title: Examining the role of red background in magnocellular contribution to face perception.
abstract: This study examines the role of the magnocellular system in the early stages of face perception, in particular sex categorization. Utilizing the specific property of magnocellular suppression in red light, we investigated visually guided reaching to low and high spatial frequency hybrid faces against red and grey backgrounds. The arm movement curvature measure shows that reduced response of the magnocellular pathway interferes with the low spatial frequency component of face perception. This finding provides behavioral evidence for magnocellular contribution to non-emotional aspect of face perception.
authors.affiliation: Centre for Cognition and Decision Making, National Research University Higher School of Economics, Moscow, Russia; ARC Centre of Excellence in Cognition and its Disorders, Department of Cognitive Science, Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia.
authors.forename: Bhuvanesh
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Awasthi
authors.affiliation: ARC Centre of Excellence in Cognition and its Disorders, Department of Cognitive Science, Macquarie University , Sydney , Australia.
authors.forename: Mark A
authors.initials: MA
authors.lastname: Williams
authors.affiliation: Department of Physical Therapy, Sackler Faculty of Medicine, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel; Sagol School of Neuroscience, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel.
authors.forename: Jason
authors.identifier: 0000-0001-8845-5082
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Friedman
keywords: Face perception; Magnocellular pathway; Reach trajectories; Spatial frequency