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Methods to Explore the Influence of Top-down Visual Processes on Motor Behavior
Published on: April 16, 2014
Solving the upside-down puzzle: Why do upright and inverted face aftereffects look alike?
Tirta Susilo1, Elinor McKone, Mark Edwards
1Department of Psychology, Australian National University, Canberra, ACT, Australia. tirta.susilo@anu.edu.au
Journal of Vision
|December 15, 2010
Summary
Investigating face aftereffects reveals that upright faces engage face-specific processing, while inverted faces rely solely on general shape mechanisms. Both processing types utilize opponent coding for visual dimensions.
Area of Science:
- Visual perception
- Cognitive neuroscience
- Face recognition
Background:
- Face aftereffects are assumed to reveal properties of face space.
- Similar aftereffects for upright and inverted faces challenge this assumption.
- Inverted faces may be processed differently from upright faces.
Purpose of the Study:
- To differentiate the mechanisms underlying upright and inverted face aftereffects.
- To determine the contributions of face-specific versus shape-generic processing.
- To investigate the coding strategies (opponent vs. multichannel) for face dimensions.
Main Methods:
- Used eye-height aftereffects as a measure.
- Manipulated adaptor distance from the average face.
- Tested transfer of aftereffects between faces and T-shapes.
Main Results:
- Inverted face aftereffects were entirely shape-generic.
- Upright face aftereffects had both shape-generic and face-specific components.
- Both face-specific and shape-generic spaces employed opponent coding.
Conclusions:
- A qualitative difference exists between upright and inverted face aftereffects.
- Upright faces utilize a dedicated face space, while inverted faces rely on general visual mechanisms.
- Opponent coding is a fundamental mechanism in both face-specific and shape-generic visual processing.
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