Hashemi Ali, Pachai Matthew V, Bennett Patrick J, Sekuler Allison B
Department of Psychology, Neuroscience & Behaviour, McMaster University, Hamilton, ON, Canada.
Department of Psychology, Neuroscience & Behaviour, McMaster University, Hamilton, ON, Canada; Department of Psychology, York University, Toronto, ON, Canada.
Vision Res. 2019 Apr;157:12-23. doi: 10.1016/j.visres.2018.02.006. Epub 2018 Mar 23.
Recent studies have shown that horizontal facial structure is important for face identification (Dakin and Watt, 2009; Goffaux and Dakin, 2010). Also, sensitivity to horizontal structure is associated with the size of the face inversion effect (Pachai et al., 2013). However, it is unclear how the N170 and N250, two components of visual event-related potentials ERPs that have been implicated in face perception, are modulated by oriented facial structure in an upright face identification task. Here, we recorded ERPs and behavioural accuracy from adult observers performing a 1-of-6 face identification task in conditions that parametrically manipulated the orientation structure of upright faces. Faces were filtered with ideal orientation filters centred on either 0 (horizontal) or 90 deg (vertical). Filter bandwidth was varied across conditions from ±45 to ±90 deg in steps of ±9 deg. As has been reported previously, response accuracy was significantly higher for faces that contained horizontal structure than vertical structure, and the horizontal-vertical difference was correlated with accuracy for unfiltered faces. In addition, the N170 and N250 were affected by the manipulation of horizontal facial structure. Furthermore, for the N250, but not the N170, the relative sensitivity to horizontal compared to vertical facial structure was significantly correlated with identification accuracy for unfiltered faces. We suggest that in a face identification task, the N250 but not the N170 is modulated by the amount of diagnostic information conveyed by horizontal structure.
最近的研究表明，面部水平结构对人脸识别很重要（达金和瓦特，2009年；戈福和达金，2010年）。此外，对水平结构的敏感性与面部倒置效应的大小有关（帕柴等人，2013年）。然而，尚不清楚视觉事件相关电位（ERP）的两个成分N170和N250在正立人脸识别任务中是如何受到面部定向结构调制的，这两个成分与面部感知有关。在这里，我们记录了成年观察者在参数化操纵正立面部定向结构的条件下执行六选一的人脸识别任务时的ERP和行为准确性。面部用中心为0（水平）或90度（垂直）的理想定向滤波器进行滤波。滤波器带宽在不同条件下从±45度到±90度以±9度的步长变化。如先前报道，包含水平结构的面部的反应准确性显著高于垂直结构的面部，并且水平与垂直的差异与未滤波面部的准确性相关。此外，N170和N250受到面部水平结构操纵的影响。此外，对于N250而非N170，与垂直面部结构相比，对水平面部结构的相对敏感性与未滤波面部的识别准确性显著相关。我们认为，在人脸识别任务中，N250而非N170受到水平结构所传达的诊断信息量的调制。
