| Perceptual adaptation helps us identify faces. | |
| | |
MedLine Citation:
|
PMID: 20214920 Owner: NLM Status: In-Process |
Abstract/OtherAbstract:
|
Adaptation is a fundamental property of perceptual processing. In low-level vision, it can calibrate perception to current inputs, increasing coding efficiency and enhancing discrimination around the adapted level. Adaptation also occurs in high-level vision, as illustrated by face aftereffects. However, the functional consequences of face adaptation remain uncertain. Here we investigated whether adaptation can enhance identification performance for faces from an adapted, relative to an unadapted, population. Five minutes of adaptation to an average Asian or Caucasian face reduced identification thresholds for faces from the adapted relative to the unadapted race. We replicated this interaction in two studies, using different participants, faces and adapting procedures. These results suggest that adaptation has a functional role in high-level, as well as low-level, visual processing. We suggest that adaptation to the average of a population may reduce responses to common properties shared by all members of the population, effectively orthogonalizing identity vectors in a multi-dimensional face space and freeing neural resources to code distinctive properties, which are useful for identification. |
| | |
Authors:
|
Gillian Rhodes; Tamara L Watson; Linda Jeffery; Colin W G Clifford |
Publication Detail:
|
Type: Journal Article; Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't Date: 2010-03-07 |
Journal Detail:
|
Title: Vision research Volume: 50 ISSN: 1878-5646 ISO Abbreviation: Vision Res. Publication Date: 2010 May |
Date Detail:
|
Created Date: 2010-04-21 Completed Date: - Revised Date: - |
Medline Journal Info:
|
Nlm Unique ID: 0417402 Medline TA: Vision Res Country: England |
Other Details:
|
Languages: eng Pagination: 963-8 Citation Subset: IM |
Copyright Information:
|
Copyright 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. |
Affiliation:
|
School of Psychology, University of Western Australia, Perth, WA, Australia. gill@psy.uwa.edu.au |
Export Citation:
|
APA/MLA Format Download EndNote Download BibTex |
| MeSH Terms | |
Descriptor/Qualifier:
|
|
From MEDLINE®/PubMed®, a database of the U.S. National Library of Medicine
Previous Document: How well can people judge when something happened?
Next Document: Behavioural satiety sequence (BSS): separating wheat from chaff in the behavioural pharmacology of a...