The influence of spatial location on same-different judgments of facial identity and expression.

Abstract

The "spatial congruency bias" is a behavioral phenomenon where two objects presented sequentially are more likely to be judged as being the same object if they are presented in the same location (Golomb et al., 2014), suggesting that irrelevant spatial location information may be bound to object representations. Here, we examine whether the spatial congruency bias extends to higher-level object judgments of facial identity and expression. On each trial, two real-world faces were sequentially presented in variable screen locations, and subjects were asked to make same-different judgments on the facial expression (Experiments 1-2) or facial identity (Experiment 3) of the stimuli. We observed a robust spatial congruency bias for judgements of facial identity, yet a more fragile one for judgements of facial expression. Subjects were more likely to judge two faces as displaying the same expression if they were presented in the same location (compared to in different locations), but only when the faces shared the same identity. On the other hand, a spatial congruency bias was found when subjects made judgements on facial identity, even across faces displaying different facial expressions. These findings suggest a possible difference between the binding of facial identity and facial expression to spatial location.

Dynamic saccade context triggers more stable object-location binding

“…The only significant sensitivity effect was retinotopic in Experiment 3. Consistent with the prior studies using the SCB paradigm, the sensitivity measure thus appears to be a less consistent measure, especially compared to the SCB measure, which has proven to be a reliable and theoretically meaningful measure of object-location binding specifically (Cave & Chen, 2017;Golomb et al, 2014;Shafer-Skelton et al, 2017;Starks et al, 2020) .…”

“…Although object location is irrelevant to the task, if the two sequential objects appeared in the same location, participants are more likely to judge them as the same identity, in contrast to if they appeared in different locations, showing that object location is automatically bound to and fundamentally influences perception of object identity. The Spatial Congruency Bias influences visual judgments ranging from orientation, color, shape, letters, facial identity, and expressions (Cave & Chen, 2017;Golomb et al, 2014;Shafer-Skelton et al, 2017;Starks et al, 2020), and it has been used to probe various aspects of object-location binding (Babu et al, in press;Bapat et al, 2017;Finlayson & Golomb, 2016;Gao et al, under review).…”

Serial dependence in visual perception: A meta-analysis and review

“…The half violin plot indicates the median (white circle), interquartile ranges (black rectangles) and the density distribution (blue shape). Studies ranked along the x-axis are 1 ( Huang et al, 2018 ), 2 ( Pegors et al, 2015 ), 3 ( Taubert et al, 2016a ), 4 ( Kramer & Pustelnik, 2021 ), 5 ( Yu & Ying, 2021 ), 6 ( Bell et al, 2020 ), 7 ( Xia et al, 2016 ), 8 ( Taubert et al, 2016a ), 9 ( Alais et al, 2021 ), 10 ( Alais et al, 2018 ), 11 ( Starks et al, 2020 ), 12 ( Ho & Newell, 2020 ), 13 ( Hsu & Wu, 2020 ), 14 ( Ortega et al, 2023 ), 15 ( Clifford et al, 2018 ), 16 ( Van der Burg et al, 2021 ), 17 ( Kok et al, 2017 ), 18 ( Manassi & Whitney, 2022 ), 19 ( Turbett et al, 2021 ), 20 ( Kim & Alais, 2021 ), 21 ( Liberman et al, 2014 ), 22 ( Turbett et al, 2022a ), 23 ( Taubert & Alais, 2016 ), 24 ( Turbett et al, 2019 ), 25 ( Liberman et al, 2018 ), 26 ( Kondo et al, 2013 ), 27 ( Mei et al, 2019 ), 28 ( Turbett et al, 2022b ), 29 ( Van der Burg et al, 2019 ), 30 ( Hsu & Lee, 2016 ), 31 ( Collins, 2022b ).…”

The dominance of spatial information in object identity judgments: A persistent congruency bias even amidst conflicting statistical regularities.

“…Notably, Golomb et al (2014) discovered a phenomenon called the “spatial congruency bias (SCB),” a tendency to report two sequential objects as having the same identity if they were presented at the same spatial location. The SCB effect has been demonstrated robustly across judgments of orientation (gabors), shape (novel object morphs), facial identity (computer-generated and real-world faces), color, and letter streams (Cave & Chen, 2017; Golomb et al, 2014; Shafer-Skelton et al, 2017; Starks et al, 2020). This bias reaffirms the privileged role of location in object recognition, suggesting that location information is automatically processed and bound to other object features, influencing perceptual judgments (Boduroglu & Shah, 2009; Golomb et al, 2014).…”