When you turn the other cheek: a preference for novel viewpoints of familiar faces.
Inferences about the psychobiological processes that underlie face perception have been drawn from the spontaneous behaviour of eyes. Using a visual paired-comparison task, we recorded the eye movements of twenty adults as they viewed pairs of faces that differed in their relative familiarity. The results indicate an advantage for novel viewpoints of familiar faces over familiar viewpoints of familiar faces and novel faces. We conclude that this preference serves the face recognition system by collecting the variation necessary to build robust representations of identity.
Taubert
Jessica
J
Centre for the Integrative Study of Animal Behaviour, Macquarie University, Sydney, NSW 2109, Australia. jtauber@emory.edu
Marsh
Pamela J
PJ
Shaw
Tracey
T
D000328:Adult; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D005133:Eye Movements / Q000502:physiology*; D005145:Face; D005260:Female; D005403:Fixation, Ocular; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D021641:Recognition, Psychology / Q000502:physiology*; D014796:Visual Perception