The role of low spatial frequencies in holistic face processing
(2005)
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- Authors
- Supervisors
- Rossion, Bruno
- Abstract
- Faces are highly meaningful stimuli that provide us with a great variety of information for adaptive interaction with other people. Our ability to recognise faces is remarkably fast, accurate and long lasting. Despite extensive research, the exact nature of the processes underlying our remarkable ability to discriminate faces remains unclear. <BR> It is well documented that we perceive faces holistically, processing the face stimulus as a whole unit where all the cues in the face are interconnected. The aim of this study was to investigate the claim that holistic perception of faces is based on the early extraction of low level visual cues conveyed by the low spatial frequencies (LSFs) of the face stimulus. Using the composite effect, a classic paradigm illustrating the holistic processing of faces, this study demonstrated that the composite affect is larger for faces containing purely LSF information than for MSF, HSF or full spectrum faces. A second control experiment, in which the composite faces were inverted, was performed to ensure that this large composite effect seen in the case of LSF faces was due to holistic process rather than a general masking effect. It was found that inversion disrupted holistic processing and consequently the composite effect for the faces in all the SF bands, including LSF. <BR> The findings support the view that early spatial frequency filtering of visual information forms the basis for later stages in perceptual processing
- Affiliations
Citations
Ahmed, F. (2005). The role of low spatial frequencies in holistic face processing. https://hdl.handle.net/2078.5/112138