Utz Sandra, Carbon Claus-Christian
Department of General Psychology and Methodology, University of Bamberg, Bamberg, Germany.
Bamberg Graduate School of Affective and Cognitive Sciences (BaGrACS), Bamberg, Germany.
PLoS One. 2016 Oct 24;11(10):e0163933. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0163933. eCollection 2016.
Thompson (1980) first detected and described the Thatcher Illusion, where participants instantly perceive an upright face with inverted eyes and mouth as grotesque, but fail to do so when the same face is inverted. One prominent but controversial explanation is that the processing of configural information is disrupted in inverted faces. Studies investigating the Thatcher Illusion either used famous faces or non-famous faces. Highly familiar faces were often thought to be processed in a pronounced configural mode, so they seem ideal candidates to be tested in one Thatcher study against unfamiliar faces-but this has never been addressed so far. In our study, participants evaluated 16 famous and 16 non-famous faces for their grotesqueness. We tested whether familiarity (famous/non-famous faces) modulates reaction times, correctness of grotesqueness assessments (accuracy), and eye movement patterns for the factors orientation (upright/inverted) and Thatcherisation (Thatcherised/non-Thatcherised). On a behavioural level, familiarity effects were only observable via face inversion (higher accuracy and sensitivity for famous compared to non-famous faces) but not via Thatcherisation. Regarding eye movements, however, Thatcherisation influenced the scanning of famous and non-famous faces, for instance, in scanning the mouth region of the presented faces (higher number, duration and dwell time of fixations for famous compared to non-famous faces if Thatcherised). Altogether, famous faces seem to be processed in a more elaborate, more expertise-based way than non-famous faces, whereas non-famous, inverted faces seem to cause difficulties in accurate and sensitive processing. Results are further discussed in the face of existing studies of familiar vs. unfamiliar face processing.
汤普森（1980年）首次发现并描述了撒切尔错觉，即参与者会立刻将眼睛和嘴巴倒置的正脸视为怪异的，但当同一张脸倒置时却不会这样认为。一种突出但有争议的解释是，倒置面孔中构型信息的处理受到了干扰。研究撒切尔错觉的实验要么使用名人面孔，要么使用非名人面孔。人们通常认为，高度熟悉的面孔是以一种显著的构型模式进行处理的，所以在一项撒切尔错觉研究中，它们似乎是与不熟悉面孔进行对比测试的理想对象——但迄今为止这一点从未得到过探讨。在我们的研究中，参与者对16张名人面孔和16张非名人面孔的怪异程度进行了评估。我们测试了熟悉度（名人/非名人面孔）是否会调节反应时间、怪异程度评估的正确性（准确性）以及针对面孔方向（正立/倒置）和撒切尔化（撒切尔化/非撒切尔化）因素的眼动模式。在行为层面上，熟悉度效应仅通过面孔倒置才能观察到（与非名人面孔相比，名人面孔的准确性和敏感度更高），而通过撒切尔化则观察不到。然而，关于眼动，撒切尔化影响了名人面孔和非名人面孔的扫描，例如，在扫描呈现面孔的嘴巴区域时（如果面孔进行了撒切尔化处理，与非名人面孔相比，名人面孔的注视次数、持续时间和停留时间更多）。总体而言，名人面孔似乎比非名人面孔以更精细、更基于专业知识的方式进行处理，而非名人的倒置面孔似乎在准确和敏感处理方面会造成困难。我们将结合现有的熟悉面孔与不熟悉面孔处理研究，对结果进行进一步讨论。
