Abstract
Research exploring the role of spatial frequencies in rapid stimulus detection and categorization report flexible reliance on specific spatial frequency (SF) bands. Here, through a set of behavioral and magnetoencephalography (MEG) experiments, we investigated the role of low spatial frequency (LSF) (<8 cycles/face) and high spatial frequency (HSF) (>25 cycles/face) information during the categorization of faces and places. Reaction time measures revealed significantly faster categorization of faces driven by LSF information, while rapid categorization of places was facilitated by HSF information. The MEG study showed significantly earlier latency of the M170 component for LSF faces compared to HSF faces. Moreover, the M170 amplitude was larger for LSF faces than for LSF places, whereas the reverse pattern was evident for HSF faces and places. These results suggest that SF modulates the processing of category specific information for faces and places.
Highlights
Perception of visual objects in our environment is carried out in several steps, in a hierarchical manner
Posthoc analysis confirmed that low spatial frequency (LSF) faces elicited significantly larger M170 than high spatial frequency (HSF) faces (p = 0.01)
Faces showed a significantly larger M170 when presented at fovea compared to periphery, while this was reversed for places, as shown by a significant interaction between stimulus type and location [F(1, 195) = 172.39, p = 0.001, family-wise error (FWE)-corr] (Figure 3D1)
Summary
Perception of visual objects in our environment is carried out in several steps, in a hierarchical manner. The specific mechanisms supporting configural and part-based information are investigated using behavioral and neuroimaging methods It remains to be determined how stimuli such as faces, places and objects are coded as distinct categories in the visual hierarchy for higher-level abstract processing. As an alternate to the fixed coarse-tofine approach, a diagnostic approach has been proposed that argues against the uni-directional inputs for categorization processes (Schyns and Oliva, 1994, 1999; Schyns, 1998; Morrison and Schyns, 2001) In this context, the flexible usage approach accords that different spatial scales should facilitate categorization of different visual stimuli, such as faces, places and objects in a differential manner
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