Abstract
Control stimuli are key for understanding the extent to which face processing relies on holistic processing, and affective evaluation versus the encoding of low-level image properties. Luminance polarity (LP) reversal combined with face inversion is a popular tool for severely disrupting the recognition of face controls. However, recent findings demonstrate visibility-recognition trade-offs for LP-reversed faces, where these face controls sometimes appear more salient despite being harder to recognize. The present report brings together findings from image analysis, simple stimuli, and behavioral data for facial recognition and visibility, in an attempt to disentangle instances where LP-reversed control faces are associated with a performance bias in terms of their perceived salience. These findings have important implications for studies of subjective face appearance, and highlight that future research must be aware of behavioral artifacts due to the possibility of trade-off effects.
Highlights
Using the Face Inversion Effect to Create Face ControlsThe human visual system is especially good at interpreting information from the faces of others (Farah et al, 1995; Yovel and Kanwisher, 2004; Eimer and Holmes, 2007)
The mixed effects of Luminance polarity (LP) reversal for different facial expressions do not appear to be attributable to the task alone. These findings show that LP reversal has the potential to increase the visibility and perceived salience of target faces, but importantly, they demonstrate the need for a better understanding of how such effects are influenced by the task at hand, the effect of facial expression, and the possibility of inadvertently introducing recognition-visibility trade-off effects in behavioral data
The finding that LP-reversed control faces appear more salient in terms of their apparent contrast compared to regular (LP-retained) faces is upheld by the notion that the visual system is more informed by local dark regions as opposed to “light” areas when determining brightness (Whittle, 1986, 1992; Haun and Peli, 2013; Webb et al, 2020)
Summary
Using the Face Inversion Effect to Create Face ControlsThe human visual system is especially good at interpreting information from the faces of others (Farah et al, 1995; Yovel and Kanwisher, 2004; Eimer and Holmes, 2007). LP reversal is a reliable and consistent tool for reducing facial recognition to a level similar to spatial inversion (Galper, 1970; Hole et al, 1999; Maurer et al, 2002; Prkachin, 2003; Itier and Taylor, 2004; Itier et al, 2006; Russell et al, 2006; Rossion et al, 2012; Gray et al, 2013), but a small body of findings showing a performance advantage for LPreversed faces reinforces the notion that LP reversal and inversion affect face processing in different ways.
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