Holistic face perception in young and older adults: effects of feedback and attentional demand

Abstract

Evidence exists for age-related decline in face cognition ability. However, the extents to which attentional demand and flexibility to adapt viewing strategies contribute to age-related decline in face cognition tests is poorly understood. Here, we studied holistic face perception in older (age range 65–78 years, mean age 69.9) and young adults (age range 20–32 years, mean age 23.1) using the complete design for a sequential study-test composite face task (Richler et al., 2008b). Attentional demand was varied using trials that required participants to attend to both face halves and to redirect attention to one face half during the test (high attentional demand), and trials that allowed participants to keep a pre-adjusted focus (low attentional demand). We also varied viewing time and provided trial-by-trial feedback or no feedback. We observed strong composite effects, which were larger for the elderly in all conditions, independent of viewing time. Composite effects were smaller for low attentional demand, and larger for high attentional demand. No age-related differences were found in this respect. Feedback also reduced the composite effects in both age groups. Young adults could benefit from feedback in conditions with low and high attentional demands. Older adults performed better with feedback only in trials with low attentional demand. When attentional demand was high, older adults could no longer use the feedback signal, and performed worse with feedback than without. These findings suggest that older adults tend to use a global focus for faces, albeit piecemeal analysis is required for the task, and have difficulties adapting their viewing strategies when task demands are high. These results are consistent with the idea that elderly rely more on holistic strategies as a means to reduce perceptual and cognitive load when processing resources are limited (Konar et al., 2013).

Faces elicit different scanning patterns depending on task demands

“…While the scanning patterns recorded in Experiment 1 are consistent with evidence that the eyes play a dominant role in face identification (e.g., McKelvie, 1976;Fraser, Craig, & Parker, 1990;Haig, 1985Haig, , 1986Tanaka & Farah, 1993;Walker-Smith, 1978), those recorded in Experiment 2 indicate that this is not the only route by which faces can be efficiently processed. This finding is consistent with behavioral studies demonstrating that task requirements can influence the manner in which faces are analyzed (Gao et al, 2011;Meinhardt-Injac, Persike, & Meinhardt, 2014). …”

The sensitivity to replacement and displacement of the eyes region in early adolescence, young and later adulthood

“…Middle-age adults were strongly biased toward “same” responses, while young adults and adolescents had no global response preference. A global bias toward “same” responses was also reported for older subjects in the age range of 65–78 years for the composite face task (Meinhardt-Injac et al, 2014a ). This indicates that the most frequent error of older adults in face comparisons is overlooking the difference.…”

“…Roudaia et al ( 2008 ) studied contour integration performance and obtained results which suggest that aging is accompanied by a loss in elementary local grouping mechanisms. While there is increasing evidence that the general holistic nature of face perception is maintained at mature ages (Konar et al, 2013 ; Meinhardt-Injac et al, 2014b ), recent findings suggest that adapting viewing strategies aided by feedback, coping with increased attentional demand and flexible handling of diagnostic cues are affected by aging (Meinhardt-Injac et al, 2014a ).…”

Development of Holistic Face Processing From Childhood and Adolescence to Young Adulthood in Chinese Individuals

“…Interestingly, in the present study, face processing performance improved with age, particularly in the incongruent condition. Prior studies have indicated that the face processing performance of adults is considerably better than that of children (De Heering et al, 2007;Mondloch et al, 2007), and that of older adults (Meinhardt-Injac et al, 2014), especially in the incongruent condition. This is also consistent with prior indications that face processing performance develops with age (see Germine et al, 2011 for a review;McKone et al, 2012;Megreya and Bindemann, 2015) and with the general cognitive development theory of Crookes and Mckone (2009).…”