Adaptive face coding and discrimination around the average face
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Updated: Jul 15, 2026

Perceptual and Category Processing of the Uncanny Valley Hypothesis' Dimension of Human Likeness: Some Methodological Issues
Published on: June 3, 2013
Gillian Rhodes1, Laurence T Maloney, Jenny Turner
1The University of Western Australia, Crawley, WA 6009, Australia. gill@psy.uwa.edu.au
Abstract:
Adaptation paradigms highlight the dynamic nature of face coding and suggest that identity is coded relative to an average face that is tuned by experience. In low-level vision, adaptive coding can enhance sensitivity to differences around the adapted level. We investigated whether sensitivity to differences around the average face is similarly enhanced. Converging evidence from three paradigms showed no enhancement. Discrimination of small interocular spacing differences was not better for faces close to the average (Study 1). Nor was perceived similarity reduced for face pairs close to (spanning) the average (Study 2). On the contrary, these pairs were judged most similar. Maximum likelihood perceptual difference scaling (Studies 3 and 4) confirmed that sensitivity to differences was reduced, not enhanced, around the average. We conclude that adaptive face coding does not enhance discrimination around the average face.
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