Search research articles

ABOUT JoVE

Overview Leadership Blog JoVE Help Center

AUTHORS

Publishing Process Editorial Board Scope & Policies Peer Review FAQ Submit

LIBRARIANS

Testimonials Subscriptions Access Resources Library Advisory Board FAQ

RESEARCH

JoVE Journal Methods Collections JoVE Encyclopedia of Experiments Archive

EDUCATION

JoVE Core JoVE Business JoVE Science Education JoVE Lab Manual Faculty Resource Center Faculty Site

Terms & Conditions of Use

Related Concept Videos

Facial Feedback Hypothesis

Facial Feedback Hypothesis

Charles Darwin proposed that facial expressions are an evolutionary adaptation for communication. He argued that these expressions are not influenced by culture but are universal across species. For example, a snarling expression with exposed teeth signals a threat in many animals, including humans. Darwin also suggested that displaying an emotion can intensify the feeling. Smiling, for example, could enhance one's sense of happiness. This idea laid the foundation for understanding the role...

Nonconscious Mimicry

Nonconscious Mimicry

Nonconscious mimicry occurs when individuals alter their mannerisms to match the behaviors and expressions of those nearby, without intention.

Prosopagnosia

Prosopagnosia

Prosopagnosia, also known as face blindness, is the inability to recognize faces. In severe cases, individuals with prosopagnosia may not recognize close family members, including parents and spouses, by their faces. For instance, someone with prosopagnosia might walk past their child in a crowd, only realizing their mistake upon noticing their child's distinctive backpack or favorite jacket. Prosopagnosia specifically impairs facial recognition, while the recognition of other objects or...

Hindsight Biases

Hindsight Biases

Hindsight bias leads you to believe that the event you just experienced was predictable, even though it really wasn’t. In other words, you knew all along that things would turn out the way they did. Can you relate this to the phrase "Hindsight is 20/20" now?

Perceptual Constancy

Perceptual Constancy

Perceptual constancy is the ability to recognize that objects remain consistent and unchanged even when their appearance varies due to changes in sensory input. There are four main types of perceptual constancy: size constancy, shape constancy, color constancy, and brightness constancy.
Size constancy is the recognition that an object remains the same size, even when its image on the retina changes. For instance, a bus is perceived to be large enough to carry people, even if it looks tiny from...

Blinding

Blinding

Blinding is a commonly used method of not telling participants which treatment a subject is receiving. Blinding is a critical part of a randomized control trial or RCT. It reduces the bias that affects the results. In an RCT, blinding is used in the form of a placebo. A placebo effect occurs when untreated subjects falsely believe they have received the treatment and report improved symptoms. A placebo or a dummy treatment is administered to subjects to negate the bias caused by such an effect.

You might also read

Related Articles

Articles linked to this work by shared authors, journal, and citation graph.

Sort by

Same author

Rapid phonetic learning of Mandarin tones in adults: Daily behavioral improvement and brain activity changes.

Neuropsychologia·2026

Same author

Rapid Mandarin Tone Learning in Passive and Active Listening: A Magnetoencephalography Study.

The European journal of neuroscience·2026

Same author

Effects of Native Language and Exposure to Foreign Language on Categorization and Discrimination of Vowel Duration and Lexical Tone.

Language and speech·2026

Same author

The Somatosensory Mismatch Negativity.

The European journal of neuroscience·2025

Same author

The impact of eyes on attributions of agency and experience in humanoid robots.

Consciousness and cognition·2025

Same author

The impact of emotional face distractors on working memory performance: a meta-analysis of behavioural studies.

Cognition & emotion·2025

Search research articles

Related Experiment Video

Updated: May 3, 2026

A Method for Investigating Change Blindness in Pigeons Columba Livia

A Method for Investigating Change Blindness in Pigeons Columba Livia

Published on: September 7, 2018

Implicit binding of facial features during change blindness.

Pessi Lyyra¹, Hanna Mäkelä², Jari K Hietanen³

¹Department of Psychology, University of Jyväskylä, Jyväskylä, Finland ; Human Information Processing Laboratory, School of Social Sciences and Humanities, University of Tampere, Tampere, Finland.

|February 6, 2014

Summary

Even during change blindness, the brain implicitly detects complex facial changes. Event-related potentials (ERPs) show specific brain responses to intact versus scrambled faces, indicating implicit processing of organized features.

More Related Videos

Creating Virtual-hand and Virtual-face Illusions to Investigate Self-representation

Creating Virtual-hand and Virtual-face Illusions to Investigate Self-representation

Published on: March 1, 2017

Perceptual and Category Processing of the Uncanny Valley Hypothesis' Dimension of Human Likeness: Some Methodological Issues

Perceptual and Category Processing of the Uncanny Valley Hypothesis' Dimension of Human Likeness: Some Methodological Issues

Published on: June 3, 2013

Related Experiment Videos

Last Updated: May 3, 2026

A Method for Investigating Change Blindness in Pigeons Columba Livia

A Method for Investigating Change Blindness in Pigeons Columba Livia

Published on: September 7, 2018

Creating Virtual-hand and Virtual-face Illusions to Investigate Self-representation

Creating Virtual-hand and Virtual-face Illusions to Investigate Self-representation

Published on: March 1, 2017

Perceptual and Category Processing of the Uncanny Valley Hypothesis' Dimension of Human Likeness: Some Methodological Issues

Perceptual and Category Processing of the Uncanny Valley Hypothesis' Dimension of Human Likeness: Some Methodological Issues

Published on: June 3, 2013

Area of Science:

Cognitive Neuroscience
Visual Perception
Neuroscience

Background:

Change blindness is the failure to notice significant visual alterations when attention is diverted.
Previous research indicated implicit detection of simple visual feature changes during change blindness.
It remained unclear if complex feature organizations could be implicitly detected.

Purpose of the Study:

To investigate whether implicit change detection extends to complex facial configurations.
To determine if the brain processes organized facial features unconsciously during change blindness.

Main Methods:

Adult human participants were subjected to a change blindness paradigm using intact and scrambled schematic faces.
Event-related potentials (ERPs) were recorded to measure neural responses.
Stimuli included changes between intact and scrambled face presentations.

Main Results:

The face-sensitive N170 ERP component showed bidirectional modulation at the right temporal site.
Changes from scrambled to intact faces enlarged the N170, even without conscious awareness.
Disintegration of intact faces into scrambled features attenuated N170 responses during change blindness.

Conclusions:

Implicit change detection in change blindness can encompass complex feature organizations, specifically for facial stimuli.
The N170 component's modulation suggests the brain implicitly processes holistic facial information.
This challenges the notion that implicit detection is limited to isolated visual features.