Face Processing Strategies Research Articles

How do face processing strategies and eye-movements contribute to individual differences in face recognition ability?

How do face processing strategies and eye-movements contribute to individual differences in face recognition ability?

Social contact, own-group recognition bias and visual attention to faces.

The own-group recognition bias (OGRB) has been consistently linked to social contact in theoretical accounts. Indeed, social contact is assumed by most authors to underlie the perceptual expertise of out-groups' faces. However, little is known empirically about how it might impact face-processing strategies. We tested the proposition that social interaction would improve the face recognition performance of another group by modulating visual strategies for different face areas. In Experiment 1, we studied visual processes using an eye tracker during a person's first live encounter with a particular member of their own group (European) or an outgroup (African) to explore how increasing familiarity during a first interaction influences face-processing strategies. In Experiments 2 and 3, we explored the effect of simulated intergroup contact on face recognition accuracy, while simultaneously studying the impact of contact on visual attention strategies that occur during recognition (Experiment 2) and encoding (Experiment 3). The results showed a strong OGRB and a difference in visual processes based on the ethnic group of the targets. Although a single interaction is not sufficient to reduce the OGRB, familiarization during a live interaction (Experiment 1) and virtual social contact (Experiment 2) had an impact on the visual strategies employed.

Social motivation deficits in individuals with autism spectrum disorders

<p id=p00005>Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a neurodevelopmental disorder that originated from childhood, social deficits are core symptoms of ASD. Previous studies, from a information processing perspective, proposed that a deficit in social cognitive is the cause of social impairment. However, research showed that the lack of cognitive ability was not the only reason for the social deficits of individuals with ASD, but also closely related to the social motivation deficits. Social motivation theory suggests that social motivation deficits exist in the early life of individuals with ASD and affect their subsequent development. Studying the social motivation of individuals with ASD is of great value to explain the causes of their social deficits and find the direction of intervention in the future. Therefore, this study summarizes the specific behaviors and internal and external influencing factors of social motivation deficits in individuals with ASD. In the future, it is important to comprehensively consider these factors, to strengthen the integrated research on the social motivation theory of individuals with ASD, so as to accurately understand the social motivation deficits of individuals with ASD. <br/>Social motivation theory suggests that social motivation is a powerful driving force to guide individual’s social behavior. The theory also highlights that social behavior is mainly manifested in social orientation, social reward and social maintenance, so this paper firstly summarizes the related researches on the behavioral level of social motivation deficits in individuals with ASD, which are mainly reflected in the following three aspects: (1) The results of social orientation research show that individuals with ASD often show impaired attention to social stimuli, reduced direct gaze on the face, reduced gaze on the eyes, etc. On the one hand, this deficit is related to their abnormal face processing strategies; on the other hand, they may have difficulties in representing the intrinsic reward value of social stimuli; (2) The results of social reward research show that social reward stimulation has no significant incentive effect on individuals with ASD. They lack the ability to experience the happiness of social interaction, cant get happiness from interaction and lack the desire to help others, which is related to the abnormality of reward processing system (amygdala, ventral striatum, prefrontal cortex and other brain regions). (3) The results of social maintenance research show that individuals with ASD have few social maintenance strategies, they are not good at maintaining social relationships with others, do not actively show their own advantages, do not actively imitate others, and lack the desire and motivation to establish and maintain good relationships with others. <br/>Finally, because the research conclusions of social motivation deficits in individual with ASD are not completely consistent, this paper comprehensively and systematically analyzes the influencing factors of social motivation deficits, and finds that it includes internal factors and external factors. The internal factors are mainly reflected in individuals age, gender and physiological mechanism, while the external factors are mainly reflected in social communication environment, experimental stimulus materials, difficulty and nature of experimental tasks. In order to improve the credibility and effectiveness of the research on the social motivation of individuals with ASD, and fully and accurately grasp the characteristics of social motivation in individuals with ASD, in the future, it is important to study the social motivation deficits of individuals with ASD of different ages and genders, to optimize the experimental tasks, broaden the types of materials, further improve the experimental design, and to strengthen the integrated research on the social motivation theory of individuals with ASD, deeply explore the relationship among the behavioral, biological and evolutionary levels under this theory, and further analyze the relationship among the three behaviors of social motivation(social orientation, social reward and social maintenance).

Sensitivity to face animacy and inversion in childhood: Evidence from EEG data

Adults exhibit relative behavioral difficulties in processing inanimate, artificial faces compared to real human faces, with implications for using artificial faces in research and designing artificial social agents. However, the developmental trajectory of inanimate face perception is unknown. To address this gap, we used electroencephalography to investigate inanimate faces processing in cross-sectional groups of 5–10-year-old children and adults. A face inversion manipulation was used to test whether face animacy processing relies on expert face processing strategies. Groups of 5-7-year-olds (N = 18), 8-10-year-olds (N = 18), and adults (N = 16) watched pictures of real or doll faces presented in an upright or inverted orientation. Analyses of event-related potentials revealed larger N170 amplitudes in response to doll faces, irrespective of age group or face orientation. Thus, the N170 is sensitive to face animacy by 5–7 years of age, but such sensitivity may not reflect high-level, expert face processing. Multivariate pattern analyses of the EEG signal additionally assessed whether animacy information could be reliably extracted during face processing. Face orientation, but not face animacy, could be reliably decoded from occipitotemporal channels in children and adults. Face animacy could be decoded from whole scalp channels in adults, but not children. Together, these results suggest that 5-10-year-old children exhibit some sensitivity to face animacy over occipitotemporal regions that is comparable to adults.

Autistic Traits Do Not Affect Emotional Face Processing in a General Population Sample.

It has been suggested that atypical emotional face processing strategies observed in autism may extend in milder form to the general population. We investigated the relationship between autistic traits (AT) and gaze behaviour in a neurotypical adult sample. Novel naturalistic videos featuring happy, fearful and neutral faces were first validated in a sample of 22 participants. A separate sample of participants (N = 67) then viewed the three videos in counterbalanced order. Eye-tracking data showed that participants looked longer at emotional than neutral faces, and exploration of facial features varied with emotional condition. AT did not influence viewing patterns, time to first fixation or number of early fixations. We conclude that AT in the general population do not affect visual processing of emotional faces.

Training Participants to Focus on Critical Facial Features Does Not Decrease Own-Group Bias.

The own-group recognition bias (OGB) might be explained by the usage of different face processing strategies for own and other-group faces. Although featural processing appears in general to impair face recognition ability when compared to configural processing (itself perhaps a function of acquired expertise), recent research has suggested that the OGB can be reduced by directing featural processing to group-discriminating features. The present study assessed a perceptual training task intended to replicate Hills and Lewis’ (2006) findings: we trained White participants to focus more on discriminating parts of Black faces, in particular the bottom halves of the faces, expecting a reduction of the OGB as a consequence. Thirty participants completed the training task, and visual patterns of attention were recorded with an eye-tracking device. Results showed that even though participants modified their visual exploration according to task instructions, spending significantly more time on the lower halves of faces after training, the OGB unexpectedly increased rather than decreased. The difference seems to be a function of an increased false alarm rate, with participants reducing response criterion for other-group – but not own-group – faces after training.

Neurophysiological correlates of holistic face processing in adolescents with and without autism spectrum disorder

BackgroundFace processing has been found to be impaired in autism spectrum disorders (ASD). One hypothesis is that individuals with ASD engage in piecemeal compared to holistic face processing strategies. To investigate the role of possible impairments in holistic face processing in individuals with autism, the current study investigated behavioral and electroencephalography (EEG) correlates of face processing (P1/N170 and gamma-band activity) in adolescents with ASD and sex-, age-, and IQ-matched neurotypical controls.MethodsParticipants were presented with upright and inverted Mooney stimuli; black and white low information faces that are only perceived as faces when processed holistically. Participants indicated behaviorally the detection of a face. EEG was collected time-locked to the presentation of the stimuli.ResultsAdolescents with ASD perceived Mooney stimuli as faces suggesting ability to use holistic processing but displayed a lower face detection rate and slower response times. ERP components suggest slowed temporal processing of Mooney stimuli in the ASD compared to control group for P1 latency but no differences between groups for P1 amplitude and at the N170. Increases in gamma-band activity was similar during the perception of the Mooney images by group, but the ASD group showed prolonged temporal elevation in activity.ConclusionOverall, our results suggest that adolescents with ASD were able to utilize holistic processing to perceive a face within the Mooney stimuli. Delays in early processing, marked by the P1, and elongated elevation in gamma activity indicate that the neural systems supporting holistic processing are slightly altered suggesting a less automatic and less efficient facial processing system.Trial registrationNon-applicable.

Atypical information-use in children with autism spectrum disorder during judgments of child and adult face identity

ABSTRACTUnusual patterns of fixation behavior in individuals with autism spectrum disorder during face tasks hint at atypical processing strategies that could contribute to diminished face expertise in this group. Here, we use the Bubbles reverse correlation technique to directly examine face-processing strategies during identity judgments in children with and without autism, and typical adults. Results support a qualitative atypicality in autistic face processing. We identify clear differences not only in the specific features relied upon for face judgments, but also more generally in the extent to which they demonstrate a flexible and adaptive profile of information use.

Distinct profiles of information-use characterize identity judgments in children and low-expertise adults.

Face processing abilities vary across the life span: increasing across childhood and adolescence, peaking around 30 years of age, and then declining. Despite extensive investigation, researchers have yet to identify qualitative changes in face processing during development that can account for the observed improvements on laboratory tests. The current study constituted the first detailed characterization of face processing strategies in a large group of typically developing children and adults (N = 200) using a novel adaptation of the Bubbles reverse correlation technique (Gosselin & Schyns, 2001). Resultant classification images reveal a compelling age-related shift in strategic information use during participants' judgments of face identity. This shift suggests a move from an early reliance upon high spatial frequency details around the mouth, eye-brow and jaw-line in young children (∼8 years) to an increasingly more interlinked approach, focused upon the eye region and the center of the face in older children (∼11 years) and adults. Moreover, we reveal that the early versus late phases of this developmental trajectory correspond with the profiles of information use observed in weak versus strong adult face processors. Together, these results provide intriguing new evidence for an important functional role for strategic information use in the development of face expertise. (PsycINFO Database Record

Configural and Featural Face Processing Influences on Emotion Recognition in Schizophrenia and Bipolar Disorder.

Emotion recognition impairments have been demonstrated in schizophrenia (Sz), but are less consistent and lesser in magnitude in bipolar disorder (BD). This may be related to the extent to which different face processing strategies are engaged during emotion recognition in each of these disorders. We recently showed that Sz patients had impairments in the use of both featural and configural face processing strategies, whereas BD patients were impaired only in the use of the latter. Here we examine the influence that these impairments have on facial emotion recognition in these cohorts. Twenty-eight individuals with Sz, 28 individuals with BD, and 28 healthy controls completed a facial emotion labeling task with two conditions designed to separate the use of featural and configural face processing strategies; part-based and whole-face emotion recognition. Sz patients performed worse than controls on both conditions, and worse than BD patients on the whole-face condition. BD patients performed worse than controls on the whole-face condition only. Configural processing deficits appear to influence the recognition of facial emotions in BD, whereas both configural and featural processing abnormalities impair emotion recognition in Sz. This may explain discrepancies in the profiles of emotion recognition between the disorders. (JINS, 2017, 23, 287-291).

Capturing developmental shifts in facial identity and expression processing strategies.

Children are widely accepted to process faces differently from adults, with aspects of adult-like processing and neural specialization continuing to develop into early adulthood. Critically, however, little is known about the specific information processing strategies employed as children mature. Here, we investigate the development of face processing strategies in children aged 7-12 years using a reverse correlation approach to determine the visual features driving categorizations of face identity and expression. Specifically, 106 participants (90 children, 16 adults) were trained to identify three unfamiliar faces by name and 200 participants (180 children, 20 adults) were asked to categorize expressions of four basic emotions (fear, sadness, happiness, anger). Across experimental trials we created subsampled versions of these faces by randomly sampling visual information from the images (across different locations and spatial frequency bands) using circularly symmetric apertures ('bubbles'). Participants had to make their categorization decisions based upon only the information directly behind these apertures; the rest was hidden from view. Results revealed that children make less use of the eyes than adults during both tasks. When reading face identity, adults rely on information from the eyes and mouth, particularly in high spatial frequency bands. In contrast, young children make less use of information from the eyes and focus their attention more on the mouth region, with this bias attenuating with age. During expression categorizations we found that relative to adults, children showed a much greater reliance on information from the mouth region when judging fear, sadness and anger, the three emotions that they found most challenging to identify. For happiness, however, which they recognized with near adult-like accuracy, children used information in a more equivalent manner to adults. Across both tasks, these results signal a clear developmental shift in participants' strategic information use when making judgments about key facial characteristics. Meeting abstract presented at VSS 2015.

Face Processing And Eye Tracking Skills In Children With Autism Spectrum Disorders

In this study, face processing, eye tracking and joint attention skills of individuals with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) and virtual reality studies have been reveiwed. Current literature shows that face processing, eye tracking and joint attention skills and strategies of individuals with ASD are different than the strategies used by typically developing individuals. Difficulties in these areas have been considered to be related to the face discrimination strategies used by the individuals with ASD for face feature detections. Recently, virtual reality studies pioneer the development of intervention programs targeting enhancing social functioning and social cognitive skills of individuals with ASD. Even though the review of the studies indicates that face processing problems of individuals with ASD negatively affect these individuals’ social skills, non-verbal interactions and cognitive skills, these studies will lead to a better understanding of ASD and provide guidance for the development of effective interventions.

Differential age-related changes in N170 responses to upright faces, inverted faces, and eyes in Japanese children.

The main objectives of this study were to investigate the development of face perception in Japanese children, focusing on the changes in face processing strategies (holistic and/or configural vs. feature-based) that occur during childhood. To achieve this, we analyzed the face-related N170 component, evoked by upright face, inverted face, and eyes stimuli in 82 Japanese children aged between 8- and 13-years-old. During the experiment, the children were asked to perform a target detection task in which they were told to press a button when they saw images of faces or kettles with mustaches, glasses, and fake noses; i.e., an implicit face perception task. The N170 signals observed after the presentation of the upright face stimuli were longer in duration and/or had at least two peaks in the 8–11-year-old children, whereas those seen in the 12–13-year-old children were sharp and only had a single peak. N170 latency was significantly longer after the presentation of the eyes stimuli than after the presentation of the upright face stimuli in the 10- and 12-year-old children. In addition, significant differences in N170 latency were observed among all three stimulus types in the 13-year-old children. N170 amplitude was significantly greater after the presentation of the eyes stimuli than after the presentation of the upright face stimuli in the 8–10- and 12-year-old children. The results of the present study indicate that the upright face stimuli were processed using holistic and/or configural processing by the 13-year-old children.

Gender effects for toy faces reveal qualitative differences in face processing strategies

Gender effects for toy faces reveal qualitative differences in face processing strategies

On the facilitative effects of face motion on face recognition and its development.

For the past century, researchers have extensively studied human face processing and its development. These studies have advanced our understanding of not only face processing, but also visual processing in general. However, most of what we know about face processing was investigated using static face images as stimuli. Therefore, an important question arises: to what extent does our understanding of static face processing generalize to face processing in real-life contexts in which faces are mostly moving? The present article addresses this question by examining recent studies on moving face processing to uncover the influence of facial movements on face processing and its development. First, we describe evidence on the facilitative effects of facial movements on face recognition and two related theoretical hypotheses: the supplementary information hypothesis and the representation enhancement hypothesis. We then highlight several recent studies suggesting that facial movements optimize face processing by activating specific face processing strategies that accommodate to task requirements. Lastly, we review the influence of facial movements on the development of face processing in the first year of life. We focus on infants' sensitivity to facial movements and explore the facilitative effects of facial movements on infants' face recognition performance. We conclude by outlining several future directions to investigate moving face processing and emphasize the importance of including dynamic aspects of facial information to further understand face processing in real-life contexts.

The effects of information type (features vs. configuration) and location (eyes vs. mouth) on the development of face perception

The goal of the current study was to investigate the development of face processing strategies in a perceptual discrimination task. Children (7–12years of age) and young adults were administered the Face Dimensions Task. In the Face Dimensions Task, participants were asked to judge whether two simultaneously presented faces were the “same” or “different”. For the “same” trials, the two faces were identical. For the “different” trials, the faces differed in either the spacing between the eyes, the spacing between the nose and the mouth, the size of the eyes, or the size of the mouth. The main finding was that 7- to 10-year-old children showed no difference in their ability to discriminate differences in eye size and eye spacing but showed a poor ability to discriminate differences in nose and mouth spacing and, to a lesser extent, mouth size. The developmental lag between nose–mouth discriminations and the other featural and configural discriminations was reduced in older children and eliminated by young adulthood. These results indicate that the type of face information (i.e., configural vs. featural) and its location (i.e., eye vs. mouth) jointly contribute to the development of face perception abilities.

An Eye-tracking Research on Featural, Configural and Holistic Processing Strategies in Face Perception

There were two main hypotheses attempting to explain the mechanisms of face perception. One was the holistic approach which claimed that faces were stored as relatively undifferentiated wholes, without explicitly representing the facial parts. The other was the dual-code view which claimed that faces were processed on the basis of featural and configural information and that the respective representations were stored in isolation. Indeed, neither of the two approaches could provide a detailed explanation of the mechanisms of face perception. Therefore integrated approaches were proposed. The present study in favor of these integrated systems aims at exploring featural, configural and holistic strategies during face perception. The presence of different eye movement patterns would imply how important information is extracted from facial stimuli. In the two experiments we explored the scanning behavior during face perception. In experiment 1, modified faces with primarily featural(scrambled faces) or configural(blurred faces) information were used as cue stimuli so as to manipulate the way participants processed intact faces which were presented soon afterwards. In a series of matching-to-sample tasks, participants decided whether the identity of an intact test face matched a precedent scrambled or blurred cue face. Analysis of eye movements for test faces showed more interfeatural saccades when preceded by blurred faces, and longer gaze duration within the same feature when preceded by scrambled faces. In experiment 2, a similar paradigm was used except that test faces were cued by intact faces, low-level blurred faces, or slightly scrambled faces. The results suggested that in the intact condition participants performed fewer interfeatural saccades than in low-level blurred condition and had shorter gaze duration than in slightly scrambled condition. Moreover, a few fixations in the center of the face were performed to grasp the information from the whole face. The results suggest a differentiation between featural, configural, and holistic processing strategies, which can be associated with specific patterns of eye movements. By inducing different processing strategies in experiment 1, we provided further evidence that faces can be recognized on the basis of both featural and configural information. In experiment 2 a holistic strategy characterized by the grasp of the whole face was applied, while in experiment 1 a configural strategy was adopted when the information from different locations was integrated by performing a high number of saccades between different features. In conclusion, the present study shows that three modes of face processing strategies coexist in face perception.

Single-Neuron Correlates of Atypical Face Processing in Autism

People with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) show abnormal processing of faces. A range of morphometric, histological, and neuroimaging studies suggest the hypothesis that this abnormality may be linked to the amygdala. We recorded data from single neurons within the amygdalae of two rare neurosurgical patients with ASD. While basic electrophysiological response parameters were normal, there were specific and striking abnormalities in how individual facial features drove neuronal response. Compared to control patients, a population of neurons in the two ASD patients responded significantly more to the mouth, but less to the eyes. Moreover, we found a second class of face-responsive neurons for which responses to faces appeared normal. The findings confirm the amygdala's pivotal role in abnormal face processing by people with ASD at the cellular level and suggest that dysfunction may be traced to a specific subpopulation of neurons with altered selectivity for the features of faces.

Does face inversion qualitatively change face processing: An eye movement study using a face change detection task

Understanding the Face Inversion Effect is important for the study of face processing. Some researchers believe that the processing of inverted faces is qualitatively different from the processing of upright faces because inversion leads to a disproportionate performance decrement on the processing of different kinds of face information. Other researchers believe that the difference is quantitative because the processing of all kinds of facial information is less efficient due to the change in orientation and thus, the performance decrement is not disproportionate. To address the Qualitative and Quantitative debate, the current study employed a response-contingent, change detection paradigm to study eye movement during the processing of upright and inverted faces. In this study, configural and featural information were parametrically and independently manipulated in the eye and mouth region of the face. The manipulations for configural information involved changing the interocular distance between the eyes or the distance between the mouth and the nose. The manipulations for featural information involved changing the size of the eyes or the size of the mouth. The main results showed that change detection was more difficult in inverted than upright faces. Specifically, performance declined when the manipulated change occurred in the mouth region, despite the greater efforts allocated to the mouth region. Moreover, compared to upright faces where fixations were concentrated on the eyes and nose regions, inversion produced a higher concentration of fixations on the nose and mouth regions. Finally, change detection performance was better when the last fixation prior to response was located on the region of change, and the relationship between last fixation location and accuracy was stronger for inverted than upright faces. These findings reinforce the connection between eye movements and face processing strategies, and suggest that face inversion produces a qualitative disruption of looking behavior in the mouth region.

Comparing face processing strategies between typically-developed observers and observers with autism using sub-sampled-pixels presentation in response classification technique

In the present study we modified the standard classification image method by subsampling visual stimuli to provide us with a technique capable of examining an individual’s face-processing strategy in detail with fewer trials. Experiment 1 confirmed that one testing session (1450 trials) was sufficient to produce classification images that were qualitatively similar to those obtained previously with 10,000 trials (Sekuler et al., 2004). Experiment 2 used this method to compare classification images obtained from observers with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) and typically-developing (TD) observers. As was found in Experiment 1, classification images obtained from TD observers suggested that they all discriminated faces based on information conveyed by pixels in the eyes/brow region. In contrast, classification images obtained from ASD observers suggested that they used different perceptual strategies: three out of five ASD observers used a typical strategy of making use of information in the eye/brow region, but two used an atypical strategy that relied on information in the forehead region. The advantage of using the response classification technique is that there is no restriction to specific theoretical perspectives or a priori hypotheses, which enabled us to see unexpected strategies, like ASD’s forehead strategy, and thus showed this technique is particularly useful in the examination of special populations.