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Activation of face expertise and the inversion effect
Liezhong Ge1, Zhe Wang, Joseph P McCleery
1Zhejiang Sci-Tech University, Hangzhou, People's Republic of China.
Psychological Science
|December 24, 2005
Summary
Priming with faces, but not characters, caused an inversion effect. This suggests that activating face-processing expertise is key to the face-inversion effect, demonstrating top-down influences.
Area of Science:
- Cognitive Psychology
- Neuroscience
- Visual Perception
Background:
- The face-inversion effect describes how upside-down faces are harder to recognize than upright faces.
- This effect is thought to rely on specialized face-processing mechanisms.
- However, the role of top-down influences, such as cognitive expertise, remains debated.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the role of top-down influences in the face-inversion effect.
- To determine if activating face-processing expertise is necessary for the face-inversion effect.
Main Methods:
- A contextual priming paradigm was employed.
- Participants were primed with either faces or Chinese characters.
- Ambiguous figures, perceived as faces or characters based on priming, were used for testing.
Main Results:
- The face-inversion effect was observed when participants were primed with faces.
- No face-inversion effect was found when participants were primed with Chinese characters.
- Ambiguous figures differed in configural information, critical for face but not character recognition.
Conclusions:
- Top-down activation of the face-processing expertise system is crucial for the face-inversion effect.
- This study provides direct evidence for the role of cognitive expertise in visual perception.
- The findings highlight the interplay between bottom-up stimulus processing and top-down cognitive control.