Abstract:
Humans saccade to faces in their periphery faster than to other types of objects. Previous research has highlighted the potential importance of the upper face region in this phenomenon, but it remains unclear whether this is driven by the eye region. Similarly, it remains unclear whether such rapid saccades are exclusive to faces or generalize to other semantically salient stimuli. Furthermore, it is unknown whether individuals differ in their face-specific saccadic reaction times and, if so, whether such differences could be linked to differences in face fixations during free viewing. To explore these open questions, we invited 77 participants to perform a saccadic choice task in which we contrasted faces as well as other salient objects, particularly isolated face features and text, with cars. Additionally, participants freely viewed 700 images of complex natural scenes in a separate session, which allowed us to determine the individual proportion of first fixations falling on faces. For the saccadic choice task, we found advantages for all categories of interest over cars. However, this effect was most pronounced for images of full faces. Full faces also elicited faster saccades compared with eyes, showing that isolated eye regions are not sufficient to elicit face-like responses. Additionally, we found consistent individual differences in saccadic reaction times toward faces that weakly correlated with face salience during free viewing. Our results suggest a link between semantic salience and rapid detection, but underscore the unique status of faces. Further research is needed to resolve the mechanisms underlying rapid face saccades.
摘要:
人类比其他类型的物体更快地扫视周围的面部。先前的研究已经强调了上面部区域在这种现象中的潜在重要性,但目前尚不清楚这是否是由眼睛区域驱动的。同样,目前尚不清楚这种快速扫视是面部独有的还是推广到其他语义突出的刺激。此外,目前尚不清楚个人是否在面部特定的扫视反应时间上有所不同,如果是,这种差异是否可能与自由观看时面部注视的差异有关。为了探索这些开放的问题,我们邀请了77名参与者来执行一项扫视选择任务,在这项任务中,我们对比了面部以及其他显著的物体,特别是孤立的面部特征和文本,与汽车。此外,参与者在单独的会议中自由观看了700张复杂的自然场景图像,这使我们能够确定落在脸上的第一次注视的比例。对于扫视选择任务,我们发现所有类别的兴趣都比汽车有优势。然而,这种效果对于全脸图像最为明显。与眼睛相比,满脸也会引起更快的扫视,显示孤立的眼睛区域不足以引起面部样反应。此外,我们发现,在自由观看过程中,对面部的扫视反应时间与面部显着性弱相关,存在一致的个体差异。我们的结果表明语义显著性和快速检测之间存在联系,但强调了面孔的独特地位。需要进一步的研究来解决快速面部扫视的机制。