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Published on: August 29, 2018
Irrelevant objects of expertise compete with faces during visual search.
Rankin W McGugin1, Thomas J McKeeff, Frank Tong
1Department of Psychology, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN 37203, USA. Rankin.williams@vanderbilt.edu
Attention, Perception & Psychophysics
|January 26, 2011
Summary
Expertise in non-face objects like cars can hinder face perception, even when those objects are irrelevant to the task. This suggests shared perceptual resources are involved in visual processing.
Area of Science:
- Cognitive Psychology
- Visual Perception
Background:
- Prior research indicates that expertise in non-face objects can interfere with face perception when categories are presented alternately.
- This interference suggests competition for shared perceptual resources.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate whether task-irrelevant distractors from an expert category compete with faces in a standard visual search task.
- To determine if objects of expertise interfere with face perception under conditions of visual search.
Main Methods:
- Participants performed a visual search task for a target (face or sofa) within an array of relevant and irrelevant distractors.
- The number of irrelevant car distractors varied, while target and target-category distractors remained constant.
- Search slopes were analyzed in relation to the number of irrelevant car distractors and individual car expertise.
Main Results:
- Search slopes correlated with participants' car expertise, indicating interference from car distractors.
- This interference effect was specific to face targets and did not occur with sofa targets.
- The findings suggest that car distractors did not simply capture attention but specifically impacted face processing.
Conclusions:
- Objects of expertise can interfere with face perception even when they are task-irrelevant, visually distinct, and spatially separated.
- This interference highlights the role of shared perceptual resources and expertise in modulating visual processing, particularly for faces.
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