A limited visual search advantage for illusory faces.

Face detection Face perception Illusory faces Pareidolia Visual search

Journal

Attention, perception & psychophysics
ISSN: 1943-393X
Titre abrégé: Atten Percept Psychophys
Pays: United States
ID NLM: 101495384

Informations de publication

Date de publication:
16 Jan 2024
Historique:
accepted: 14 12 2023
medline: 17 1 2024
pubmed: 17 1 2024
entrez: 16 1 2024
Statut: aheadofprint

Résumé

The human visual system is very sensitive to the presence of faces in the environment, so much so that it can produce the perception of illusory faces in everyday objects. Growing research suggests that illusory faces and real faces are processed by similar perceptual and neural mechanisms, but whether this similarity extends to visual attention is less clear. A visual search study showed that illusory faces have a search advantage over objects when the types of objects vary to match the objects in the illusory faces (e.g., chair, pepper, clock) (Keys et al., 2021). Here, we examine whether the search advantage for illusory faces over objects remains when compared against objects that belong to a single category (flowers). In three experiments, we compared visual search of illusory faces, real faces, variable objects, and uniform objects (flowers). Search for real faces was best compared with all other types of targets. In contrast, search for illusory faces was only better than search for variable objects, not uniform objects. This result shows a limited visual search advantage for illusory faces and suggests that illusory faces may not be processed like real faces in visual attention.

Identifiants

pubmed: 38228847
doi: 10.3758/s13414-023-02833-y
pii: 10.3758/s13414-023-02833-y
doi:

Types de publication

Journal Article

Langues

eng

Sous-ensembles de citation

IM

Informations de copyright

© 2024. The Psychonomic Society, Inc.

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Auteurs

Lizzie Collyer (L)

School of Psychology, Victoria University of Wellington, Kelburn, New Zealand.

Jake Ireland (J)

School of Psychology, Victoria University of Wellington, Kelburn, New Zealand.

Tirta Susilo (T)

School of Psychology, Victoria University of Wellington, Kelburn, New Zealand. tirta.susilo@vuw.ac.nz.

Classifications MeSH