Kok2015_Experiment1LEARN_raw from Face familiarity promotes stable identity recognition: exploring face perception using serial dependence

Studies suggest that familiar faces are processed in a manner distinct from unfamiliar faces and that familiarity with a face confers an advantage in identity recognition. Our visual system seems to capitalize on experience to build stable face representations that are impervious to variation in retinal input that may occur due to changes in lighting, viewpoint, viewing distance, eye movements, etc. Emerging evidence also suggests that our visual system maintains a continuous perception of a face's identity from one moment to the next despite the retinal input variations through serial dependence. This study investigates whether interactions occur between face familiarity and serial dependence. In two experiments, participants used a continuous scale to rate attractiveness of unfamiliar and familiar faces (either experimentally learned or famous) presented in rapid sequences. Both experiments revealed robust inter-trial effects in which attractiveness ratings for a given face depended on the preceding face's attractiveness. This inter-trial attractiveness effect was most pronounced for unfamiliar faces. Indeed, when participants were familiar with a given face, attractiveness ratings showed significantly less serial dependence. These results represent the first evidence that familiar faces can resist the temporal integration seen in sequential dependencies and highlight the importance of familiarity to visual cognition.

研究表明，熟悉的面孔在处理方式上与不熟悉的面孔存在显著差异，且对面孔的熟悉度在身份识别中赋予了一定的优势。我们的视觉系统似乎利用经验构建稳定的面孔表征，这种表征能够抵御因光照、视角、观看距离、眼球运动等变化而导致的视网膜输入的波动。新近的证据也表明，尽管视网膜输入存在波动，我们的视觉系统仍能持续维持对面孔身份的连续感知，这得益于序列依赖性。本研究旨在探讨面孔熟悉度与序列依赖性之间是否存在相互作用。在两项实验中，参与者使用连续尺度对快速呈现的不熟悉面孔和熟悉面孔（无论是实验性学习还是名人面孔）的吸引力进行评分。两项实验均揭示了显著的实验间效应，即特定面孔的吸引力评分取决于前一个面孔的吸引力。这种实验间吸引力效应在不熟悉面孔上最为明显。事实上，当参与者熟悉某个面孔时，其吸引力评分显示出显著降低的序列依赖性。这些结果首次证明了熟悉面孔能够抵抗时间序列依赖性中的时间整合，并突出了熟悉度在视觉认知中的重要性。