State Key Laboratory of Brain and Cognitive Science, Institute of Biophysics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100101, China.
University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100049, China.
Neurosci Bull. 2021 Nov;37(11):1583-1594. doi: 10.1007/s12264-021-00738-0. Epub 2021 Jun 25.
It is widely acknowledged that holistic processing is a key characteristic of face perception. Although holistic processing implies the automatic integration of face parts, it is unclear whether such processing requires the awareness of face parts. Here, we investigated the interactions between visible face parts and face parts rendered invisible using continuous flash suppression (CFS). In the first experiment with the upper half-face visible and the lower half-face invisible, the results showed that perceived face identity was influenced by the invisible lower half-face, suggesting that integration occurs between the visible and invisible face parts, a variant of the "composite face effect". In the second experiment, we investigated the influence of visible face parts on the processing of invisible face parts, as measured by the time it took for the invisible parts to break out from CFS. The results showed a visible-to-invisible facilitation effect, that the aligned invisible face parts broke through CFS faster than when the visible and invisible face parts were misaligned. Visible eyes had a stronger influence on the invisible nose/mouth than the other way around. Such facilitation of processing from visible to invisible parts was also found when Chinese characters were used as stimuli. These results show that information integration occurs across the consciousness boundary.
人们普遍认为整体加工是面孔知觉的一个关键特征。尽管整体加工意味着对面部特征的自动整合，但目前尚不清楚这种加工是否需要对面部特征的意识。在这里，我们研究了使用连续闪光抑制（CFS）使可见的面部部分和不可见的面部部分呈现之间的相互作用。在第一个实验中，上半张脸可见，下半张脸不可见，结果表明，感知到的面孔身份受到不可见的下半张脸的影响，这表明可见和不可见的面部部分之间发生了整合，这是“复合面孔效应”的一种变体。在第二个实验中，我们通过测量不可见部分从 CFS 中突破所需的时间，研究了可见面部部分对不可见面部部分处理的影响。结果显示了可见到不可见的促进效应，即对齐的不可见面部部分比可见和不可见面部部分不对齐时更快地突破 CFS。可见的眼睛对不可见的鼻子/嘴的影响比对眼睛的影响更大。当使用汉字作为刺激时，也发现了从可见部分到不可见部分的这种加工促进作用。这些结果表明，信息整合发生在意识边界之外。
