000 0.00000 54.00000 16 15 10 9 73.00000 0.00000 90.00000 15 14 11 10 19.00000 0.00000 108.00000 14 13 12 11 19.00000 29.75000 108.00000 73.00000 29
Culture shapes how we look at faces
Full text linkBackground: Face processing, amongst many basic visual skills, is thought to be invariant across all humans. From as early as 1965, studies of eye movements have consistently revealed a systematic triangular sequence of fixations over the eyes and the mouth, suggesting that faces elicit a universal, biologically-determined information extraction pattern. Methodology/Principal Findings: Here we monitored the eye movements of Western Caucasian and East Asian observers while they learned, recognized, and categorized by race Western Caucasian and East Asian faces. Western Caucasian observers reproduced a scattered triangular pattern of fixations for faces of both races and across tasks. Contrary to intuition, East Asian observers focused more on the central region of the face. Conclusions/Significance: These results demonstrate that face processing can no longer be considered as arising from a universal series of perceptual events. The strategy employed to extract visual information from faces differs across cultures
Time-based visual selection with emotional faces
Full text linkThe biological and behavioural importance of the face has led to the proposition of
several mechanisms dedicated to highly efficient specialized processing (e.g., M.H.
Johnston, 2005). This is reflected in the attentional properties attributed to facial stimuli,
especially when they contain affective information (e.g., R. Palermo & G. Rhodes, 2007).
This thesis examines those attentional properties via a modified version of the visual search
paradigm (i.e. the preview search task; D.G. Watson & G.W. Humphreys, 1997), which
proposes that observers can intentionally suppress items seen prior to a full search array, for
effective search performance (i.e. the preview benefit; D.G.Watson & G.W. Humphreys,
1997, 1998).
The findings from this thesis show that it is possible to deprioritize previewed facial
stimuli from search, although only a partial preview benefit was shown. Emotional valence
of previewed faces had little impact on this effect, even when preview duration was
extended from 1000-3000ms. However, when duration was reduced to 250-750 ms,
negatively valenced faces were more difficult to suppress than positively valenced faces. In
addition, when previewed faces changed expression concurrently with the onset of the full
search array, the preview benefit was abolished, irrespective of the direction of the
expression change (i.e. neutral to positive, or neutral to negative). A search advantage for
negative face targets was demonstrated throughout all of the investigations in this thesis.
These findings are consistent with previous work establishing preferential detection of, and
selectively impaired disengagement from, negative faces (e.g., J.D. Eastwood, D. Smilek, &
P.M. Merikle, 2001; E.Fox, R. Russo, R.J.Bowles, & K. Dutton, 2001). However, they also
suggest the sensitivity of the visual marking mechanism to ecological considerations (such
as the nature of the stimulus), and the overall relevance of emotional face stimuli to the
visual system
You look familiar: how Malaysian Chinese recognize faces
No full textEast Asian and white Western observers employ different eye movement strategies for a variety of visual processing tasks, including face processing. Recent eye tracking studies on face recognition found that East Asians tend to integrate information holistically by focusing on the nose while white Westerners perceive faces featurally by moving between the eyes and mouth. The current study examines the eye movement strategy that Malaysian Chinese participants employ when recognizing East Asian, white Western, and African faces. Rather than adopting the Eastern or Western fixation pattern, Malaysian Chinese participants use a mixed strategy by focusing on the eyes and nose more than the mouth. The combination of Eastern and Western strategies proved advantageous in participants’ ability to recognize East Asian and white Western faces, suggesting that individuals learn to use fixation patterns that are optimized for recognizing the faces with which they are more familiar
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