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Perceiving Animacy in Own-and Other-Species Faces
Benjamin Balas1,2, Amanda Auen1
1Department of Psychology, North Dakota State University, Fargo, ND, United States.
Frontiers in Psychology
|February 8, 2019
Summary
Human and dog face animacy perception differs, suggesting our brains process "in-group" faces uniquely. This visual expertise impacts how we perceive life in faces, whether human or canine.
Area of Science:
- Cognitive Psychology
- Neuroscience
- Computer Vision
Background:
- Advances in graphics technology create increasingly realistic artificial faces.
- While humans can usually distinguish real from artificial faces, face recognition is tuned to experience.
- It remains unclear if face animacy perception is also tuned to in-group versus out-group categories.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate how face inversion and presentation duration affect animacy perception in human and dog faces.
- To determine if face animacy perception is tuned for in-group faces.
Main Methods:
- Adult observers viewed human and dog faces under conditions of face inversion and varying presentation durations.
- Perception of animacy was assessed based on observer responses.
Main Results:
- A differential impact of face inversion and duration on animacy perception was observed between human and dog faces.
- This suggests that face animacy perception is tuned for in-group faces.
Conclusions:
- Distinct neural mechanisms may evaluate 'life' in faces for in-group versus out-group categories.
- Alternatively, a common mechanism's efficiency may vary based on visual expertise with specific face categories.
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