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Humans can readily and effortlessly learn new faces encountered in the social environment. As a face transitions from unfamiliar to familiar, the ability to generalize across different images of th...

People are increasingly accessing their own laboratory (lab) results online. However, Canadians may be expected to use different systems to access their results, depending upon where they are tested (e.g., community lab vs. hospital), and these results may be displayed differently. This study examined the extent to which participants without medical expertise (N = 25) made errors identifying lab results (i.e., missing or mis-identifying abnormal results) in a mock report. Six participants overlooked each of the flagged values, 20 participants missed an abnormal result that was not flagged, and 2 participants mis-identified a normal value as out of range. We describe potential causes of these errors and the implications for the design of consumer-facing lab results.

How does experience change the way we perceive the world? This Element explores the interaction between perception and experience by studying perceptual experts, people who specialize in recognizing objects such as birds, automobiles, dogs. It proposes perceptual expertise promotes a downward shift in object recognition where experts recognize objects in their domain of expertise at a more specific level than novices. To support this claim, it examines the recognition abilities and brain mechanisms of real-world experts. It discusses the acquisition of expertise by tracing the cognitive and neural changes that occur as a novice becomes an expert through training and experience. Next, it looks “under the hood” of expertise and examines the perceptual features that experts bring to bear to facilitate their fast, accurate, and specific recognition. The final section considers the future of human expertise as deep learning models and artificial intelligence compete with human experts in medical diagnosis.

Previous work suggests that subordinate-level object training improves exemplar-level perceptual discrimination over basic-level training. However, the extent to which visual fixation strategies and the use of visual features, such as color and spatial frequency (SF), change with improved discrimination was not previously known. In the current study, adults (n = 24) completed 6 days of training with 2 families of computer-generated novel objects. Participants were trained to identify one object family at the subordinate level and the other object family at the basic level. Before and after training, discrimination accuracy and visual fixations were measured for trained and untrained exemplars. To examine the impact of training on visual feature use, image color and SF were manipulated and tested before and after training. Discrimination accuracy increased for the object family trained at the subordinate-level, but not for the family trained at the basic level. This increase was seen for all image manipulations (color, SF) and generalized to untrained exemplars within the trained family. Both subordinate- and basic-level training increased average fixation duration and saccadic amplitude and decreased the number of total fixations. Collectively, these results suggest a dissociation between discrimination accuracy, indicative of recognition, and the associated pattern of changes present for visual fixations.

Human adults are more accurate at discriminating faces from their own race than faces from another race. This other-race effect (ORE) has been characterized as a reflection of face processing specialization arising from differential experience with own-race faces. We examined whether 3.5-month-old infants exhibit ORE using morphed faces on which adults had displayed a crossover ORE (i.e., Caucasians performed better on Caucasian faces and Asians performed better on Asian faces). In this experiment, Caucasian infants who had grown up in a predominantly Caucasian environment discriminated 100% Caucasian faces from 70% Caucasian/30% Asian morphed faces but failed to discriminate between the corresponding 100% Asian and 70% Asian/30% Caucasian faces. Thus, 3.5-month-olds exhibited evidence of ORE. These results indicate that at least by 3.5 months of age, infants have attained enough face processing expertise to process familiar-race faces in a different manner than unfamiliar-race faces.

While it has been established that expression perception is rapid, it is unclear whether early appraisal mechanisms invoke holistic perception. In the current study, we defined gist perception as the appraisal of a stimulus within a single glance (125 ms). We employed the expression composite task used previously by Tanaka and colleagues in a 2012 study, with several critical modifications: (i) we developed stimuli that eliminated contrast artifacts, (ii) we employed a masking technique to abolish low-level cues, and (iii) all the face stimuli were composite stimuli compared to mix of natural and composite stimuli previously used. Participants were shown a congruent (e.g. top: angry/ bottom: angry) or incongruent (e.g. top: angry/ bottom: happy) expression for 17, 50 or 250 ms and instructed to selectively attend to the cued expression depicted in the top (or bottom) half of the composite face and ignore the uncued portion. Compared to the isolated condition, a facilitation effect was found for congruent angry expressions, as well as an interference effect for incongruent happy and angry expressions at the shortest exposure duration of 17. Together these results provide evidence that the holistic gist perception of expression cannot be overridden by selective attention.

Perceptual expertise is marked by subordinate-level recognition of objects in the expert domain. In this study, participants learned one family of full-color, artificial objects at the subordinate (species) level and another family at the basic (family) level. Discrimination of trained and untrained exemplars was tested before and after training across several image manipulations [full-color, grayscale, low spatial frequency (LSF) and high spatial frequency (HSF)] while event-related potentials (ERPs) were recorded. Regardless of image manipulation, discrimination (indexed by d') of trained and of untrained exemplars was enhanced after subordinate-level training, but not after basic-level training. Enhanced discrimination after subordinate-level training generalized to untrained exemplars and to grayscale images and images in which LSF or HSF information was removed. After training, the N170 and N250, recorded over occipital and occipitotemporal brain regions, were both more enhanced after subordinate-level training than after basic-level training. However, the topographic distribution of enhanced responses differed across components. The N170 latency predicted reaction time after both basic-level training and subordinate-level training, highlighting an association between behavioral and neural responses. These findings further elucidate the role of the N170 and N250 as ERP indices of subordinate-level expert object processing and demonstrate how low-level manipulations of color and spatial frequency impact behavior and the N170 and N250 components independent of training or expertise.

A growing body of literature suggests that human individuals differ in their ability to process face identity. These findings mainly stem from explicit behavioral tasks, such as the Cambridge Face Memory Test (CFMT). However, it remains an open question whether such individual differences can be found in the absence of an explicit face identity task and when faces have to be individualized at a single glance. In the current study, we tested 49 participants with a recently developed fast periodic visual stimulation (FPVS) paradigm [Liu-Shuang, J., Norcia, A. M., & Rossion, B. An objective index of individual face discrimination in the right occipitotemporal cortex by means of fast periodic oddball stimulation. Neuropsychologia, 52, 57–72, 2014] in EEG to rapidly, objectively, and implicitly quantify face identity processing. In the FPVS paradigm, one face identity (A) was presented at the frequency of 6 Hz, allowing only one gaze fixation, with different face identities (B, C, D) presented every fifth face (1.2 Hz; i.e., AAAABAAAACAAAAD…). Results showed a face individuation response at 1.2 Hz and its harmonics, peaking over occipitotemporal locations. The magnitude of this response showed high reliability across different recording sequences and was significant in all but two participants, with the magnitude and lateralization differing widely across participants. There was a modest but significant correlation between the individuation response amplitude and the performance of the behavioral CFMT task, despite the fact that CFMT and FPVS measured different aspects of face identity processing. Taken together, the current study highlights the FPVS approach as a promising means for studying individual differences in face identity processing.

Previous studies have focused on the modulatory effects of face familiarity on different components of an event-related potential (ERP), but there is controversy in the literature regarding the precise component that reflects the process of identity recognition. This may be partly explained by limits to this waveform analysis approach, as waveforms elicited by the presentation of a face are likely to reflect a variety of different cognitive processes that overlap in time. Using fast periodic visual stimulation and EEG (FPVS-EEG), we directly measured the electrophysiological response reflecting identity-specific recognition after isolating it from responses attributable to low-level visual processing and face-selective processes that are not identity-specific. The observed response therefore provides a robust and objective measure of the recognition of a personally familiar face generated bilaterally in the occipito-temporal region. We tested the magnitude of this identity-specific response to three categories of familiarity: the own-face (high familiarity), a friend's face (moderate familiarity), and a stranger's face (no familiarity). We found the largest response to the participant's own-face, followed by an intermediate response to a highly personally familiar face, and the smallest response to an unfamiliar face. An additional response was observed over the posterior cortical midline for familiar faces only, consistent with theories that familiar identity recognition also triggers post-perceptual semantic processing.

Although there is empricial support for the old adage that "we never forget a face" (Journal of Experimental Psychology: General 104 (1975) 54-75), the cognitive processes responsible for our long-term face memories are not well understood. By manipulating the upright and inverted orientation of faces during encoding and retrieval, we investigated the influence of holistic processing on our ability to recognize faces stored in long-term memory. In Experiment 1, participants were trained to identify 12 novel upright faces (six male, six female) by name (e.g., "Joe," "Sue") to a criterion of 100% accuracy. Following learning, holistic memory for the upright and inverted faces was tested using the parts/wholes face recognition task. Different groups of participants were tested either immediately, one week, or two weeks after learning. A significant holistic effect was found for faces tested in their original upright orientation that was stable over the immediate, one-week, and two-week testing periods. In contrast, recognition of the same faces when shown inverted was poor and showed no evidence of holistic processing. In Experiment 2, faces were learned in their inverted orientations with 100% accuracy and tested in their upright and inverted orientations. At the immediate, one-week, or two-week intervals, recognition of inverted faces was relatively poor and there was no evidence of holistic processing for faces tested either in inverted or upright orientations. Collectively, these results indicate holistic processing provides an efficient means for the encoding and retrieval of faces in long-term memory that are relatively stable with the passage of time.

Contains fulltext : 240642.pdf (Publisher’s version ) (Open Access) While motion information is important for the early stages of vision, it also contributes to later stages of object recognition. For example, human observers can detect the presence of a human, judge its actions, and judge its gender and identity simply based on motion cues conveyed in a point-light display. Here we examined whether object expertise enhances the observer's sensitivity to its characteristic movement. Bird experts and novices were shown point-light displays of upright and inverted birds in flight, or upright and inverted human walkers, and asked to discriminate them from spatially scrambled point-light displays of the same stimuli. While the spatially scrambled stimuli retained the local motion of each dot of the moving objects, it disrupted the global percept of the object in motion. To estimate a detection threshold in each object domain, we systematically varied the number of noise dots in which the stimuli were embedded using an adaptive staircase approach. Contrary to our predictions, the experts did not show disproportionately higher sensitivity to bird motion, and both groups showed no inversion cost. However, consistent with previous work showing a robust inversion effect for human motion, both groups were more sensitive to upright human walkers than their inverted counterparts. Thus, the result suggests that real-world experience in the bird domain has little to no influence on the sensitivity to bird motion and that birds do not show the typical inversion effect seen with humans and other terrestrial movement. 11 p.

It has been claimed that faces are recognized as a “whole” rather than by the recognition of individual parts. In a paper published in the Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology in 1993, Martha Farah and I attempted to operationalize the holistic claim using the part/whole task. In this task, participants studied a face and then their memory presented in isolation and in the whole face. Consistent with the holistic view, recognition of the part was superior when tested in the whole-face condition compared to when it was tested in isolation. The “whole face” or holistic advantage was not found for faces that were inverted, or scrambled, nor for non-face objects, suggesting that holistic encoding was specific to normal, intact faces. In this paper, we reflect on the part/whole paradigm and how it has contributed to our understanding of what it means to recognize a face as a “whole” stimulus. We describe the value of part/whole task for developing theories of holistic and non-holistic recognition of faces and objects. We discuss the research that has probed the neural substrates of holistic processing in healthy adults and people with prosopagnosia and autism. Finally, we examine how experience shapes holistic face recognition in children and recognition of own- and other-race faces in adults. The goal of this article is to summarize the research on the part/whole task and speculate on how it has informed our understanding of holistic face processing.

Summary Although a deadly form of skin cancer, melanoma is treatable if detected early. However, current rule-based training practices in melanoma detection are not effective. We assessed an innovative technique to train melanoma detection using the perceptual expertise principles. Participants in the training group were trained to categorize melanoma and benign lesions to 95% accuracy. Participants in the control group received no training. Prior to testing all participants reviewed the ABCDE rules. Training was evaluated by the pre and post tests using the Melanoma Detection Test where participants categorized images of melanoma and benign lesions. As compared to the control group, the training group showed significant improvement in melanoma detection and became less liberal (i.e., bias toward categorizing a lesion as melanoma), and both improvements maintained a week after the training. These findings indicate that perceptual expertise training is a promising approach to train melanoma detection.Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Early experience can change the way people process faces. Early deafness provides deaf children with the opportunity to learn sign language, which is likely to alter their face processing strategy. The goal of the current study was to investigate whether early deafness, combined with the sign language experience, was able to change the face processing strategy using the Dimensions Task. In the Face Dimensions Task, configural and featural information were parametrically and independently manipulated in the eye and mouth region of the face. The manipulations for configural information involved changing the distance between the eyes or the distance between the mouth and the nose. The manipulations for featural information involved changing the size of the eyes or the size of the mouth. Similar manipulations were applied in the House Dimensions Task, with top and bottom windows treated as eyes and mouth. In the Face Dimensions Task, both the signing deaf and hearing participants showed a larger inver...

Novices recognize objects at the basic-category level (e.g., dog, chair, and bird) at which identification is based on the global form of the objects (Rosch, Mervis, Gray, Johnson, & Boyes-Braem, 1976). In contrast, experts recognize objects within their domain of expertise at the subordinate level (e.g., Sparrow or Finch) for which the internal object information may play an important role in identification (Tanaka & Taylor, 1991). To investigate whether expert recognition relies on internal object information, we band-pass filtered bird images over a range of spatial frequencies (SF) and then masked the filtered image to preserve its global form. In Experiment 1, bird experts categorized common birds at the family level (e.g., Robin or Sparrow) more quickly and more accurately than novices. Both experts and novices were more accurate when bird images contained the internal information represented by a middle range of SFs, and this finding was characterized by a quadratic function in which accuracy decreased toward each end of the SF spectrum. However, the experts, but not the novices, showed a similar quadratic relationship between response times and SF range. In Experiment 2, experts categorized Warblers and Finches at the more specific, species level (e.g., Wilson's Warbler or House Finch). Recognition was again fastest and most accurate for images filtered in the middle range of SFs. Collectively, these results indicate that a midrange of SFs contain crucial information for subordinate recognition, and that extensive perceptual experience can influence the efficiency with which this information is utilized. (PsycINFO Database Record.

Many medical professions require practitioners to perform visual categorizations in domains such as radiology, dermatology, and neurology. However, acquiring visual expertise is tedious and time-consuming and the perceptual strategies mediating visual categorization skills are poorly understood. In this paper, the Ease algorithm was developed to predict an item’s categorization difficulty (Ease value) based on the item’s perceptual similarity to all within-category items versus between-category items in the dataset. In this study, Ease values were used to construct an easy-to-hard and hard-to-easy training schedule for teaching melanoma diagnosis. Whereas previous visual training studies suggest that an easy-to-hard schedule benefits learning outcomes, no studies to date have demonstrated the easy-to-hard advantage with complex, real-world images. In our study, 237 melanoma and benign images were collected for training and testing purposes. The diagnostic accuracy of images was verified by an expert dermatologist. Based on their Ease values, the items were grouped into easy, medium, and hard categories, each containing an equal number of melanoma and benign lesions. During training, participants categorized images of skin lesions as either benign or melanoma and were given corrective feedback after each trial. In the easy-to-hard training condition, participants learned to categorize all the easy items first, followed by the medium items, and finally the hard items. Participants in the hard-to-easy training condition learned items in the reverse order. Post-training results showed that training in both conditions transferred to the classification of new melanoma and benign images. Participants in the easy-to-hard condition showed modest advantages both in the acquisition and retention of the melanoma diagnosis skills, but neither scheduling condition exhibited a gross advantage. The Ease values of the items predicted categorization accuracy after, but not before training, suggesting that the Ease algorithm is a promising tool for optimizing medical training in visual categorization. Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (10.1186/s41235-018-0131-6) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

The current study examined the role of color and spatial frequency on the early acquisition of perceptual expertise after one week of laboratory training with bird stimuli. Participants learned to categorize finches (or warblers) at the subordinate species level (e.g., purple finch) and categorize warblers (or finches) at the more general family level. Training images were presented in their natural colors across 6 sessions. Participants completed a subordinate level species matching task prior to training, one day after training and one week after training while event-related potentials (ERPs) were recorded. Bird images were presented in either their natural congruent color, incongruent color, grayscale, low spatial frequency (LSF8 cycles per image) or high spatial frequency (HSF8 cycles per image). Replicating previous training studies, performance benefited more from subordinate- than basic-level training. Before training, any color helped performance, but color congruence effects (congruentincongruent) only emerged after subordinate-level training. Spatial frequency manipulations did not interact with training. The N170 ERP component was sensitive to spatial frequency manipulations, but not color. N170 spatial frequency effects did not interact with training, and training effects generalized to all manipulations except the LSF images. Like performance, color congruence effects on the N250 were only observed after subordinate level training. These results are consistent with previous reports suggesting that effects of perceptual expertise training on performance are more clearly indexed by N250 than N170 effects. Taken together, our behavioral and ERP results show that color plays an important role in both low- and high- level visual processing, supporting surface-plus-edge-based theories for object processing and recognition.

The face-inversion effect is the finding that picture-plane inversion disproportionately impairs face recognition compared to object recognition and is now attributed to greater orientation-sensitivity of holistic processing for faces but not common objects. Yet, expert dog judges have showed similar recognition deficits for inverted dogs and inverted faces, suggesting that holistic processing is not specific to faces but to the expert recognition of perceptually similar objects. Although processing changes in expert object recognition have since been extensively documented, no other studies have observed the distinct recognition deficits for inverted objects-of-expertise that people as face experts show for faces. However, few studies have examined experts who recognize individual objects similar to how people recognize individual faces. Here we tested experts who recognize individual budgerigar birds. The effect of inversion on viewpoint-invariant budgerigar and face recognition was compared for experts and novices. Consistent with the face-inversion effect, novices showed recognition deficits for inverted faces but not for inverted budgerigars. By contrast, experts showed equal recognition deficits for inverted faces and budgerigars. The results are consistent with the hypothesis that processes underlying the face-inversion effect are specific to the expert individuation of perceptually similar objects.

Introduction to Special Issue "Face recognition: The effects of race, gender, age and species" James W. Tanaka Section I: Neural and computational approaches to own- and other-race face processing 1. Neural perspectives on the other-race effect Vaidehi Natu and Alice J. O'Toole 2. Us versus them: Understanding the process of race perception with event-related brain potentials Tiffany A. Ito and Keith B. Senholzi 3. Computational perspectives on the other-race effect Alice J. O'Toole and Vaidehi Natu 4. Developing race categories in infancy via Bayesian face recognition Benjamin Balas Section II: The development of own- and other-race biases in infants, children and adults 5. Development of own- and other-race biases Gizelle Anzures, Paul C. Quinn, Olivier Pascalis, Alan M. Slater and Kang Lee 6. Perceptual expertise and the plasticity of other-race face recognition James W. Tanaka, Bonnie Heptonstall and Simen Hagen Section III: Perceptual, cognitive, affective and pragmatic perspectives on the Other Race Effect 7. The contribution of shape and surface information in the other-race face effect Caroline Michel, Bruno Rossion, Isabelle Bulthoff, William G. Hayward and Quoc C. Vuong 8. The other-race effect: Holistic coding differences and beyond William G. Hayward, Kate Crookes and Gillian Rhodes 9. Culture and the facial expressions of emotions Rachael Jack 10. Can I see your passport please? Perceptual discrimination of own- and other-race faces Kyle J. Susa, Christian A. Meissner and Amy B. Ross Section IV: Beyond race: "Own versus Other" effects in other domains 11. Sex differences and the own-gender bias in face recognition: A meta-analytic review Agneta Herlitz and Johanna Loven 12. Aging faces in aging minds: A review on the own-age bias in face recognition Holger Wiese, Jessica Komes and Stefan R. Schweinberger 13. The own-species face bias across the lifespan Lisa S. Scott and Eswen Fava 14. Toward a synthetic model of own group biases in face memory Kurt Hugenberg, John Paul Wilson, Pirita E. See and Steven G. Young Coda Vicki Bruce

In the present study, we investigated face processing in individuals with self-reported Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD, n = 16) and typically developing control participants (n = 16) using behavioural and electrophysiological measures. As a measure of their face memory, we administered the Cambridge Face Memory Test to participants in the ASD group. The results showed that the scores of the ASD participants were reliably below the age- and gender-matched norms of neurotypical individuals. To measure brain responses to faces, we used the fast periodic visual stimulation method, presenting photographs of a same-identity face (i.e., base face) at a constant frequency of 6 Hz (F) interleaved with different-identity faces (i.e., the oddball faces) presented at 1.2 Hz. The 6 Hz presentation of the base face and 1.2 Hz presentation of the oddball face elicited periodic brain responses corresponding to face detection and face individuation processes, respectively. Participants viewed four blocks of upright faces and four blocks of inverted faces. The results showed an enhanced EEG response to upright base faces at 6 Hz frequency and its harmonics compared to inverted faces, and the response was most focal over medial occipital channels. An enhanced response was found to upright oddball faces at 1.2 Hz and its harmonics compared to the inverted faces, and the response was centred over occipito-temporal channels in the right hemisphere. Critically, no differences or interactions were found between the ASD and typically developing groups in the responses to either the 6 Hz base faces or the 1.2 oddball faces. These results suggest that in individuals with ASD, the earlier stage of face perception, as measured by the fast periodic visual stimulation paradigm, can be dissociated from the later memory stage of face processing, as assessed by the Cambridge Face Memory Test.

Using a composite-face paradigm, we examined the holistic processing induced by Asian faces, Caucasian faces, and monkey faces with human Asian participants in two experiments. In Experiment 1, participants were asked to judge whether the upper halves of two faces successively presented were the same or different. A composite-face effect was found for Asian faces and Caucasian faces, but not for monkey faces. In Experiment 2, participants were asked to judge whether the lower halves of the two faces successively presented were the same or different. A composite-face effect was found for monkey faces as well as for Asian faces and Caucasian faces. Collectively, these results reveal that own-species (i.e., own-race and other-race) faces engage holistic processing in both upper and lower halves of the face, but other-species (i.e., monkey) faces engage holistic processing only when participants are asked to match the lower halves of the face. The findings are discussed in the context of a region-based holistic processing account for the species-specific effect in face recognition.

Children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) show deficits in their ability to produce facial expressions. In this study, a group of children with ASD and IQ-matched, typically developing (TD) children were trained to produce "happy" and "angry" expressions with the FaceMaze computer game. FaceMaze uses an automated computer recognition system that analyzes the child's facial expression in real time. Before and after playing the Angry and Happy versions of FaceMaze, children posed "happy" and "angry" expressions. Naïve raters judged the post-FaceMaze "happy" and "angry" expressions of the ASD group as higher in quality than their pre-FaceMaze productions. Moreover, the post-game expressions of the ASD group were rated as equal in quality as the expressions of the TD group.

International audience; From the beginning of life, face and language processing are crucial for establishing social communication. Studies on the development of systems for processing faces and language have yielded such similarities as perceptual narrowing across both domains. In this article, we review several functions of human communication, and then describe how the tools used to accomplish those functions are modified by perceptual narrowing. We conclude that narrowing is common to all forms of social communication. We argue that during evolution, social communication engaged different perceptual and cognitive systems--face, facial expression, gesture, vocalization, sound, and oral language--that emerged at different times. These systems are interactive and linked to some extent. In this framework, narrowing can be viewed as a way infants adapt to their native social group.

Given that all faces share the same set of features-two eyes, a nose, and a mouth-that are arranged in similar configuration, recognition of a specific face must depend on our ability to discern subtle differences in its featural and configural properties. An enduring question in the face-processing literature is whether featural or configural information plays a larger role in the recognition process. To address this question, the face dimensions task was designed, in which the featural and configural properties in the upper (eye) and lower (mouth) regions of a face were parametrically and independently manipulated. In a same-different task, two faces were sequentially presented and tested in their upright or in their inverted orientation. Inversion disrupted the perception of featural size (Exp. 1), featural shape (Exp. 2), and configural changes in the mouth region, but it had relatively little effect on the discrimination of featural size and shape and configural differences in the eye region. Inversion had little effect on the perception of information in the top and bottom halves of houses (Exp. 3), suggesting that the lower-half impairment was specific to faces. Spatial cueing to the mouth region eliminated the inversion effect (Exp. 4), suggesting that participants have a bias to attend to the eye region of an inverted face. The collective findings from these experiments suggest that inversion does not differentially impair featural or configural face perceptions, but rather impairs the perception of information in the mouth region of the face.