Psalta Lilia, Andrews Timothy J
Department of Psychology and York Neuroimaging Centre, University of York, UK.
Perception. 2014;43(8):715-30. doi: 10.1068/p7755.
The Thatcher illusion provides a compelling example of the face inversion effect. However, the marked effect of inversion in the Thatcher illusion contrasts to other studies that report only a small effect of inversion on the recognition of facial expressions. To address this discrepancy, we compared the effects of inversion and thatcherization on the recognition of facial expressions. We found that inversion of normal faces caused only a small reduction in the recognition of facial expressions. In contrast, local inversion of facial features in upright thatcherized faces resulted in a much larger reduction in the recognition of facial expressions. Paradoxically, inversion of thatcherized faces caused a relative increase in the recognition of facial expressions. Together, these results suggest that different processes explain the effects of inversion on the recognition of facial expressions and on the perception of the Thatcher illusion. The grotesque perception of thatcherized images is based on a more orientation-sensitive representation of the face. In contrast, the recognition of facial expression is dependent on a more orientation-insensitive representation. A similar pattern of results was evident when only the mouth or eye region was visible. These findings demonstrate that a key component of the Thatcher illusion is to be found in orientation-specific encoding of the features of the face.
撒切尔错觉提供了一个令人信服的面部倒置效应的例子。然而，撒切尔错觉中明显的倒置效应与其他仅报告倒置对面部表情识别影响较小的研究形成对比。为了解决这一差异，我们比较了倒置和撒切尔化对面部表情识别的影响。我们发现，正常面孔的倒置仅导致面部表情识别略有下降。相比之下，直立的撒切尔化面孔中面部特征的局部倒置导致面部表情识别下降幅度更大。矛盾的是，撒切尔化面孔的倒置导致面部表情识别相对增加。总之，这些结果表明，不同的过程解释了倒置对面部表情识别和撒切尔错觉感知的影响。撒切尔化图像的怪异感知基于对面部更敏感于方向的表征。相比之下，面部表情的识别依赖于对方向不太敏感的表征。当仅可见嘴巴或眼睛区域时，也出现了类似的结果模式。这些发现表明，撒切尔错觉的一个关键组成部分在于面部特征的方向特异性编码。
