Lin Hai, Rizak Joshua D, Ma Yuan-ye, Yang Shang-chuan, Chen Lin, Hu Xin-tian
Key Laboratory of Animal Models and Human Disease Mechanisms, Kunming Institute of Zoology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Kunming, Yunnan, China.
Key Laboratory of Animal Models and Human Disease Mechanisms, Kunming Institute of Zoology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Kunming, Yunnan, China; University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China.
PLoS One. 2014 Mar 26;9(3):e93112. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0093112. eCollection 2014.
Face perception is integral to human perception system as it underlies social interactions. Saccadic eye movements are frequently made to bring interesting visual information, such as faces, onto the fovea for detailed processing. Just before eye movement onset, the processing of some basic features, such as the orientation, of an object improves at the saccade landing point. Interestingly, there is also evidence that indicates faces are processed in early visual processing stages similar to basic features. However, it is not known whether this early enhancement of processing includes face recognition. In this study, three experiments were performed to map the timing of face presentation to the beginning of the eye movement in order to evaluate pre-saccadic face recognition. Faces were found to be similarly processed as simple objects immediately prior to saccadic movements. Starting ∼ 120 ms before a saccade to a target face, independent of whether or not the face was surrounded by other faces, the face recognition gradually improved and the critical spacing of the crowding decreased as saccade onset was approaching. These results suggest that an upcoming saccade prepares the visual system for new information about faces at the saccade landing site and may reduce the background in a crowd to target the intended face. This indicates an important role of pre-saccadic eye movement signals in human face recognition.
面部感知是人类感知系统不可或缺的一部分，因为它是社交互动的基础。人们频繁地进行眼球跳动，以便将诸如面部等有趣的视觉信息带到中央凹进行详细处理。就在眼球运动开始之前，物体的一些基本特征，如方向，在扫视着陆点的处理得到改善。有趣的是，也有证据表明面部在早期视觉处理阶段的处理方式与基本特征相似。然而，尚不清楚这种早期处理增强是否包括人脸识别。在本研究中，进行了三个实验，将面部呈现的时间与眼球运动开始的时间进行映射，以评估扫视前的人脸识别。结果发现，在眼球跳动之前，面部与简单物体的处理方式相似。在向目标面部进行扫视之前约120毫秒开始，无论该面部是否被其他面部包围，随着扫视开始的临近，人脸识别逐渐改善，拥挤的临界间距减小。这些结果表明，即将到来的扫视为视觉系统准备了关于扫视着陆点处面部的新信息，并可能减少人群中的背景以瞄准目标面部。这表明扫视前的眼球运动信号在人脸识别中起着重要作用。
