Facial organization blocks access to low-level features: An object inferiority effect.

Abstract

The current study investigated the influence of a low-level local feature (curvature) and a high-level emergent feature (facial expression) on rapid search. These features distinguished the target from the distractors and were presented either alone or together. Stimuli were triplets of up and down arcs organized to form meaningless patterns or schematic faces. In the feature search, the target had the only down arc in the display. In the conjunction search, the target was a unique combination of up and down arcs. When triplets depicted faces, the target was also the only smiling face among frowning faces. The face-level feature facilitated the conjunction search but, surprisingly, slowed the feature search. These results demonstrated that an object inferiority effect could occur even when the emergent feature was useful in the search. Rapid search processes appear to operate only on high-level representations even when low-level features would be more efficient.

Repression of unconscious information by conscious processing: Evidence from affective blindsight induced by transcranial magnetic stimulation

“…3b Right). These results suggest that blindsight is exclusive for the expression signaled by the emoticon as a whole (24).…”

Differential attentional guidance by unattended faces expressing positive and negative emotion

“…In a recent study, Suzuki and Cavanagh (1995) compared visual search for a unique feature (e.g., down arc) when it was located in 6, 12, or 18 triplets of features (e.g., up arcs) arranged to form either faces or meaningless patterns. They found that visual search for the unique feature was less efficient, as was indicated by the slopes of the search functions, when the features were arranged to form faces.…”

“…Recent research indicates that relatively complex types of visual information, such as perceived surfaces (He & Nakayama, 1992), item structure (Wolfe, 1996), orientations of objects (Enns & Rensink, 1991), familiarity of objects (Wang, Cavanagh, & Green, 1994), changes to objects (Smilek, Eastwood, & Merikle, 2000), and the global representation of a face (Suzuki & Cavanagh, 1995), can play a functional role in guiding focal attention. It is unclear, however, whether or not emotional expressions are also perceived outside the focus of attention and play a functional role in guiding attention.…”

Guidance of Visual Search by Preattentive Information

“…If it takes longer to reject B's than it does to reject A's, then search for A among B will be slower than search for B among A. For example, it can be harder to search for a "smile" curve among frowns when the critical curved line is embedded in a schematic face (Suzuki and Cavanagh, 1995). This slowing of search does not have to do with the absence of a feature but with the particularities of processing facelike stimuli.…”