A visual search advantage for illusory faces in objects.

Autor: Keys RT; School of Psychology, The University of Sydney, Camperdown, New South Wales, Australia. robert.tobin.keys@gmail.com.; Department of Cognitive Science, Macquarie University, Macquarie Park, New South Wales, Australia. robert.tobin.keys@gmail.com., Taubert J; School of Psychology, The University of Sydney, Camperdown, New South Wales, Australia.; Laboratory of Brain & Cognition, National Institute of Mental Health, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD, USA., Wardle SG; Department of Cognitive Science, Macquarie University, Macquarie Park, New South Wales, Australia.; Laboratory of Brain & Cognition, National Institute of Mental Health, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD, USA.
Jazyk: angličtina
Zdroj: Attention, perception & psychophysics [Atten Percept Psychophys] 2021 Jul; Vol. 83 (5), pp. 1942-1953. Date of Electronic Publication: 2021 Mar 25.
DOI: 10.3758/s13414-021-02267-4
Abstrakt: Face detection is a priority of both the human and primate visual system. However, occasionally we misperceive faces in inanimate objects -- "face pareidolia". A key feature of these 'false positives' is that face perception occurs in the absence of visual features typical of real faces. Human faces are known to be located faster than objects in visual search. Here we used a visual search paradigm to test whether illusory faces share this advantage. Search times were faster for illusory faces than for matched objects amongst both matched (Experiment 1) and diverse (Experiment 2) distractors, however search times for real human faces were faster and more efficient than objects with or without an illusory face. Importantly, this result indicates that illusory faces are processed quickly enough by the human brain to confer a visual search advantage, suggesting the engagement of a broadly-tuned mechanism that facilitates rapid face detection in cluttered environments.
Databáze: MEDLINE
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