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。

Cross-category Face Adaptation of Feature Association

Most previous studies only consider face adaptation when the adaptors are faces. No face adaptation effects are observed when the adaptors and test faces do not belong to the same category. This condition implies that face adaptation is category-selective, suggesting that the adaptation occurs at the sensory processing level. The present study attempts to verify the existence of cross-category face adaptation and examines the perceptual results, conditions, and the mechanism of cross-category face adaptation. A total of 43 college students participated in the study. Among the participants, 12 participated in Experiment 1, 12 in Experiment 2, and 19 in Experiment 3. Experiment 1 explored whether cross-category face adaptation and the effect of duration (50, 100, 200, 400, 800, 1600, and 3200 ms) of adaptors exist. Participants were presented with photographs of the objects with gender feature as adaptors, then they identified the gender of a series of faces that were chosen from a morphing spectrum between some male and female faces (the tasks in Experiments 2 and 3 are similar to Experiment 1), whereas behavioral and electrophysiological aftereffects were recorded as indicators of cross-category face adaptation. In Experiment 2, we explored whether the cross-category aftereffects in Experiment 1 were caused by adaption to the feature based on gender. Photographs with items associated with gender, the corresponding names of these items, and the words to describe gender (i.e., “male” and “female”) were used as adapters. In Experiment 3, we explored whether awareness of adaptors affects cross-category face adaptation by varying degrees of attention load on adaptors (high, low, or no loads). In Experiment 1, all conditions, except for 50 ms duration of adaptors demonstrated aftereffects, and the aftereffects were inverted U-shaped that reached their maximum when the duration of adaptors was 400 ms. Results of Experiment 2 showed that all three kinds of adapters produced cross-category face adaptation. Therefore, cross-category adaptation occurs when the adaptors and test faces share the same properties in terms of the nature of task. Results of Experiment 3 showed that the magnitude of adaptation effect was greater for the no attention than low attention load conditions, which consequently was greater than the high attention load condition. The adaptation effects between the baseline and high attention load conditions were not significant. Therefore, awareness of adaptors is necessary for cross-category adaptation. In summary, the current study proved that high-level cross-category face adaptation could occur when properties or features of adaptors can be automatically inferred from the adaptors, and the adaptors and test faces share the same properties (in this study, it was gender) in terms of the nature of task.