The orientation selectivity of face identification

• DOI: 10.1038/srep34204
• Publication Date: 2016-09-28T10:11:02Z
• Authors: Valerie Goffaux; John A. Greenwood
• Keywords: PERCEPTION; EMOTION RECOGNITION; UNFAMILIAR FACES; Perceptionl; INFORMATION; FEATURES; 05 social sciences; FUNCTIONAL ARCHITECTURE; VERTICAL RELATIONS; Article; 03 medical and health sciences; 0302 clinical medicine; 13. Climate action; Human behaviour; Sensory processing; INVERSION; 0501 psychology and cognitive sciences; Object vision; SENSITIVITY; 10. No inequality; RECEPTIVE-FIELDS

Abstract Recent work demonstrates that human face identification is most efficient when based on horizontal, rather than vertical, image structure. Because it unclear how this specialization for upright (compared to inverted) processing emerges in the visual system, present study aimed systematically characterize orientation sensitivity profile identification. With faces, performance a delayed match-to-sample task was highest horizontally filtered images and declined sharply with oblique vertically images. Performance well described by Gaussian function standard deviation around 25°. Face inversion reshaped dramatically, downward shift of entire tuning curve as reduction amplitude horizontal peak doubling bandwidth. The use naturalistic outer contours (vs. common outline mask) also found reshape increasing information near-horizontal range. Altogether, although tuned angles, both masking can profoundly profile. This combination image- observer-driven effects provides an insight into functional relationship between orientation-selective processes within primary high-level stages brain.