The first 100 milliseconds of a face: on the microgenesis of early face processing

Face recognition involves both processing of information relating to features (e.g., eyes, nose, mouth, hair, i.e., featural processing), as well as the spatial relation between these features (configural processing). In a sequential matching task, participants had to decide whether two faces that differed in either featural or relational aspects were identical or different. In order to test for the microgenesis of face recognition (the development of processing onsets), presentation times of the backward-masked target face were varied (32, 42, 53, 63, 74, 84, or 94 msec.). To test for specific processing onsets and the processing of different facial areas, both featurally and relationally modified faces were manipulated in terms of changes to one facial area (eyes or nose or mouth), two, or three facial areas. For featural processing, an early onset for the eyes and mouth was at 32 msec. of presentation time, but a late onset for the nose was detected. For relationally differing faces, all onsets were delayed.     

Face recognition memory: The effects of exposure duration and encoding instruction

Two experiments test the effects of exposure duration and encoding instruction on the relative memory for five facial features. Participants viewed slides of Identi-kit faces and were later given a recognition test with same or changed versions of each face. Each changed test face involved a change in one facial feature: hair, eyes, chin, nose or mouth. In both experiments the upper-face features of hair and eyes were better recognized than the lower-face features of nose, mouth, and chin, as measured by false alarm rates. In Experiment 1, participants in the 20-second exposure duration condition remembered faces significantly better than participants in the 3-second exposure duration condition; however, memory for all five facial features improved at a similar rate with the increased duration. In Experiment 2, participants directed to use feature scanning encoding instructions remembered faces significantly better than participants following age judgement instructions; however, the size of the memory advantage for upper facial features was less with feature scanning instructions than with age judgement instructions. The results are discussed in terms of a quantitative difference in processing faces with longer exposure duration, versus a qualitative difference in processing faces with various encoding instructions. These results are related to conditions that affect the accuracy of eyewitness identification.     

Sensitivity to the displacement of facial features in negative and inverted images

Subjects have previously been reported to show difficulties in recognising faces which are either inverted or in photographic negative. Experiments are reported in which a two-alternative forced-choice technique was used to measure sensitivity for distinguishing faces which have been modified by having the eyes moved vertically or horizontally. Subjects were less sensitive to such changes for inverted faces or negative faces, and were even less sensitive for faces that were both inverted and negative. No such effects were found for a control stimulus consisting simply of three solid circles in the same positions as the eyes and mouth of a face. When the stimuli consisted of eyes, nose, and mouth, but without a surround, no evidence of inversion or negation effects was found, which suggests that a facial surround is necessary. When the stimulus consisted of a facial surround with the eyes, nose, and mouth replaced by solid circles, effects of negation were found, but no effects of inversion. This dissociation of the effects of negation and inversion may suggest that they are the result of different underlying mechanisms.     

面孔部件在群体注意方向判断中的作用

探讨面孔部件(眼睛和鼻子)在个体和群体注意方向判断中的作用。实验1使用不同数量面孔的图片,要求报告群体或个体的注意方向。结果发现,多面孔条件下对群体注意方向估计的准确性高于单面孔条件。实验2采用眼动技术,探讨眼睛和鼻子在判断其注意方向时注视的空间与时间分布特征。结果发现,基于单张面孔判断时,对鼻子的总注视时间长于眼睛;基于多张面孔判断时,对眼睛和鼻子的总注视时间没有差异。整个研究表明,知觉个体注意主要依赖鼻子,知觉群体注意依赖眼睛和鼻子。     

Facial perception of conspecifics: chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) preferentially attend to proper orientation and open eyes

This paper reports on the use of an eye-tracking technique to examine how chimpanzees look at facial photographs of conspecifics. Six chimpanzees viewed a sequence of pictures presented on a monitor while their eye movements were measured by an eye tracker. The pictures presented conspecific faces with open or closed eyes in an upright or inverted orientation in a frame. The results demonstrated that chimpanzees looked at the eyes, nose, and mouth more frequently than would be expected on the basis of random scanning of faces. More specifically, they looked at the eyes longer than they looked at the nose and mouth when photographs of upright faces with open eyes were presented, suggesting that particular attention to the eyes represents a spontaneous face-scanning strategy shared among monkeys, apes, and humans. In contrast to the results obtained for upright faces with open eyes, the viewing times for the eyes, nose, and mouth of inverted faces with open eyes did not differ from one another. The viewing times for the eyes, nose, and mouth of faces with closed eyes did not differ when faces with closed eyes were presented in either an upright or inverted orientation. These results suggest the possibility that open eyes play an important role in the configural processing of faces and that chimpanzees perceive and process open and closed eyes differently.     

Developmental changes in the perception of adult facial age

The author studied children's (aged 5-16 years) and young adults' (aged 18-22 years) perception and use of facial features to discriminate the age of mature adult faces. In Experiment 1, participants rated the age of unaltered and transformed (eyes, nose, eyes and nose, and whole face blurred) adult faces (aged 20-80 years). In Experiment 2, participants ranked facial age sets (aged 20-50, 20-80, and 50-80 years) that had varying combinations of older and younger facial features: eyes, noses, mouths, and base faces. Participants of all ages attended to similar facial features when making judgments about adult facial age, although young children (aged 5-7 years) were less accurate than were older children (aged 9-11 years), adolescents (aged 13-16 years), and young adults when making facial age judgments. Young children were less sensitive to some facial features when making facial age judgments.     

The recognition of mental states from dynamic and static facial expressions

The ability to recognize mental states from facial expressions is essential for effective social interaction. However, previous investigations of mental state recognition have used only static faces so the benefit of dynamic information for recognizing mental states remains to be determined. Experiment 1 found that dynamic faces produced higher levels of recognition accuracy than static faces, suggesting that the additional information contained within dynamic faces can facilitate mental state recognition. Experiment 2 explored the facial regions that are important for providing dynamic information in mental state displays. This involved using a new technique to freeze motion in a particular facial region (eyes, nose, mouth) so that this region was static while the remainder of the face was naturally moving. Findings showed that dynamic information in the eyes and the mouth was important and the region of influence depended on the mental state. Processes involved in mental state recognition are discussed.     

The eyebrow frown: a salient social signal

Seven experiments investigated the finding that threatening schematic faces are detected more quickly than nonthreatening faces. Threatening faces with v-shaped eyebrows (angry and scheming expressions) were detected more quickly than nonthreatening faces with inverted v-shaped eyebrows (happy and sad expressions). In contrast to the hypothesis that these effects were due to perceptual features unrelated to the face, no advantage was found for v-shaped eyebrows presented in a nonfacelike object. Furthermore, the addition of internal facial features (the eyes, or the nose and mouth) was necessary to produce the detection advantage for faces with v-shaped eyebrows. Overall, the results are interpreted as showing that the v-shaped eyebrow configuration affords easy detection, but only when other internal facial features are present.     

Reaction time measures of feature saliency in schematic faces

Two separate paradigms utilizing measurements of reaction time were employed to study facial feature saliency in schematic line drawn faces. In the first paradigm the speed of response to the omission of different facial components was measured, and in the second, the speed of response to feature substitution was measured. In both paradigms the facial features were presented in a random temporal sequence in order to minimise preferential scanning strategies. The two separate paradigms reflected the feature hierarchy most commonly found in the literature, ie the outline and eyes are more salient than the nose and mouth in terms of both speed of processing and error rate. In a third study the feature substitution paradigm was used to investigate the effects of feature saliency on the perception of emotional faces. The results suggest a change in the eyes/mouth hierarchy so that the mouth becomes the most salient feature in the surprised, happy, and sad target faces. This reverse in hierarchy, however, was not evident with the angry target face. These results are discussed in terms of changes in the focus of 'attention' and/or changes in 'processing efficiency'.     

Configural features in the context of upright and inverted faces

When faces are turned upside down, recognition is known to be severely disrupted. This effect is thought to be due to disruption of configural processing. Recently, Leder and Bruce (2000, Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology A 53 513-536) argued that configural information in face processing consists at least partly of locally processed relations between facial elements. In three experiments we investigated whether a local relational feature (the interocular distance) is processed differently in upside-down versus upright faces. In experiment 1 participants decided in which of two sequentially presented photographic faces the interocular distance was larger. The decision was more difficult in upside-down presentation. Three different conditions were used in experiment 2 to investigate whether this deficit depends upon parts of the face beyond the eyes themselves; displays showed the eye region alone, the eyes and nose, or the eyes and nose and mouth. The availability of additional features did not interact with the inversion effect which was observed strongly even when the eyes were shown in isolation. In experiment 3 all eyes were turned upside down in the inverted face condition as in the Thatcher illusion (Thompson, 1980 Perception 9 483-484). In this case no inversion effect was found. These results are in accordance with an explanation of the face-inversion effect in which the disruption of configural facial information plays the critical role in memory for faces, and in which configural information corresponds to spatial information that is processed in a way which is sensitive to local properties of the facial features involved.     

哭泣表情面孔的注意偏向:眼动的证据

研究采用双选择Oddball范式和线索-靶子范式,并结合眼动技术,以微笑、哭泣和中性表情面孔为刺激材料,综合考察哭泣表情面孔在识别和解离过程中的注意偏向。研究发现:在识别阶段,哭泣表情面孔的识别正确率和反应速度都显著优于微笑表情面孔,进一步的兴趣区注视偏向分析发现,哭泣和微笑表情面孔的注视模式既具有一致的规律,又存在细微的差异;在解离阶段,返回抑制受线索表情类型的影响,在有效线索条件下,哭泣表情线索呈现后个体对目标刺激的平均注视时间和眼跳潜伏期都显著短于其它表情线索。表明哭泣表情面孔在识别和解离过程中具有不同的注意偏向表现,在识别阶段表现为反应输出优势和注视模式上的一致性与差异性;在解离阶段表现为有效线索条件下,对目标刺激定位和视觉加工的促进作用。     

5~6岁幼儿对不同文化背景卡通面孔再认的眼动研究

采用不同文化背景卡通面孔为刺激材料,探究中国幼儿对中国风、日本风与欧美风女性卡通面孔再认的差异及其眼动机制。结果显示：（1）卡通面孔再认正确率差异显著,日本风面孔具有记忆优势;女童对三种面孔再认正确率均显著高于男童;（2）卡通面孔特质中的夸张性对卡通面孔再认正确率的预测显著;（3）文化背景与性别因素显著影响平均注视时间、注视点个数、眼跳次数和幅度及瞳孔大小等总体眼动指标;（4）兴趣区数据显示：对日本风面孔的总注视时间和注视点个数最高;卡通面孔再认主要依赖于眼部、其次为鼻子;文化背景与兴趣区存在交互作用,在注视时间、注视点个数与首注视点指标上,提示幼儿更关注日本风的眼睛区域与欧美风的鼻子区域。综上,幼儿对不同文化背景卡通面孔的记忆和眼动加工存在差异,日本风卡通面孔的记忆优势可能基于其夸张性高的面孔特质,尤其在眼睛部位;行为学与眼动指标均提示女童对卡通面孔的再认具有优势。     

Features and their configuration in face recognition

Tanaka and Farah (1993) have proposed a holistic approach to face recognition in which information about the features of a face and their configuration are combined together in the face representation. An implication of the holistic hypothesis is that alterations in facial configuration should interfere with retrieval of features. In four experiments, the effect of configuration on feature recognition was investigated by creating two configurations of a face, one with eyes close together and one with eyes far apart. After subjects studied faces presented in one of the two configurations (eyes-close or eyes-far), they were tested for their recognition of features shown in isolation, in a new face configuration, and in the old face configuration. It was found that subjects recognized features best when presented in the old configuration, next best in the new configuration, and poorest in isolation. Moreover, subjects were not sensitive to configural information in inverted faces (Experiment 2) or nonface stimuli (i.e., houses; Experiments 3 and 4). Importantly, for normal faces, altering the spatial location of the eyes not only impaired subjects’ recognition of the eye features but also impaired their recognition of the nose and mouth features—features whose spatial locations were not directly altered. These findings emphasize the interdependency of featural and configural information in a holistic face representation.     

An inner face advantage in children's recognition of familiar peers

Children’s recognition of familiar own-age peers was investigated. Chinese children (4-, 8-, and 14-year-olds) were asked to identify their classmates from photographs showing the entire face, the internal facial features only, the external facial features only, or the eyes, nose, or mouth only. Participants from all age groups were familiar with the faces used as stimuli for 1 academic year. The results showed that children from all age groups demonstrated an advantage for recognition of the internal facial features relative to their recognition of the external facial features. Thus, previous observations of a shift in reliance from external to internal facial features can be attributed to experience with faces rather than to age-related changes in face processing.     

本族和异族面孔表情注视的差异性：来自眼动的证据

采用无任务浏览范式,选取积极、中性和消极的情绪面孔作为材料,将面孔划分为3个兴趣区（眼睛、鼻子和嘴）,考察中国个体在加工本族与高加索情绪面孔的眼动注视特点。研究结果显示,在浏览本族的（积极、中性和消极）情绪面孔时,中国被试对眼睛和鼻子的注视次数和时长显著多于对嘴部的注视次数和时长。在浏览高加索的（积极、中性和消极）情绪面孔时,中国被试对眼睛和鼻子的注视次数和时长显著多于其对嘴部的注视次数和时长,并且对鼻子的注视次数和时长也显著多于眼睛的注视次数和时长。结果表明,在加工本族面孔表情,中国被试将鼻子和眼睛作为主要注视区域,而加工高加索面孔表情时则是将鼻子作为最主要注视区域,即中国被试加工本族和异族面孔表情的注视特点存在差异。     

The Thatcher illusion in squirrel monkeys (Saimiri sciureus)

Like humans, Old World monkeys are known to use configural face processing to distinguish among individuals. The ability to recognize an individual through the perception of subtle differences in the configuration of facial features plays an important role in social cognition. To test this ability in New World monkeys, this study examined whether squirrel monkeys experience the Thatcher illusion, a measure of face processing ability in which changes in facial features are difficult to detect in an inverted face. In the experiment, the monkeys were required to distinguish between a target face and each of the three kinds of distracter faces whose features were altered to be different from those of the target. For each of the pairs of target and distracter faces, four rotation-based combinations of upright and inverted face presentations were used. The results revealed that when both faces were inverted and the eyes of the distracter face were altered by rotating them at an angle of 180° from those of the target face, the monkeys' discrimination learning was obstructed to a greater extent than it was under the other conditions. Thus, these results suggest that the squirrel monkey does experience the Thatcher illusion. Furthermore, it seems reasonable to assume that squirrel monkeys can utilize information about facial configurations in individual recognition and that this facial configuration information could be useful in their social communications.     

The Face of Wrath: Critical Features for Conveying Facial Threat

We examined the role of different facial features (shape of eyebrows, eyes, mouth, nose, and the direction of gaze) in conveying the emotional impact of a threatening face. In two experiments, a total of 100 high school students rated their impression of two sets of schematic faces in terms of semantic differential scales (Activity, Negative Evaluation, and Potency). It was found that the different facial features could be ordered hierarchically, with eyebrows as the most important feature, followed by mouth and eyes. Eyebrows thus fundamentally categorised faces as threatening or nonthreatening. The different shapes of mouth and eyes provided subsequent categorisations of faces within these primary categories.     

When context hinders! Learn-test compatibility in face recognition

Some theories of holistic face processing propose that parts in faces (eyes, nose, mouth, etc.) are not explicitly represented. So far, the empirical evidence has shown that whole-to-part superiority is found when wholes are learned. We substantiated this using photographic faces. More importantly, we investigated whether learning parts also reveals holistic effects. This has not been attempted before. Four experiments showed that after learning facial parts, recognition of these parts was disrupted when the part was shown in the full face. This distraction effect was strongest when perceivers were not directed to focus on a particular facial feature. Thus, it is very difficult to ignore irrelevant parts in faces. In fact, this might be the essence of holistic face processing.     

Automatic gaze to the nose region cannot be inhibited during observation of facial expression in Eastern observers

Humans can extract a great deal of information about others very quickly. This is partly because the face automatically captures observers’ attention. Specifically, the eyes can attract overt attention. Although it has been reported that not only the eyes but also the nose can capture initial oculomotor movement in Eastern observers, its generalizability remains unknown. In this study, we applied the “don’t look” paradigm wherein participants are asked not to fixate on a specific facial region (i.e., eyes, nose, and mouth) during an emotion recognition task with upright (Experiment 1) and inverted (Experiment 2) faces. In both experiments, we found that participants were less able to inhibit the initial part of their fixations to the nose, which can be interpreted as the nose automatically capturing attention. Along with previous studies, our overt attention tends to be attracted by a part of the face, which is the nose region in Easterner observers.