Properties of familiar face representations: Only contrast positive faces contain all information necessary for efficient recognition.

Wiese, Holger; Chan, Chelsea Y. X.; Tüttenberg, Simone C.

doi:10.1037/xlm0000665

Cited by 7 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 58 publications

(112 reference statements)

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“…Yet this difference at mid-latencies was absent in the beginning of the experiment and grew stronger at the end. It is interesting to note that such training effects on ERPs have also been reported in studies using familiar and unfamiliar faces, as described by Tanaka, Curran [87], Herzmann, Schweinberger [88] and more recently by Wiese, Chan [89]. This evolution of responses with experience suggests specifiable neural markers of memory encoding (although heard voices in the TV condition were not accompanied by any episodic memory of particular situations involving the speakers speakers and did not include any markers of emotional expression; [90]).…”

Section: Plos Onesupporting

confidence: 59%

The processing of intimately familiar and unfamiliar voices: Specific neural responses of speaker recognition and identification

2021

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Research has repeatedly shown that familiar and unfamiliar voices elicit different neural responses. But it has also been suggested that different neural correlates associate with the feeling of having heard a voice and knowing who the voice represents. The terminology used to designate these varying responses remains vague, creating a degree of confusion in the literature. Additionally, terms serving to designate tasks of voice discrimination, voice recognition, and speaker identification are often inconsistent creating further ambiguities. The present study used event-related potentials (ERPs) to clarify the difference between responses to 1) unknown voices, 2) trained-to-familiar voices as speech stimuli are repeatedly presented, and 3) intimately familiar voices. In an experiment, 13 participants listened to repeated utterances recorded from 12 speakers. Only one of the 12 voices was intimately familiar to a participant, whereas the remaining 11 voices were unfamiliar. The frequency of presentation of these 11 unfamiliar voices varied with only one being frequently presented (the trained-to-familiar voice). ERP analyses revealed different responses for intimately familiar and unfamiliar voices in two distinct time windows (P2 between 200–250 ms and a late positive component, LPC, between 450–850 ms post-onset) with late responses occurring only for intimately familiar voices. The LPC present sustained shifts, and short-time ERP components appear to reflect an early recognition stage. The trained voice equally elicited distinct responses, compared to rarely heard voices, but these occurred in a third time window (N250 between 300–350 ms post-onset). Overall, the timing of responses suggests that the processing of intimately familiar voices operates in two distinct steps of voice recognition, marked by a P2 on right centro-frontal sites, and speaker identification marked by an LPC component. The recognition of frequently heard voices entails an independent recognition process marked by a differential N250. Based on the present results and previous observations, it is proposed that there is a need to distinguish between processes of voice “recognition” and “identification”. The present study also specifies test conditions serving to reveal this distinction in neural responses, one of which bears on the length of speech stimuli given the late responses associated with voice identification.

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Section: Plos Onesupporting

confidence: 59%

The processing of intimately familiar and unfamiliar voices: Specific neural responses of speaker recognition and identification

2021

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“…It remains unclear, however, whether contrast negation impairs specific features or regions of the face. A commonality in all of our contrast-negated images is the presence of the eyes, and some evidence suggests the contrast polarity around the eye region plays an important role in processing familiar faces (e.g., Gilad et al, 2009;Sormaz et al, 2013; but see Wiese, Chan, & Tu¨ttenberg, 2018). Taken together, these studies suggest contrast negation might have impaired pattern processing and utility of surface reflectance cues in our study (perhaps due to contrast polarity reversal in the eye region) and highlight that recognition of contrast-positive faces do not rely on iso-dimension ratios.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 94%

Recognition of Deformed Familiar Faces: Contrast Negation and Nonglobal Stretching

Sandford

Rego

2019

Perception

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Familiar face recognition is robust to subtle and drastic changes in appearance. Knowing which conditions harm our recognition highlights underlying processes that have prominent roles in face learning. Here, we focused on two image deformations that studies suggest independently harm recognition: contrast negation and stretching of top or bottom halves of a face orthogonal to the unstretched half (nonglobal stretching). Participants were asked to categorize self-reported familiar or unfamiliar faces presented in photographic positive and negative in a fully within-subjects design. In Experiments 1 and 2, recognition of contrast-positive faces was robust to global and nonglobal stretching, suggesting iso-dimension ratios do not have a role in familiar face recognition. However, performance was consistently impaired by contrast negation in all configurational conditions. Further reductions in categorization accuracy when top halves of contrast-negated faces are stretched suggest some limited role for configuration under these image conditions. In Experiment 3, presenting the top or bottom half of nonglobal stretch conditions suggested categorization of nonglobal stretch faces did not require perception of the whole face, in the research design reported here. These results highlight further limits to configurational accounts of face recognition and indicate a relatively important role for surface reflectance cues.

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“…Similarly, contrast chimeras—stimuli with positive eye regions in an otherwise negative face (see Figure 1)—are substantially easier to recognise than their fully negative counterparts (Fisher et al, 2016; Gilad et al, 2009; Sormaz et al, 2013; see also Wiese, Chan, & Tüttenberg, 2019). Again, this advantage has been explained by the restoration of the ordinal contrast relationship by contrast chimeras, which is disrupted by contrast negation (Gilad et al, 2009).…”

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confidence: 99%

The role of the eye region for familiar face recognition: Evidence from spatial low-pass filtering and contrast negation

Quinn

Wiese

2022

Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology

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What information is used for familiar face recognition? While previous research suggests a particular importance of the eye region, information from the rest of the face also needs to be integrated. What type of information is used in conjunction with the eyes is largely unclear. In three experiments, participants were asked to recognise so-called face chimeras, in which the eye region was not manipulated while the rest of the face was either presented in negative contrast (contrast chimeras) or low-pass filtered (blur chimeras). We show (i) that both chimeras are recognised substantially better than fully blurred faces, (ii) that the recognition advantage for blur chimeras is specific to the eye region but cannot be explained by cues available in this part of the face alone, and (iii) that a combination of negative contrast and blurring outside of the eye region eliminates the chimera advantage. We conclude that full-frequency but distorted surface reflectance cues (in contrast chimeras) or coarse shape information (in blur chimeras) can be used in combination with the eye region for effective face recognition. Our findings further suggest that the face recognition system can flexibly use both types of information, depending on availability.

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Properties of familiar face representations: Only contrast positive faces contain all information necessary for efficient recognition.

Cited by 7 publications

References 58 publications

The processing of intimately familiar and unfamiliar voices: Specific neural responses of speaker recognition and identification

The processing of intimately familiar and unfamiliar voices: Specific neural responses of speaker recognition and identification

Recognition of Deformed Familiar Faces: Contrast Negation and Nonglobal Stretching

The role of the eye region for familiar face recognition: Evidence from spatial low-pass filtering and contrast negation

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