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Published on: October 30, 2018
Attention to faces modulates early face processing during low but not high face discriminability
Kartik K Sreenivasan1, Jonathan M Goldstein, Audrey G Lustig
1University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19104, USA. kks@mail.med.upenn.edu
Attention, Perception & Psychophysics
|May 12, 2009
Summary
Attention to faces enhances early sensory processing, particularly when facial cues are unclear. This attentional benefit occurs at multiple processing stages, impacting face perception.
Area of Science:
- Cognitive Neuroscience
- Visual Perception
Background:
- Attentional mechanisms play a crucial role in visual perception.
- The N170 event-related potential component is a sensitive marker for early face processing.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate whether attention to faces modulates sensory gain.
- To determine the stages of visual processing affected by attention to faces.
Main Methods:
- Participants attended to faces or scenes in superimposed face-scene images.
- Face discriminability was parametrically manipulated.
- The N170 component and later event-related potentials were measured.
Main Results:
- Attention to faces modulated the N170 amplitude when faces were not highly discriminable.
- Later processing (~230-300 msec) was modulated by attention to faces across all discriminability levels.
- Early attentional benefits were observed specifically when face signal quality was suboptimal.
Conclusions:
- Attention modulates face processing at multiple stages, including early sensory levels.
- The effectiveness of early attentional modulation depends on the perceptual quality of the face stimulus.
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