Dennett Hugh W, Edwards Mark, McKone Elinor
Department of Psychology, Australian National University, Canberra, Australia.
J Vis. 2012 Oct 17;12(11):11. doi: 10.1167/12.11.11.
Face aftereffects are commonly used to investigate the mechanisms underlying face processing, based on the assumption that they tap processes involved specifically with face-level coding (e.g., face space). However, face aftereffects could potentially arise from many levels of the visual system, and recent research has shown that one figural aftereffect (eye height) has both face-level and shape-generic components. Another very widely used figural manipulation is global face distortion. Here we investigate whether a global face distortion aftereffect (vertical compression) transfers to nonface stimuli, and if so, to what extent. Arguing for a mid- or high-level shape-generic component to our face aftereffect, we found significant face-to-object transfer even after minimizing retinotopic components. Arguing for an additional face-specific component, we found, first, that face-to-face aftereffects were significantly larger than face-to-object aftereffects and second, that this occurred only when the adaptor face was whole and intact rather than scrambled. Our results argue that global face distortion aftereffects are a useful tool for investigating face-space but that, to do so unambiguously, requires developing methods to minimize or account for the shape-generic contribution.
面部后效通常用于研究面部处理背后的机制，其依据的假设是，它们利用了专门与面部层级编码（如面部空间）相关的过程。然而，面部后效可能潜在地源于视觉系统的多个层级，并且最近的研究表明，一种图形后效（眼睛高度）同时具有面部层级和形状通用成分。另一种广泛使用的图形操作是整体面部变形。在此，我们研究整体面部变形后效（垂直压缩）是否会转移到非面部刺激上，如果会，转移程度如何。为我们的面部后效中存在中级或高级形状通用成分提供证据的是，即使在最小化视网膜拓扑成分之后，我们仍发现了显著的从面部到物体的转移。为存在额外的面部特定成分提供证据的是，首先，我们发现从面部到面部的后效显著大于从面部到物体的后效；其次，这种情况仅在适应面部是完整无损而非打乱的情况下才会出现。我们的研究结果表明，整体面部变形后效是研究面部空间的一个有用工具，但要做到明确无误，需要开发方法来最小化或考虑形状通用的贡献。
