Balas Benjamin, Saville Alyson
Psychology Department, Center for Visual and Cognitive Neuroscience, North Dakota State University, Fargo, ND 58102, United States.
Psychology Department, Center for Visual and Cognitive Neuroscience, North Dakota State University, Fargo, ND 58102, United States.
Neuropsychologia. 2015 Mar;69:211-7. doi: 10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2015.02.005. Epub 2015 Feb 7.
Face recognition depends on visual experience in a number of different ways. Infrequent exposure to faces belonging to categories defined by species, age, or race can lead to diminished memory for and discrimination between members of those categories relative to faces belonging to categories that dominate an observer's environment. Early visual impairment can also have long-lasting and broad effects on face discrimination - just a few months of visual impairment due to congenital cataracts can lead to diminished discrimination between faces that differ in their configuration, for example (Le Grand et al., 2001). Presently, we consider a novel aspect of visual experience that may impact face recognition: The approximate amount of different faces observers encountered during their childhood. We recruited undergraduate observers from small (500-1000 individuals) and large communities (30,000-100,000 individuals) and asked them to complete a standard face memory test and a basic ERP paradigm designed to elicit a robust N170 response, including the classic face inversion effect. We predicted that growing up in a small community might lead to diminished face memory and an N170 response that was less specific to faces. These predictions were confirmed, suggesting that the sheer number of faces one can interact with during their upbringing shapes their behavioral abilities and the functional architecture of face processing in the brain.
人脸识别在许多不同方面依赖于视觉体验。不经常接触由物种、年龄或种族定义的类别中的面孔，相对于那些在观察者环境中占主导地位的类别中的面孔，可能会导致对这些类别成员的记忆减退和辨别能力下降。早期视觉损伤也可能对面孔辨别产生长期而广泛的影响——例如，仅仅几个月的先天性白内障导致的视觉损伤就可能导致对构型不同的面孔之间的辨别能力下降（勒格朗等人，2001年）。目前，我们考虑视觉体验的一个可能影响人脸识别的新方面：观察者在童年时期遇到的不同面孔的大致数量。我们从小社区（500 - 1000人）和大社区（30000 - 100000人）招募了本科观察者，并要求他们完成一项标准的面孔记忆测试和一个旨在引发强烈N170反应的基本ERP范式，包括经典的面孔倒置效应。我们预测，在小社区长大可能会导致面孔记忆减退以及对面孔特异性较低的N170反应。这些预测得到了证实，表明一个人在成长过程中能够与之互动的面孔数量塑造了他们的行为能力以及大脑中面孔处理的功能结构。
