Adults' Awareness of Faces Follows Newborns' Looking Preferences

From the first days of life, humans preferentially orient towards upright faces, likely reflecting innate subcortical mechanisms. Here, we show that binocular rivalry can reveal face detection mechanisms in adults that are surprisingly similar to inborn face detection mechanism. We used continuous f...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Stein, Timo, Peelen, Marius V., Sterzer, Philipp
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Public Library of Science 2011
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3244447/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22216259
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0029361
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author Stein, Timo
Peelen, Marius V.
Sterzer, Philipp
author_facet Stein, Timo
Peelen, Marius V.
Sterzer, Philipp
author_sort Stein, Timo
collection PubMed
description From the first days of life, humans preferentially orient towards upright faces, likely reflecting innate subcortical mechanisms. Here, we show that binocular rivalry can reveal face detection mechanisms in adults that are surprisingly similar to inborn face detection mechanism. We used continuous flash suppression (CFS), a variant of binocular rivalry, to render stimuli invisible at the beginning of each trial and measured the time upright and inverted stimuli needed to overcome such interocular suppression. Critically, specific stimulus properties previously shown to modulate looking preferences in neonates similarly modulated adults' awareness of faces presented during CFS. First, the advantage of upright faces in overcoming CFS was strongly modulated by contrast polarity and direction of illumination. Second, schematic patterns consisting of three dark blobs were suppressed for shorter durations when the arrangement of these blobs respected the face-like configuration of the eyes and the mouth, and this effect was modulated by contrast polarity. No such effects were obtained in a binocular control experiment not involving CFS, suggesting a crucial role for face-sensitive mechanisms operating outside of conscious awareness. These findings indicate that visual awareness of faces in adults is governed by perceptual mechanisms that are sensitive to similar stimulus properties as those modulating newborns' face preferences.
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spelling pubmed-32444472012-01-03 Adults' Awareness of Faces Follows Newborns' Looking Preferences Stein, Timo Peelen, Marius V. Sterzer, Philipp PLoS One Research Article From the first days of life, humans preferentially orient towards upright faces, likely reflecting innate subcortical mechanisms. Here, we show that binocular rivalry can reveal face detection mechanisms in adults that are surprisingly similar to inborn face detection mechanism. We used continuous flash suppression (CFS), a variant of binocular rivalry, to render stimuli invisible at the beginning of each trial and measured the time upright and inverted stimuli needed to overcome such interocular suppression. Critically, specific stimulus properties previously shown to modulate looking preferences in neonates similarly modulated adults' awareness of faces presented during CFS. First, the advantage of upright faces in overcoming CFS was strongly modulated by contrast polarity and direction of illumination. Second, schematic patterns consisting of three dark blobs were suppressed for shorter durations when the arrangement of these blobs respected the face-like configuration of the eyes and the mouth, and this effect was modulated by contrast polarity. No such effects were obtained in a binocular control experiment not involving CFS, suggesting a crucial role for face-sensitive mechanisms operating outside of conscious awareness. These findings indicate that visual awareness of faces in adults is governed by perceptual mechanisms that are sensitive to similar stimulus properties as those modulating newborns' face preferences. Public Library of Science 2011-12-21 /pmc/articles/PMC3244447/ /pubmed/22216259 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0029361 Text en Stein et al. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are properly credited.
spellingShingle Research Article
Stein, Timo
Peelen, Marius V.
Sterzer, Philipp
Adults' Awareness of Faces Follows Newborns' Looking Preferences
title Adults' Awareness of Faces Follows Newborns' Looking Preferences
title_full Adults' Awareness of Faces Follows Newborns' Looking Preferences
title_fullStr Adults' Awareness of Faces Follows Newborns' Looking Preferences
title_full_unstemmed Adults' Awareness of Faces Follows Newborns' Looking Preferences
title_short Adults' Awareness of Faces Follows Newborns' Looking Preferences
title_sort adults' awareness of faces follows newborns' looking preferences
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3244447/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22216259
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0029361
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