Use and Usefulness of Dynamic Face Stimuli for Face Perception Studies—a Review of Behavioral Findings and Methodology
Faces that move contain rich information about facial form, such as facial features and their configuration, alongside the motion of those features. During social interactions, humans constantly decode and integrate these cues. To fully understand human face perception, it is important to investigat...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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Frontiers Media S.A.
2018-08-01
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| Series: | Frontiers in Psychology |
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| Online Access: | https://www.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fpsyg.2018.01355/full |
| _version_ | 1818445435668267008 |
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| author | Katharina Dobs Katharina Dobs Isabelle Bülthoff Johannes Schultz Johannes Schultz |
| author_facet | Katharina Dobs Katharina Dobs Isabelle Bülthoff Johannes Schultz Johannes Schultz |
| author_sort | Katharina Dobs |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Faces that move contain rich information about facial form, such as facial features and their configuration, alongside the motion of those features. During social interactions, humans constantly decode and integrate these cues. To fully understand human face perception, it is important to investigate what information dynamic faces convey and how the human visual system extracts and processes information from this visual input. However, partly due to the difficulty of designing well-controlled dynamic face stimuli, many face perception studies still rely on static faces as stimuli. Here, we focus on evidence demonstrating the usefulness of dynamic faces as stimuli, and evaluate different types of dynamic face stimuli to study face perception. Studies based on dynamic face stimuli revealed a high sensitivity of the human visual system to natural facial motion and consistently reported dynamic advantages when static face information is insufficient for the task. These findings support the hypothesis that the human perceptual system integrates sensory cues for robust perception. In the present paper, we review the different types of dynamic face stimuli used in these studies, and assess their usefulness for several research questions. Natural videos of faces are ecological stimuli but provide limited control of facial form and motion. Point-light faces allow for good control of facial motion but are highly unnatural. Image-based morphing is a way to achieve control over facial motion while preserving the natural facial form. Synthetic facial animations allow separation of facial form and motion to study aspects such as identity-from-motion. While synthetic faces are less natural than videos of faces, recent advances in photo-realistic rendering may close this gap and provide naturalistic stimuli with full control over facial motion. We believe that many open questions, such as what dynamic advantages exist beyond emotion and identity recognition and which dynamic aspects drive these advantages, can be addressed adequately with different types of stimuli and will improve our understanding of face perception in more ecological settings. |
| first_indexed | 2024-12-14T19:31:47Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-244eb7774c934f1cb2629a18acd44f7f |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 1664-1078 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-12-14T19:31:47Z |
| publishDate | 2018-08-01 |
| publisher | Frontiers Media S.A. |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Frontiers in Psychology |
| spelling | doaj.art-244eb7774c934f1cb2629a18acd44f7f2022-12-21T22:50:03ZengFrontiers Media S.A.Frontiers in Psychology1664-10782018-08-01910.3389/fpsyg.2018.01355371229Use and Usefulness of Dynamic Face Stimuli for Face Perception Studies—a Review of Behavioral Findings and MethodologyKatharina Dobs0Katharina Dobs1Isabelle Bülthoff2Johannes Schultz3Johannes Schultz4Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, United StatesDepartment Human Perception, Cognition and Action, Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics, Tübingen, GermanyDepartment Human Perception, Cognition and Action, Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics, Tübingen, GermanyDepartment Human Perception, Cognition and Action, Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics, Tübingen, GermanyDivision of Medical Psychology and Department of Psychiatry, University of Bonn, Bonn, GermanyFaces that move contain rich information about facial form, such as facial features and their configuration, alongside the motion of those features. During social interactions, humans constantly decode and integrate these cues. To fully understand human face perception, it is important to investigate what information dynamic faces convey and how the human visual system extracts and processes information from this visual input. However, partly due to the difficulty of designing well-controlled dynamic face stimuli, many face perception studies still rely on static faces as stimuli. Here, we focus on evidence demonstrating the usefulness of dynamic faces as stimuli, and evaluate different types of dynamic face stimuli to study face perception. Studies based on dynamic face stimuli revealed a high sensitivity of the human visual system to natural facial motion and consistently reported dynamic advantages when static face information is insufficient for the task. These findings support the hypothesis that the human perceptual system integrates sensory cues for robust perception. In the present paper, we review the different types of dynamic face stimuli used in these studies, and assess their usefulness for several research questions. Natural videos of faces are ecological stimuli but provide limited control of facial form and motion. Point-light faces allow for good control of facial motion but are highly unnatural. Image-based morphing is a way to achieve control over facial motion while preserving the natural facial form. Synthetic facial animations allow separation of facial form and motion to study aspects such as identity-from-motion. While synthetic faces are less natural than videos of faces, recent advances in photo-realistic rendering may close this gap and provide naturalistic stimuli with full control over facial motion. We believe that many open questions, such as what dynamic advantages exist beyond emotion and identity recognition and which dynamic aspects drive these advantages, can be addressed adequately with different types of stimuli and will improve our understanding of face perception in more ecological settings.https://www.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fpsyg.2018.01355/fulldynamic facesfacial animationfacial motiondynamic face stimuliface perceptionsocial perception |
| spellingShingle | Katharina Dobs Katharina Dobs Isabelle Bülthoff Johannes Schultz Johannes Schultz Use and Usefulness of Dynamic Face Stimuli for Face Perception Studies—a Review of Behavioral Findings and Methodology Frontiers in Psychology dynamic faces facial animation facial motion dynamic face stimuli face perception social perception |
| title | Use and Usefulness of Dynamic Face Stimuli for Face Perception Studies—a Review of Behavioral Findings and Methodology |
| title_full | Use and Usefulness of Dynamic Face Stimuli for Face Perception Studies—a Review of Behavioral Findings and Methodology |
| title_fullStr | Use and Usefulness of Dynamic Face Stimuli for Face Perception Studies—a Review of Behavioral Findings and Methodology |
| title_full_unstemmed | Use and Usefulness of Dynamic Face Stimuli for Face Perception Studies—a Review of Behavioral Findings and Methodology |
| title_short | Use and Usefulness of Dynamic Face Stimuli for Face Perception Studies—a Review of Behavioral Findings and Methodology |
| title_sort | use and usefulness of dynamic face stimuli for face perception studies a review of behavioral findings and methodology |
| topic | dynamic faces facial animation facial motion dynamic face stimuli face perception social perception |
| url | https://www.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fpsyg.2018.01355/full |
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