title: Redundancy effects in the processing of emotional faces.
abstract: How does the visual system represent the ensemble statistics of visual objects? This question has received intense interest in vision research, yet most studies have focused on the extraction of mean statistics rather than its dispersion. This study focuses on another aspect of ensemble statistics: the redundancy of the sample. In two experiments, participants were faster judging the facial expression and gender of multiple faces than a single face. The redundancy gain was equivalent for multiple identical faces and for multiple faces of different identities. To test whether the redundancy gain was due to increased strength in perceptual representation, we measured the magnitude of facial expression aftereffects. The aftereffects were equivalent when induced by a single face and by four identical faces, ruling out increased perceptual strength as an explanation for the redundancy gain. We conclude that redundant faces facilitate perception by enhancing the robustness of representation of each face.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Minnesota, 75 East River Road, S506 Elliott Hall, Minneapolis, MN 55455, USA. wonxx039@umn.edu
authors.forename: Bo-Yeong
authors.initials: BY
authors.lastname: Won
authors.forename: Yuhong V
authors.initials: YV
authors.lastname: Jiang
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D004644:Emotions; D005145:Face; D005149:Facial Expression; D005260:Female; D005366:Figural Aftereffect / Q000502:physiology*; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D010775:Photic Stimulation / Q000379:methods; D021641:Recognition, Psychology; D014796:Visual Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D055815:Young Adult