The importance of awareness in face processing: A critical review of interocular suppression studies

Lanfranco, Renzo C; Rabagliati, Hugh; Carmel, David

doi:10.1016/j.bbr.2022.114116

Cited by 14 publications

(23 citation statements)

References 145 publications

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“…Recent studies have suggested that the advantage of emotional over nonemotional expressions found with the bCFS procedure may have been due to low-level features like spatial frequency and contrast (Gelbard-Sagiv et al, 2016; Schlossmacher et al, 2017; Stein et al, 2018; for a review, see Lanfranco et al, 2023). It could be argued that the fact that we only controlled luminance and still did not find an advantage of emotional expressions suggests that low-level differences are not the only cause of previously reported effects.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…While unconscious processing of emotional expressions has been evaluated using a number of different experimental techniques, the most prominent evidence that such expressions enjoy preferential access to awareness has come from the bCFS paradigm (Lanfranco et al, 2023). In CFS, stimuli are masked by presenting them to only one eye, while a continuous stream of high-contrast Mondrian-like masks is shown to the other eye, dominating awareness.…”

Section: The Breaking Continuous Flash Suppression Paradigm: Inconsis...mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…For example, some unconscious emotional processing results have been attributed to processing of low-level features rather than emotional content (Gray et al, 2013; Stein et al, 2018), and findings of emotion processing under CFS have been inconsistent (e.g., Schlossmacher et al, 2017), precluding consensus on underlying mechanisms. We describe these issues in more detail below, and also address the different processes that might underlie responses in the main paradigm used to generate these data, the bCFS technique (for reviews, see Lanfranco et al, 2023; Stein, 2019). These considerations raise the question of which of the many processes that influence RTs in perceptual reports is affected by emotional expressions; elucidating this issue would constrain the conclusions that can be drawn from such studies.…”

Section: The Breaking Continuous Flash Suppression Paradigm: Inconsis...mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In parallel to this, a related set of concerns have been raised as to whether the findings of faster breakthrough are actually driven by face/emotion-specific processes, or rather by lower-level properties of the stimuli, which make masking less effective for some images (see Lanfranco et al, 2023; Pournaghdali & Schwartz, 2020; Stein, 2019). For example, Stein and Sterzer (2012) argued that suppression times were mainly affected by the relative curvature of features in a schematic face (e.g., between the mouth and face outline), rather than by its emotional expression.…”

Section: The Breaking Continuous Flash Suppression Paradigm: Inconsis...mentioning

confidence: 99%

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Assessing the influence of emotional expressions on perceptual sensitivity to faces overcoming interocular suppression.

Lanfranco¹,

Rabagliati²,

Carmel³

2023

Emotion

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Detecting faces and identifying their emotional expressions are essential for social interaction. The importance of expressions has prompted suggestions that some emotionally relevant facial features may be processed unconsciously, and it has been further suggested that this unconscious processing yields preferential access to awareness. Evidence for such preferential access has predominantly come from reaction times in the breaking continuous flash suppression (bCFS) paradigm, which measures how long it takes different stimuli to overcome interocular suppression. For instance, it has been claimed that fearful expressions break through suppression faster than neutral expressions. However, in the bCFS procedure, observers can decide how much information they receive before committing to a report, so although their responses may reflect differential detection sensitivity, they may also be influenced by differences in decision criteria, stimulus identification, and response production processes. Here, we employ a procedure that directly measures sensitivity for both face detection and identification of facial expressions, using predefined exposure durations. We apply diverse psychophysical approaches-forced-choice localization, presence/absence detection, and staircase-based threshold measurement; across six experiments, we find that emotional expressions do not alter detection sensitivity to faces as they break through CFS. Our findings constrain the possible mechanisms underlying previous findings: faster reporting of emotional expressions' breakthrough into awareness is unlikely to be due to the presence of emotion affecting perceptual sensitivity; the source of such effects is likely to reside in one of the many other processes that influence response times.

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Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: The Breaking Continuous Flash Suppression Paradigm: Inconsis...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: The Breaking Continuous Flash Suppression Paradigm: Inconsis...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: The Breaking Continuous Flash Suppression Paradigm: Inconsis...mentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

Assessing the influence of emotional expressions on perceptual sensitivity to faces overcoming interocular suppression.

Lanfranco¹,

Rabagliati²,

Carmel³

2023

Emotion

Self Cite

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show abstract

“…Taking recent methodological considerations into account (Lanfranco et al, 2023a(Lanfranco et al, , 2023bStein, 2019), we decided to use an accuracy-based b-CFS method which was slightly modified to fit the purposes of the current study (Figure 1). In each of the trials, participants were presented with a target stimulus (a clipped annulus) in one eye, and a rapidly flashing mask in the other eye.…”

Section: Tasksmentioning

confidence: 99%

Physiological arousal underlies preferential access to visual awareness of fear-conditioned (and possibly disgust-conditioned) stimuli.

Litwin,

Motyka,

Gayet

2024

Emotion

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Fear and disgust have been associated with opposite influences on visual processing, even though both constitute negative emotions that motivate avoidance behavior and entail increased arousal. In the current study, we hypothesized that (a) homeostatic relevance modulates early stages of visual processing, (b) through widespread physiological responses, and that (c) the direction of these modulations depends on whether an emotion calls for immediate regulatory behavior or not. Specifically, we expected that increased arousal should facilitate the detection of fear-related stimuli, and inhibit the detection of disgust-related stimuli. These hypotheses were tested in two preregistered experiments (data collected in 2022, total N = 120, ethnically homogeneous Polish sample). Using a novel, response bias-free version of the breaking continuous flash suppression paradigm, we examined localization and discrimination of fear-and disgust-conditioned stimuli at individually determined perceptual thresholds. Our first hypothesis was confirmed: fear-conditioned stimuli were detected and discriminated better than neutral stimuli, and the magnitude of conditioning-related perceptual preference was related to arousal during conditioning acquisition. In contrast with our second hypothesis, perceptual access to disgust-conditioned stimuli was not diminished. Exploratory analyses suggest that discrimination of disgust-conditioned stimuli was also enhanced, although these effects appeared weaker than those evoked by fear conditioning. The current study strengthens previous evidence for facilitated perception of threatening objects and shows for the first time that stimuli evoking disgust might also gain preferential access to awareness. The results imply that homeostatically relevant stimuli are prioritized by the visual system and that this preference is grounded in the underlying arousal levels.

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Pupil dilation reflects covert familiar face recognition under interocular suppression

Mejía,

Valdés-Sosa,

Bobes

2024

Consciousness and Cognition

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The importance of awareness in face processing: A critical review of interocular suppression studies

Cited by 14 publications

References 145 publications

Assessing the influence of emotional expressions on perceptual sensitivity to faces overcoming interocular suppression.

Assessing the influence of emotional expressions on perceptual sensitivity to faces overcoming interocular suppression.

Physiological arousal underlies preferential access to visual awareness of fear-conditioned (and possibly disgust-conditioned) stimuli.

Pupil dilation reflects covert familiar face recognition under interocular suppression

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