Oculomotor guidance and capture by irrelevant faces.
Even though it is generally agreed that face stimuli constitute a special class of stimuli, which are treated preferentially by our visual system, it remains unclear whether faces can capture attention in a stimulus-driven manner. Moreover, there is a long-standing debate regarding the mechanism und...
| Main Authors: | , , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Public Library of Science (PLoS)
2012-01-01
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| Series: | PLoS ONE |
| Online Access: | http://europepmc.org/articles/PMC3323541?pdf=render |
| _version_ | 1818152871070269440 |
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| author | Christel Devue Artem V Belopolsky Jan Theeuwes |
| author_facet | Christel Devue Artem V Belopolsky Jan Theeuwes |
| author_sort | Christel Devue |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Even though it is generally agreed that face stimuli constitute a special class of stimuli, which are treated preferentially by our visual system, it remains unclear whether faces can capture attention in a stimulus-driven manner. Moreover, there is a long-standing debate regarding the mechanism underlying the preferential bias of selecting faces. Some claim that faces constitute a set of special low-level features to which our visual system is tuned; others claim that the visual system is capable of extracting the meaning of faces very rapidly, driving attentional selection. Those debates continue because many studies contain methodological peculiarities and manipulations that prevent a definitive conclusion. Here, we present a new visual search task in which observers had to make a saccade to a uniquely colored circle while completely irrelevant objects were also present in the visual field. The results indicate that faces capture and guide the eyes more than other animated objects and that our visual system is not only tuned to the low-level features that make up a face but also to its meaning. |
| first_indexed | 2024-12-11T14:01:36Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-90e6a7b5ccd44d258507d6819ad5e096 |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 1932-6203 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-12-11T14:01:36Z |
| publishDate | 2012-01-01 |
| publisher | Public Library of Science (PLoS) |
| record_format | Article |
| series | PLoS ONE |
| spelling | doaj.art-90e6a7b5ccd44d258507d6819ad5e0962022-12-22T01:03:51ZengPublic Library of Science (PLoS)PLoS ONE1932-62032012-01-0174e3459810.1371/journal.pone.0034598Oculomotor guidance and capture by irrelevant faces.Christel DevueArtem V BelopolskyJan TheeuwesEven though it is generally agreed that face stimuli constitute a special class of stimuli, which are treated preferentially by our visual system, it remains unclear whether faces can capture attention in a stimulus-driven manner. Moreover, there is a long-standing debate regarding the mechanism underlying the preferential bias of selecting faces. Some claim that faces constitute a set of special low-level features to which our visual system is tuned; others claim that the visual system is capable of extracting the meaning of faces very rapidly, driving attentional selection. Those debates continue because many studies contain methodological peculiarities and manipulations that prevent a definitive conclusion. Here, we present a new visual search task in which observers had to make a saccade to a uniquely colored circle while completely irrelevant objects were also present in the visual field. The results indicate that faces capture and guide the eyes more than other animated objects and that our visual system is not only tuned to the low-level features that make up a face but also to its meaning.http://europepmc.org/articles/PMC3323541?pdf=render |
| spellingShingle | Christel Devue Artem V Belopolsky Jan Theeuwes Oculomotor guidance and capture by irrelevant faces. PLoS ONE |
| title | Oculomotor guidance and capture by irrelevant faces. |
| title_full | Oculomotor guidance and capture by irrelevant faces. |
| title_fullStr | Oculomotor guidance and capture by irrelevant faces. |
| title_full_unstemmed | Oculomotor guidance and capture by irrelevant faces. |
| title_short | Oculomotor guidance and capture by irrelevant faces. |
| title_sort | oculomotor guidance and capture by irrelevant faces |
| url | http://europepmc.org/articles/PMC3323541?pdf=render |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT christeldevue oculomotorguidanceandcapturebyirrelevantfaces AT artemvbelopolsky oculomotorguidanceandcapturebyirrelevantfaces AT jantheeuwes oculomotorguidanceandcapturebyirrelevantfaces |