| Summary: | 碩士 === 國立中正大學 === 心理學系研究所 === 106 === It is widely believed that recognition of face identity is achieved via holistic processing of the representation integrated over parts of a face, whereas processing of facial expressions can be undertaken based on representation of separate parts. In two experiments, we examined how perceptual field may affect processing identity and expression of faces by using gaze-contingent control display in conjunction with an adaptive up-down procedure to adjust the size of perceptual field. In Experiment 1, we created a baseline condition to assess the size of perceptual field required for processing face identity. The results indicate that on average participants needed a perceptual field of about a feature to process face identity. Moreover, while the perceptual field tends to evenly distribute among different parts of a face, the eyes tend to play a slightly greater role than nose and mouth for identifying a face. The results of Experiment 2, on the other hand, indicate that (a) in judging whether a face was happy, participants would disproportionally rely upon the mouth region even with a minimal size of perceptual field, and (b) in judging whether a face was sad, both the eye regions and the mouth were critical to arrive at that judgment. In a sharp contrast to the judgment of a happy face, judging a sad face required a substantially larger perceptual field. In Experiment 3, we used happiness as the anchored emotion, with which we compared the size of perceptual field for recognizing expression of sadness and fear. The results indicate that clear contextual effects in recognizing facial expression. Participants would only rely upon the mouth region to decide whether the face was happy. The results of ANS for both sad and fearful expression were similar to the happy condition in Experiment 2, and the size of perceptual field was between happy and sad conditions from that experiment. Taken together, these findings not only provide further evidence to lend support to the notion that processing identity and expression of faces may require different styles of processing (holistic vs. analytic), but also point out in details how judgment of various facial expressions may require different sizes of perceptual field.
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