The role of surface pigmentation for recognition revealed by contrast reversal in faces and Greebles

Faces are difficult to recognize when viewed as negatives [Galper (1970). Recognition of faces in photographic negative. Psychonomic Science, 19, 207]. Here we examined the contribution of surface properties to this contrast effect, and whether it is modulated by object category. We tested observers in a matching task using faces or Greebles, presented with or without pigmentation. When stimulus pairs were shown with mismatched contrast (e.g., positive-negative), there was a decrement in performance. This decrement was larger when the stimuli were shown with pigmentation, and this difference was more pronounced with faces than with Greebles. Overall, contrast reversal disrupts the recognition of both faces and objects to a greater degree in the presence of pigmentation, suggesting that surface properties are important components of the object representation.

[1]  M. White,et al.  Effect of Photographic Negation on Matching the Expressions and Identities of Faces , 2001, Perception.

[2]  M. Tarr,et al.  Training ‘greeble’ experts: a framework for studying expert object recognition processes , 1998, Vision Research.

[3]  D H Brainard,et al.  The Psychophysics Toolbox. , 1997, Spatial vision.

[4]  R. Yin.  Looking at Upside-down Faces , 1969 .

[5]  V Bruce,et al.  The Use of Pigmentation and Shading Information in Recognising the Sex and Identities of Faces , 1994, Perception.

[6]  H. Bülthoff,et al.  Face recognition under varying poses: The role of texture and shape , 1996, Vision Research.

[7]  Berthold K. P. Horn.  Obtaining shape from shading information , 1989 .

[8]  G. Legge,et al.  Color improves object recognition in normal and low vision , 1993 .

[9]  P. Cavanagh,et al.  Shape from shadows. , 1989, Journal of experimental psychology. Human perception and performance.

[10]  I. Biederman.  Recognition-by-components: a theory of human image understanding. , 1987, Psychological review.

[11]  R. Galper,et al.  Recognition of faces in photographic negative , 1970 .

[12]  Thomas Vetter,et al.  A morphable model for the synthesis of 3D faces , 1999, SIGGRAPH.

[13]  Heinrich H Bülthoff,et al.  Why the visual recognition system might encode the effects of illumination , 1998, Vision Research.

[14]  C. Liu,et al.  Lighting direction affects recognition of untextured faces in photographic positive and negative , 1999, Vision Research.

[15]  Daniel Kersten,et al.  Is Color an Intrinsic Property of Object Representation? , 2003, Perception.

[16]  M. Farah,et al.  Parts and Wholes in Face Recognition , 1993, The Quarterly journal of experimental psychology. A, Human experimental psychology.

[17]  G W Humphreys,et al.  The Effects of Surface Detail on Object Categorization and Naming , 1989, The Quarterly journal of experimental psychology. A, Human experimental psychology.

[18]  D. Marr,et al.  Representation and recognition of the spatial organization of three-dimensional shapes , 1978, Proceedings of the Royal Society of London. Series B. Biological Sciences.

[19]  M. Tarr,et al.  FFA: a flexible fusiform area for subordinate-level visual processing automatized by expertise , 2000, Nature Neuroscience.

[20]  D G Pelli,et al.  The VideoToolbox software for visual psychophysics: transforming numbers into movies. , 1997, Spatial vision.

[21]  J. Tanaka,et al.  Object categories and expertise: Is the basic level in the eye of the beholder? , 1991, Cognitive Psychology.

[22]  V. S. Ramachandran,et al.  Perception of shape from shading , 1988, Nature.

[23]  Vision Research , 1961, Nature.

[24]  M. Tarr,et al.  Becoming a “Greeble” Expert: Exploring Mechanisms for Face Recognition , 1997, Vision Research.

[25]  Thomas Vetter,et al.  Three-dimensional shape and two-dimensional surface reflectance contributions to face recognition: an application of three-dimensional morphing , 1999, Vision Research.

[26]  B. Rossion,et al.  Revisiting Snodgrass and Vanderwart's Object Pictorial Set: The Role of Surface Detail in Basic-Level Object Recognition , 2004, Perception.

[27]  R Kemp,et al.  Perception and Recognition of Normal and Negative Faces: The Role of Shape from Shading and Pigmentation Cues , 1996, Perception.

[28]  W. Hayward,et al.  Viewpoint Dependence and Object Discriminability , 2000, Psychological science.