Rhodes Gillian, Jaquet Emma, Jeffery Linda, Evangelista Emma, Keane Jill, Calder Andrew J
FaceLab, School of Psychology, University of Western Australia, Crawley, Australia.
J Vis. 2011 Jan 3;11(1):1. doi: 10.1167/11.1.1.
Face identity aftereffects suggest that an average face, which is continuously updated by experience, functions as a norm for coding identity. Sex-contingent figural face aftereffects indicate that different norms are maintained for male and female faces but do not directly implicate them in coding identity. Here, we investigated whether sex-specific norms are used to code the identities of male and female faces or whether a generic, androgynous norm is used for all faces. We measured identity aftereffects for adapt-test pairs that were opposite relative to a sex-specific average and pairs that were opposite relative to an androgynous average. Identity aftereffects are generally larger for adapt-test pairs that lie opposite an average face, which functions as a norm for coding identity, than those that do not. Therefore, we reasoned that whichever average gives the larger aftereffect would be closer to the true psychological norm. Aftereffects were substantially and significantly larger for pairs that lie opposite a sex-specific than an androgynous average. This difference remained significant after correcting for differences in test trajectory length. These results indicate that, despite the common structure shared by all faces, identity is coded using sex-specific norms. We suggest that the use of category-specific norms may increase coding efficiency and help us discriminate thousands of faces despite their similarity as patterns.
面部身份后效表明，一个由经验不断更新的平均脸，作为编码身份的一种规范发挥作用。性别相关的图形面部后效表明，男性和女性面部维持着不同的规范，但并未直接表明它们参与身份编码。在此，我们研究了是否使用特定性别的规范来编码男性和女性面部的身份，或者是否对所有面部都使用一种通用的、雌雄同体的规范。我们测量了相对于特定性别的平均脸相反的适应-测试对以及相对于雌雄同体的平均脸相反的适应-测试对的身份后效。通常，相对于作为身份编码规范的平均脸相反的适应-测试对，其身份后效比不相反的适应-测试对更大。因此，我们推断，产生更大后效的任何一种平均脸都更接近真正的心理规范。相对于雌雄同体的平均脸，相对于特定性别的平均脸相反的对的后效显著更大。在对测试轨迹长度的差异进行校正后，这种差异仍然显著。这些结果表明，尽管所有面部都具有共同的结构，但身份编码使用的是特定性别的规范。我们认为，使用特定类别的规范可能会提高编码效率，并帮助我们区分数千张面部，尽管它们作为图案具有相似性。
