Abstract
We live in an age of ‘selfies.’ Yet, how we look at our own faces has seldom been systematically investigated. In this study we test if the visual processing of the highly familiar self-face is different from other faces, using psychophysics and eye-tracking. This paradigm also enabled us to test the association between the psychophysical properties of self-face representation and visual processing strategies involved in self-face recognition. Thirty-three adults performed a self-face recognition task from a series of self-other face morphs with simultaneous eye-tracking. Participants were found to look longer at the lower part of the face for self-face compared to other-face. Participants with a more distinct self-face representation, as indexed by a steeper slope of the psychometric response curve for self-face recognition, were found to look longer at upper part of the faces identified as ‘self’ vs. those identified as ‘other’. This result indicates that self-face representation can influence where we look when we process our own vs. others’ faces. We also investigated the association of autism-related traits with self-face processing metrics since autism has previously been associated with atypical self-processing. The study did not find any self-face specific association with autistic traits, suggesting that autism-related features may be related to self-processing in a domain specific manner.
Highlights
Self-awareness is one of the most complex manifestations of human cognition and argued to be a prerequisite for understanding mental states of ‘self ’ and ‘others’ (Gallup, 1970; Keenan et al, 1999)
Little is known (Kita et al, 2010; Hungr and Hunt, 2012) about gaze behavior during the recognition of a face as belonging to oneself, leading to the question of whether the gaze response pattern for a face recognized as ‘self ’ is different from one recognized as ‘other.’ This line of investigation has led to theoretical accounts that question whether self-faces are ‘special’ in any way (Gillihan and Farah, 2005)? The study of eye gaze behavior in self-face recognition allows for better understanding of visual strategies underpinning this fundamental aspect of physical self-awareness
In line with previous results (Chakraborty and Chakrabarti, 2015), no significant association was observed between the self-face recognition slope and autistic traits [Kendall’s tau = τ(33) = −0.120, p = 0.2]
Summary
Self-awareness is one of the most complex manifestations of human cognition and argued to be a prerequisite for understanding mental states of ‘self ’ and ‘others’ (Gallup, 1970; Keenan et al, 1999). Little is known (Kita et al, 2010; Hungr and Hunt, 2012) about gaze behavior during the recognition of a face as belonging to oneself, leading to the question of whether the gaze response pattern for a face recognized as ‘self ’ is different from one recognized as ‘other.’ This line of investigation has led to theoretical accounts that question whether self-faces are ‘special’ in any way (Gillihan and Farah, 2005)? The study of eye gaze behavior in self-face recognition allows for better understanding of visual strategies underpinning this fundamental aspect of physical self-awareness. In an age of ‘selfies,’ how we look at our own face assumes an importance beyond the academic domain
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