面孔知觉中的适应现象

人们在比较长时间地知觉加工面孔中的性别、表情、种族、年龄等信息时, 会产生适应现象, 即对这些信息的变化更加敏感, 甚至因过度敏感而产生面孔知觉错觉。研究者创设了适应范式(adaptation paradigm)用于面孔知觉研究, 大多集中于探讨面孔各个维度知觉上怎样出现适应效应, 发现面孔适应效应受制于多种因素, 最近几年研究焦点转向了对面孔属性间关系的探索。未来研究尚需要加强面孔知觉适应的过程研究以及提高面孔适应研究的生态效度等。     

人脸的类别与特定身份信息提取方式研究

人脸身份信息的提取方式一直是人脸研究中颇有争议的问题之一,以往的研究通过对名字和职业等语义信息的提取速度差异的比较,对此问题提出了两类观点,即人脸身份信息的加工是系列加工或平行加工.这两种观点一直争论不休,一些研究者提出了各种理论试图解释二者的争论.但是人脸身份信息中包括类别信息和特定信息,二者的加工可能是不同的路径,而以往的研究却混淆了这两种身份信息,使得系列还是平行的争议建立在不同的层面上.本研究通过操纵提取身份信息的不同任务以及线索类型.比较人脸和名字的作业差异,从而探讨两种类型身份信息的加工机制.本研究有助于进一步了解人脸身份信息提取的机制,丰富人脸身份信息提取的理论研究,同时对模式识别也具有重要的实践意义.     

多目标视觉追踪的现象、规律和认知加工机制

传统注意研究多基于单个注意焦点和采用静态视觉信息。由Pylyshyn(1988)提出的多目标追踪范式则基于动态场景,是研究同时追踪多个目标的容量有限的注意机制比较常用的范式。在多目标追踪基础上发展起来的多身份追踪范式中的对象带有身份信息,涉及到较复杂的认知机制,如注意、视觉工作记忆等。探讨以上两种视觉追踪的认知加工机制对真实或模拟情境中动态信息的认知加工活动有重要的理论价值和实践指导意义。     

加工深度范式和随意编码范式下的网络虚拟自我参照效应研究

分别采用加工深度研究范式和随意编码研究范式,对不同网络卷入水平个体的网络虚拟自我参照效应进行分析,结果发现在加工深度研究范式和随意编码研究范式下,被试都存在网络虚拟自我参照效应;在加工深度研究范式下,网络卷入的程度会影响网络虚拟自我参照效应。而在随意编码研究范式下,网络卷入的程度对网络虚拟自我参照效应无影响。因此网络虚拟自我在认知加工上具有和现实自我信息类似的优先性,进而证实网络虚拟自我的独特性。     

儿童情景记忆绑定加工:研究范式、发展特点及影响因素

个体需要将亲身经历的核心事实信息及其发生的时间、空间等背景信息绑定起来形成情景记忆，绑定加工能力的发展是儿童情景记忆发展的基础。目前，儿童情景记忆绑定加工研究的主要范式有要素绑定范式和配对关联学习范式。绑定加工在儿童期的发展表现出项目-空间绑定记忆优于项目-时间绑定记忆，复杂任务的绑定加工水平较低的特点。儿童情景记忆绑定加工的发展依赖于编码和提取能力的发展、执行功能认知灵活性的提高以及内侧颞叶和前额叶皮层的发育。未来可以对情景记忆绑定加工的发展开展纵向研究、采用VR技术提高绑定加工研究的生态效度、加强对情景记忆绑定加工神经机制的探讨等。     

启动合成人脸的整体与局部加工:一项EEG研究

合成-人脸错觉指当加工合成人脸的上半部分时,下部分人脸由于人脸的整体加工优势而难以被忽略的现象。研究者采用合成-人脸错觉与Navon刺激发现,启动Navon刺激的整体或局部加工会影响人脸的整体加工,对理解人脸的加工机制起了重要作用。然而,该种影响的神经机制尚不明确。考虑到大脑左、右半球分别在加工局部与整体信息上存有优势,笔者预测Navon刺激启动是通过调节左、右半球的参与程度来影响对人脸的加工。本研究首次采用EEG技术,以枕区α节律为指标对该假设进行了检验。笔者重复以往行为研究结果,然而,无论对Navon刺激进行整体还是局部加工,α节律的能量总是右侧比左侧高,提示Navon刺激对人脸加工的影响并非通过改变大脑两半球的参与程度实现。     

大学生偶发和外显编码中的自我参照效应

在自我参照范式中加入偶发编码加工方式,并采用R/K判断范式考察中国大学生在偶发编码和外显编码方式中的记忆成绩.结果发现:在R指标上,偶发编码方式和外显编码方式中均出现了自我参照效应和母亲参照效应;参照自我加工的记忆成绩显著高于参照母亲加工的记忆成绩;外显编码方式中的记忆成绩显著高于偶发编码方式的记忆成绩.结果提示,当需提高对信息的记忆成绩时,只要呈现自我线索就足够了,并不需要对其进行外显编码加工.     

大学生负面身体自我认知加工偏好

基于负面身体自我图式理论,采用词汇判断任务的实验范式,探讨负面身体自我者的认知加工偏好。研究1考察胖负面身体自我大学生对胖相关的身体信息词加工偏好,结果表明,加工胖身体相关词的编码速度比对照组显著更快,对胖消极和隐喻词偏好量大于积极词。研究2考察瘦负面身体自我大学生对瘦相关的身体信息词的加工偏好,发现对瘦相关词的编码速度显著比对照组更快,但对瘦积极词、消极词、隐喻词、形似词编码的偏好量不存在差异。结果支持负面身体自我图式指导认知加工     

情绪影响冲突加工的认知神经机制

情绪影响冲突加工是情绪和认知交互作用的一个重要表现。近期研究发现,与中性情绪刺激相比,正性和负性情绪刺激能显著促进或干扰冲突加工,情绪信息在一定程度上还能影响冲突适应过程。情绪信息促进还是干扰冲突加工,受到研究范式、情绪刺激的任务相关性、个体差异和任务难度等因素的影响。未来应从情绪趋避动机的角度探索情绪影响冲突加工及其特征、关注不同情绪影响冲突加工的机制。此外,研究冲突经历对情绪加工的影响及其机制也是值得探讨的方向。     

冲突观察范式下冲突适应的机制

冲突观察诱发的冲突适应不受反应执行的影响,因此更纯净。该研究分别采用Stroop任务、单词Flanker任务和字母Flanker任务的冲突观察范式,在三个实验中考察了冲突适应的机制。在三个实验中,冲突适应都表现在反应任务中的一致试次和不一致试次上;不一致试次之后的干扰效应显著小于一致试次之后的干扰效应;冲突适应量服从正态分布。因此,该研究首次在冲突观察范式下揭示了冲突适应的分布特征,为认知控制研究提供了新思路。     

特征关联的类别间面孔适应

研究通过系列实验探讨了面孔适应不仅仅发生在形状选择性上, 也能发生在任务相关的特征上有内在关联的两个不同类别的物体间。实验1以带有明显性别倾向的物品图片作为适应刺激, 让被试对男女之间morphing程度不同的图片面孔进行性别辨别, 考察了不同适应刺激呈现时间的类别间面孔适应。结果表明适应刺激呈现时间大于50 ms时均存在类别间面孔适应效应。实验2评估了“性别”这一特征以及适应刺激形式在类别间面孔适应中所起的作用, 结果发现带有性别倾向的物品图片、相应的物品名称和性别文字(“男性”、“女性”) 3种适应刺激类型均能产生类别间适应。实验3通过操纵适应刺激上的注意负荷(高负荷、低负荷和无负荷), 探究了注意对类别间面孔适应的影响。结果表明随着注意负荷的增加, 类别间面孔适应效应减小。3个实验报告了一个新异的类别间适应后效, 证明了适应也能发生于在任务相关特征上有内在关联的两个不同类别的物体间。     

Identity specific adaptation with composite faces

A composite face, made from the top half of a celebrity face and the bottom half of an unfamiliar face, appears to be a single, “new” face (e.g., Young, Hellawell, & Hay, 1987). Composite faces were used within the face identity aftereffect (FIAE) paradigm, in which prolonged exposure to a face reduces sensitivity to it (adaptation). Adaptation occurred both with an intact face and with composites containing its upper half, but only when composites were explicitly recognized during the adaptation phase. Unrecognized composites produced no adaptation. These findings imply that the FIAE is a relatively high-level perceptual effect, given that identical stimuli either did or did not produce adaptation depending on whether or not they were recognized. They also suggest a perceptual locus for the “composite face effect”.     

Identity-specific face adaptation effects: evidence for abstractive face representations

The effects of selective adaptation on familiar face perception were examined. After prolonged exposure to photographs of a celebrity, participants saw a series of ambiguous morphs that were varying mixtures between the face of that person and a different celebrity. Participants judged fewer of the morphs to resemble the celebrity to which they had been adapted, implying that they were now less sensitive to that particular face. Similar results were obtained when the adapting faces were highly dissimilar in viewpoint to the test morphs; when they were presented upside-down; or when they were vertically stretched to three times their normal height. These effects rule out explanations of adaptation effects solely in terms of low-level image-based adaptation. Instead they are consistent with the idea that relatively viewpoint-independent, person-specific adaptation occurred, at the level of either the “Face Recognition Units” or “Person Identity Nodes” in Burton, Bruce and Johnston’s (1990) model of face recognition.     

视觉适应及其神经机制

视适应使得视觉系统可以连续地根据外界环境的变化做出调整, 改善了对世界的感知。研究提示, 适应影响了对许多基本的视觉属性的加工, 诸如亮度、对比度、运动、颜色等, 也包括对复杂的刺激如面孔等。视适应发生于视觉加工流的多个阶段, 从视网膜到初级视觉皮层以及之后的脑区(例如纹外皮层, 梭状回面孔区)。关于视适应的机制解释, 已从早期的神经元反应疲劳解释发展成当今更流行的标准化模型理论等。最近的适应研究证明, 视觉适应由时间尺度上快慢不同的多重机制控制, 这被认为赋予了视觉系统有效应对环境中不同时间尺度的变化的能力。     

Lecturers' faces fatigue their students: Face identity aftereffects for dynamic and static faces

Face adaptation has been used as a tool to probe our representations for facial identity. It has also been claimed to play a functional role in face processing, perhaps calibrating the visual system towards encountered faces. However, for this to be so, face aftereffects must be observable following adaptation to ecologically valid moving stimuli, not just after prolonged viewing of static images. We adapted our participants to videos, static image sequences or single images of the faces of lecturers who were personally familiar to them. All three stimulus types produced significant, and equivalent, face identity aftereffects, demonstrating that aftereffects are not confined to static images but can occur after exposure to more naturalistic stimuli. It is also further evidence against explanations of face adaptation effects solely in terms of low-level visual processing.     

Dissociating averageness and attractiveness: attractive faces are not always average

Although the averageness hypothesis of facial attractiveness proposes that the attractiveness of faces is mostly a consequence of their averageness, 1 study has shown that caricaturing highly attractive faces makes them mathematically less average but more attractive. Here the authors systematically test the averageness hypothesis in 5 experiments using both rating and visual adaptation paradigms. Visual adaptation has previously been shown to increase both preferences for previously viewed face types (i.e., attractiveness) and their perceived normality (i.e., averageness). The authors used a visual adaptation procedure to test whether facial attractiveness is dependent upon faces' proximity to average (averageness hypothesis) or their location relative to average along an attractiveness dimension in face space (contrast hypothesis). While the typical pattern of change due to visual adaptation was found for judgments of normality, judgments of attractiveness resulted in a very different pattern. The results of these 5 experiments conclusively support the proposal that there are specific nonaverage characteristics that are particularly attractive. The authors discuss important implications for the interpretation of studies using a visual adaptation paradigm to investigate attractiveness.     

Normal perception of Mooney faces in developmental prosopagnosia: Evidence from the N170 component and rapid neural adaptation

Individuals with developmental prosopagnosia (DP) have a severe difficulty recognizing the faces of known individuals in the absence of any history of neurological damage. These recognition problems may be linked to selective deficits in the holistic/configural processing of faces. We used two‐tone Mooney images to study the processing of faces versus non‐face objects in DP when it is based on holistic information (or the facial gestalt) in the absence of obvious local cues about facial features. A rapid adaptation procedure was employed for a group of 16 DPs. Naturalistic photographs of upright faces were preceded by upright or inverted Mooney faces or by Mooney houses. DPs showed face‐sensitive N170 components in response to Mooney faces versus houses, and N170 amplitude reductions for inverted as compared to upright Mooney faces. They also showed the typical pattern of N170 adaptation effects, with reduced N170 components when upright naturalistic test faces were preceded by upright Mooney faces, demonstrating that the perception of Mooney and naturalistic faces recruits shared neural populations. Our findings demonstrate that individuals with DP can utilize global information about face configurations for categorical discriminations between faces and non‐face objects, and suggest that face processing deficits emerge primarily at more fine‐grained higher level stages of face perception.     

Holistic face encoding is modulated by perceived face race: Evidence from perceptual adaptation

Human expertise at processing faces relies on how facial features are encoded: as a whole template rather than as a sum of independent features. This holistic encoding is less prominent for other-race faces, possibly accounting for the difficulty one encounters in recognizing these faces (the ‘other-race effect’). Here, we tested the hypothesis that the magnitude of holistic face encoding can be modulated by racial categorization of the face. Caucasian participants performed a face-composite task with ‘racially-ambiguous’ face-stimuli (cross-race morphed faces, equally categorized as Asian or Caucasian faces in an independent task). The perceived race of the ambiguous faces was manipulated using adaptation. Experiment 1 showed that identical morphed face-stimuli were processed more holistically when perceived as ‘same-race’ than as ‘other-race’, i.e., following adaptation to ‘other-race’ versus ‘same-race’, respectively. Experiment 2 ascertained that the determining factor in the observed holistic processing modulation was the race of the racially-ambiguous face as perceived, rather than expected, by the participants, which supports the idea that the holistic processing of the face-stimuli was modulated by their race-categorization at the perceptual level.     

Adaptation and the Set-Point Model of Subjective Well-Being: Does Happiness Change After Major Life Events?

ABSTRACT— Hedonic adaptation refers to the process by which individuals return to baseline levels of happiness following a change in life circumstances. Dominant models of subjective well-being (SWB) suggest that people can adapt to almost any life event and that happiness levels fluctuate around a biologically determined set point that rarely changes. Recent evidence from large-scale panel studies challenges aspects of this conclusion. Although inborn factors certainly matter and some adaptation does occur, events such as divorce, death of a spouse, unemployment, and disability are associated with lasting changes in SWB. These recent studies also show that there are considerable individual differences in the extent to which people adapt. Thus, happiness levels do change, and adaptation is not inevitable.     

Sex-contingent face aftereffects depend on perceptual category rather than structural encoding

Many studies have used visual adaptation to investigate how recent experience with faces influences perception. While faces similar to those seen during adaptation phases are typically perceived as more 'normal' after adaptation, it is possible to induce aftereffects in one direction for one category (e.g. female) and simultaneously induce aftereffects in the opposite direction for another category (e.g. male). Such aftereffects could reflect 'category-contingent' adaptation of neurons selective for perceptual category (e.g. male or female) or 'structure-contingent' adaptation of lower-level neurons coding the physical characteristics of different face patterns. We compared these explanations by testing for simultaneous opposite after effects following adaptation to (a) two groups of faces from distinct sex categories (male and female) or (b) two groups of faces from the same sex category (female and hyper-female) where the structural differences between the female and hyper-female groups were mathematically identical to those between male and female groups. We were able to induce opposite aftereffects following adaptation between sex categories but not after adaptation within a sex category. These findings indicate the involvement of neurons coding perceptual category in sex-contingent face aftereffects and cannot be explained by neurons coding only the physical aspects of face patterns.