Eye and Brain Mapping Laboratory (iBMLab), Department of Psychology, University of Fribourg, Fribourg, Switzerland.
Faculty of Arts and Science, Kyushu University, Fukuoka, Japan.
J Vis. 2021 Nov 1;21(12):1. doi: 10.1167/jov.21.12.1.
The human visual system is very fast and efficient at extracting socially relevant information from faces. Visual studies employing foveated faces have consistently reported faster categorization by race response times for other-race compared with same-race faces. However, in everyday life we typically encounter faces outside the foveated visual field. In study 1, we explored whether and how race is categorized extrafoveally in same- and other-race faces normalized for low-level properties by tracking eye movements of Western Caucasian and East Asian observers in a saccadic response task. The results show that not only are people sensitive to race in faces presented outside of central vision, but the speed advantage in categorizing other-race faces occurs astonishingly quickly in as little as 200 ms. Critically, this visual categorization process was approximately 300 ms faster than the typical button press responses on centrally presented foveated faces. Study 2 investigated the genesis of the extrafoveal saccadic response speed advantage by comparing the influences of the response modality (button presses and saccadic responses), as well as the potential contribution of the impoverished low-spatial frequency spectrum characterizing extrafoveal visual information processing. Button press race categorization was not significantly faster with reconstructed retinal-filtered low spatial frequency faces, regardless of the visual field presentation. The speed of race categorization was significantly boosted only by extrafoveal saccades and not centrally foveated faces. Race is a potent, rapid, and effective visual signal transmitted by faces used for the categorization of ingroup/outgroup members. This fast universal visual categorization can occur outside central vision, igniting a cascade of social processes.
人类视觉系统非常擅长从面部快速有效地提取与社会相关的信息。采用注视点面部的视觉研究一致报告，与同种族面孔相比，其他种族面孔的种族分类反应时间更快。然而，在日常生活中，我们通常会遇到视野之外的面孔。在研究 1 中，我们通过跟踪西方白人和东亚观察者在扫视反应任务中的眼球运动，探索了种族是否以及如何在低水平特征归一化的同种族和异族面孔中进行场外分类。结果表明，人们不仅对外侧视觉呈现的面孔敏感，而且在 200 毫秒内，对异族面孔进行分类的速度优势惊人地快。至关重要的是，这个视觉分类过程比中央呈现的注视点面孔上典型的按钮按下反应快约 300 毫秒。研究 2 通过比较反应方式（按钮按下和扫视反应）的影响，以及表征场外视觉信息处理的低空间频率谱的潜在贡献，研究了场外扫视反应速度优势的起源。无论视觉场呈现如何，使用重建视网膜滤波的低空间频率面孔进行按钮按下种族分类并不明显更快。只有场外扫视才能显著提高种族分类的速度，而不是中央注视点面孔。种族是一种强大、快速且有效的视觉信号，通过面孔传递，用于对同组/异组成员进行分类。这种快速的通用视觉分类可以发生在中央视觉之外，引发一连串的社会过程。
