Initial eye movements during face identification are optimal and similar across cultures.
Initial eye movements during face identification are optimal and similar across cultures.
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DOI：
10.1167/15.13.12
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发表时间：
2015-09
影响因子：
1.8
通讯作者：
C. Or;Matthew F. Peterson;M. Eckstein
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
C. Or;Matthew F. Peterson;M. Eckstein
文化不仅影响人类高层次的认知过程，也影响低层次的知觉操作。一些知觉操作，如最初的眼球运动到人脸，对于提取支持进化上重要任务的信息至关重要，如人脸识别。文化对这些关键感知过程的影响程度尚不清楚。在这里，我们报告了在东亚和西高加索文化群体中，人脸识别的第一个凝视位置是相似的：两者都盯着眼睛和鼻子之间的一个没有特征的点，组内差异小于组内差异，并且不同文化之间的水平差异很小(眼间距离的8%)。我们还发现，这两个文化群体的人最初对亚洲人面孔的关注程度略高于对白人面孔的关注程度。研究发现，最初的注视既是获取大多数人脸识别信息的基础，也是最佳的，因为当观察者将目光从他们喜欢的注视上移开时，准确度会下降。理想的观察者将面部信息与人类视觉系统在视野中的不同空间分辨率相结合，显示出两个种族面部的相似信息分布，并预测了最初的人类注视。该模型始终如一地复制了人类对亚洲人和高加索人面孔的微小垂直差异，但没有预测到高加索人观察者的微小水平左倾倾向。综上所述，这些结果表明，在人脸识别过程中，最初的眼动可能是由旨在最大化准确性的大脑机制驱动的，而不是受文化的影响。这些发现增加了我们对大脑目标之间的相互作用的理解，大脑的目标是以最佳方式完成基本的感知功能，并对社会文化影响做出反应。
Culture influences not only human high-level cognitive processes but also low-level perceptual operations. Some perceptual operations, such as initial eye movements to faces, are critical for extraction of information supporting evolutionarily important tasks such as face identification. The extent of cultural effects on these crucial perceptual processes is unknown. Here, we report that the first gaze location for face identification was similar across East Asian and Western Caucasian cultural groups: Both fixated a featureless point between the eyes and the nose, with smaller between-group than within-group differences and with a small horizontal difference across cultures (8% of the interocular distance). We also show that individuals of both cultural groups initially fixated at a slightly higher point on Asian faces than on Caucasian faces. The initial fixations were found to be both fundamental in acquiring the majority of information for face identification and optimal, as accuracy deteriorated when observers held their gaze away from their preferred fixations. An ideal observer that integrated facial information with the human visual system's varying spatial resolution across the visual field showed a similar information distribution across faces of both races and predicted initial human fixations. The model consistently replicated the small vertical difference between human fixations to Asian and Caucasian faces but did not predict the small horizontal leftward bias of Caucasian observers. Together, the results suggest that initial eye movements during face identification may be driven by brain mechanisms aimed at maximizing accuracy, and less influenced by culture. The findings increase our understanding of the interplay between the brain's aims to optimally accomplish basic perceptual functions and to respond to sociocultural influences.