Omer Yael, Sapir Roni, Hatuka Yarin, Yovel Galit
School of Psychological Sciences, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel.
Perception. 2019 May;48(5):437-446. doi: 10.1177/0301006619838734. Epub 2019 Apr 2.
Faces convey very rich information that is critical for intact social interaction. To extract this information efficiently, faces should be easily detected from a complex visual scene. Here, we asked which features are critical for face detection. To answer this question, we presented non-face objects that generate a strong percept of a face (i.e., Pareidolia). One group of participants rated the faceness of this set of inanimate images. A second group rated the presence of a set of 12 local and global facial features. Regression analysis revealed that only the eyes or mouth significantly contributed to faceness scores. We further showed that removing eyes or mouth, but not teeth or ears, significantly reduced faceness scores. These findings show that face detection depends on specific facial features, the eyes and the mouth. This minimal information leads to over-generalization that generates false face percepts but assures that real faces are not missed.
面部传达着非常丰富的信息，这些信息对于完整的社交互动至关重要。为了有效地提取这些信息，面部应该能够在复杂的视觉场景中被轻松检测到。在此，我们探究了哪些特征对于面部检测至关重要。为了回答这个问题，我们展示了一些能产生强烈面部感知的非面部物体（即空想性错视）。一组参与者对面部特征的无生命图像进行了面部感评分。另一组参与者对一组12种局部和全局面部特征的存在情况进行了评分。回归分析显示，只有眼睛或嘴巴对面部感评分有显著贡献。我们进一步表明，去除眼睛或嘴巴，而不是牙齿或耳朵，会显著降低面部感评分。这些发现表明，面部检测取决于特定的面部特征，即眼睛和嘴巴。这种最少的信息会导致过度泛化，从而产生错误的面部感知，但能确保不会遗漏真实的面部。
