Face perception: An integrative review of the role of spatial frequencies

Abstract

The aim of this article is to reinterpret the results obtained from the research analyzing the role played by spatial frequencies in face perception. Two main working lines have been explored in this body of research: (a) the critical bandwidth of spatial frequencies that allows face recognition to take place (the masking approach) and (b) the role played by different spatial frequencies while the visual percept is being developed (the microgenetic approach). However, results obtained to date are not satisfactory in that no single explanation accounts for all the data obtained from each of the approaches. We propose that the main factor for understanding the role of spatial frequencies in face perception depends on the interaction between the demands of the task and the information in the image (the diagnostic-recognition approach). Using this new framework, we review the most significant research carried out since the early 1970s to provide a reinterpretation of the data obtained. person/machine interfaces in the near future. The importance of this process has motivated the study of these underlying mechanisms for more than three decades. However, after so much effort, there is still no theory that offers a full explanation of all the results obtained.The research aimed at providing an explanation of the face-recognition process is basically focused on three approaches: cognitive, psychophysical and neurophysiological (see Table 1).The cognitive approach has tried to identify the variables that affect successful perceptual tasks (similarity of stimuli, observation time, level of processing, etc.) and to describe as far as possible the different stages in the process in order to generate a high-level symbolic explanatory model

How Spatial Frequencies and Visual Awareness Interact During Face Processing

“…Second, when we analyzed the relation between priming and visibility, we observed that effects of HSF and full-band information correlated with we consistently found that HSF information was more available for conscious report than LSF information, especially for longer durations. These psychological results, along with additional neurobiological evidence (e.g., Livingstone & Hubel, 1988) for faster transmission of LSF cues in the magnocellular than in the parvocellular pathway, provide support for the influential coarse-to-fine model of face, object, and scene recognition (for reviews, see Ruiz-Soler &Beltran, 2006, andHegdé, 2008). A similar model (Bar et al, 2006) has also proposed that LSF information is projected quickly and automatically to the orbitofrontal cortex, from where it triggers top-down modulation of the slow-and-conscious bottom-up analysis of HSF information.…”

The development of spatial frequency biases in face recognition

“…Another interpretation of this ''midband bias" is that it may enhance the integration of the coarse information provided by the LSFs and the more detailed information from the HSF band, thereby aiding identification. It is important to remember, however, that although the mid-band may be an optimal band that triggers the best performance, it does not seem to be a critical band for face recognition (Ruiz-Soler & Beltran, 2006), as can be seen in studies demonstrating that both HSFs and LSFs are useful and sufficient for face recognition (e.g., Fiorentini, Maffei, & Sandini, 1983;Halit, de Haan, Schyns, & Johnson, 2006;Rotshtein, Vuilleumier, Winston, Driver, & Dolan, 2007;Vuilleumier, Armony, Driver, & Dolan, 2003). It seems likely that a more flexible diagnostic system, such as that described by Oliva (1994, 1999), could have developed the optimal ''strategy" for retrieving the most important information from a face stimulus to aid recognition.…”

Does face inversion change spatial frequency tuning?

“…High SFs represent the fine-grained information in a stimulus, such as the eyelashes or edges of the mouth, and low SFs convey coarse information, such as luminance blobs and blurred shapes (see Morrison &Ruiz-Soler &Beltran, 2006, for reviews). Several studies found that a narrow band of intermediate SFs centered between 7 and 16 cycles per face (cpf) width is particularly important for upright face recognition (e.g., Costen, Parker, & Craw, 1994, 1996Gold, Bennett, & Sekuler, 1999;Näsänen, 1999).…”