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Lookup NU author(s): Dr Friederike Zimmermann, Dr Verena Willenbockel, Dr Quoc Vuong
This is the authors' accepted manuscript of an article that has been published in its final definitive form by MIT Press, 2018.
For re-use rights please refer to the publisher's terms and conditions.
Human adults have a rich visual experience with seeing human faces since birth, which may contribute to the acquisition of perceptual processes that rapidly and automatically individuate faces. According to a generic visual expertise hypothesis, extensive experience with nonface objects may similarly lead to efficient processing of objects at the individual level. However, whether extensive training in adulthood leads to visual expertise remains debated. One key issue is the extent to which the acquisition of visual expertise depends on the resemblance of objects to faces in terms of the spatial configuration of parts. We therefore trained naïve human adults to individuate a large set of novel parametric multipart objects. Critically, one group of participants trained with the objects in a “facelike” stimulus orientation whereas a second group trained with the same objects but with the objects rotated 180° in the picture-plane into a “nonfacelike” orientation. We used a fast periodic visual stimulation electroencephalography (EEG) protocol to objectively quantify participants’ ability to discriminate untrained exemplars before and after training. EEG responses associated with the frequency of identity change in a fast stimulation sequence—which reflect rapid and automatic perceptual processes—were observed over lateral occipital sites for both groups before training. There was a significant—albeit small—increase in these responses after training but only for the facelike group and only to facelike stimuli. Our findings indicate that perceived facelikeness plays a role in visual expertise, and highlight how the adult perceptual system exploits familiar spatial configurations when learning new object categories.
Author(s): Lochy A, Zimmermann FGS, Laguesse R, Willenbockel V, Rossion B, Vuong QC
Publication type: Article
Publication status: Published
Journal: Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience
Year: 2018
Volume: 30
Issue: 4
Pages: 449-467
Print publication date: 01/04/2018
Online publication date: 28/02/2018
Acceptance date: 15/11/2017
Date deposited: 23/11/2017
ISSN (print): 0898-929X
ISSN (electronic): 1530-8898
Publisher: MIT Press
URL: https://doi.org/10.1162/jocn_a_01212
DOI: 10.1162/jocn_a_01212
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