Brielmann Aenne A, Bülthoff Isabelle, Armann Regine
Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics, Spemannstrasse 38, 72076 Tübingen, Germany.
Vision Res. 2014 Jul;100:105-12. doi: 10.1016/j.visres.2014.04.011. Epub 2014 May 4.
Race categorization of faces is a fast and automatic process and is known to affect further face processing profoundly and at earliest stages. Whether processing of own- and other-race faces might rely on different facial cues, as indicated by diverging viewing behavior, is much under debate. We therefore aimed to investigate two open questions in our study: (1) Do observers consider information from distinct facial features informative for race categorization or do they prefer to gain global face information by fixating the geometrical center of the face? (2) Does the fixation pattern, or, if facial features are considered relevant, do these features differ between own- and other-race faces? We used eye tracking to test where European observers look when viewing Asian and Caucasian faces in a race categorization task. Importantly, in order to disentangle centrally located fixations from those towards individual facial features, we presented faces in frontal, half-profile and profile views. We found that observers showed no general bias towards looking at the geometrical center of faces, but rather directed their first fixations towards distinct facial features, regardless of face race. However, participants looked at the eyes more often in Caucasian faces than in Asian faces, and there were significantly more fixations to the nose for Asian compared to Caucasian faces. Thus, observers rely on information from distinct facial features rather than facial information gained by centrally fixating the face. To what extent specific features are looked at is determined by the face's race.
对面孔进行种族分类是一个快速且自动的过程，并且已知它会在最早阶段就深刻影响后续的面孔处理。正如不同的观看行为所表明的那样，对自己种族和其他种族面孔的处理是否可能依赖于不同的面部线索，这一点存在很多争议。因此，我们旨在研究我们研究中的两个开放性问题：（1）观察者是认为来自不同面部特征的信息对种族分类有帮助，还是更喜欢通过注视面孔的几何中心来获取整体面孔信息？（2）注视模式，或者说，如果面部特征被认为是相关的，那么这些特征在自己种族和其他种族面孔之间是否存在差异？我们使用眼动追踪技术来测试欧洲观察者在种族分类任务中观看亚洲人和高加索人面孔时的注视位置。重要的是，为了区分集中在面部中心的注视和对单个面部特征的注视，我们以正面、半侧面和侧面视图呈现面孔。我们发现，观察者在注视面孔时并没有普遍偏向于看面孔的几何中心，而是将他们的首次注视指向不同的面部特征，无论面孔的种族如何。然而，与亚洲面孔相比，参与者在高加索人面孔上更多地注视眼睛，并且与高加索人面孔相比，亚洲面孔上对鼻子的注视明显更多。因此，观察者依赖于来自不同面部特征的信息，而不是通过集中注视面孔获得的面部信息。对特定特征的注视程度取决于面孔的种族。
