Abstract
A presently unresolved question within the face perception literature is whether attending to the location of a face modulates face processing (i.e. spatial attention). Opinions on this matter diverge along methodological lines – where neuroimaging studies have observed that the allocation of spatial attention serves to enhance the neural response to a face, findings from behavioural paradigms suggest face processing is carried out independently of spatial attention. In the present study, we reconcile this divide by using a continuous behavioural response measure that indexes face processing at a temporal resolution not available in discrete behavioural measures (e.g. button press). Using reaching trajectories as our response measure, we observed that although participants were able to process faces both when attended and unattended (as others have found), face processing was not impervious to attentional modulation. Attending to the face conferred clear benefits on sex-classification processes at less than 350ms of stimulus processing time. These findings constitute the first reliable demonstration of the modulatory effects of both spatial and temporal attention on face processing within a behavioural paradigm.
Highlights
Of the many objects we encounter in the visual world, faces are perhaps the most biologically and socially significant
We have extended this finding by showing that the same positive effect of priming can be obtained when manipulating temporal attention
We have shown for the first time that the masked congruence priming effect obtained with faces is sensitive to manipulations of both spatial and temporal attention
Summary
Of the many objects we encounter in the visual world, faces are perhaps the most biologically and socially significant. Reddy and colleagues have shown that subjects’ ability to classify the sex or identity of peripheral faces does not suffer significantly when spatial attention is held centrally by a demanding discrimination task. Comparative effects have been observed for facefame judgement tasks [17] Where these behavioural studies might suggest face processing is carried out independently of attention, functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) research has demonstrated that the allocation of attention to the region of space in which a face appears enhances the associated haemodynamic response in the FFA [18,19,20,21] (but see [13]). This discrepancy in the face perception literature remains unresolved – is face processing carried out independently of spatial attention, as existing behavioural data might suggest [13,14,15,16,17]? Or are faces just more robust to manipulations of spatial attention than non-face stimuli [22,23,24,25]? We reconcile this issue in the present study by demonstrating for the first time reliable effects of both spatial and temporal attention on sex-classification processes within a behavioural task [16,17,26]
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