The relations between the development of object and face expertise

我的研究重点是阐明涉及物体和面部加工发展的感知和注意的基本机制。长期以来，关于儿童如何发展面部处理的专业知识一直存在争议——是一种特殊的机制参与其中，还是面部与其他感兴趣的物体一样被处理？为了回答这个问题，我们将研究脸部和物体处理的感知专业知识是如何随着时间的推移而发展的，因为孩子们在7到13岁之间微调了他们对物体和面孔的体验。尽管对面孔的兴趣在大多数儿童中是普遍存在的，但儿童对物体的兴趣却存在相当大的差异。有些孩子对特定的物体没有特别的兴趣，有些孩子追求与物体有关的爱好，还有一些孩子(例如，估计75%的自闭症谱系障碍儿童对干扰他们家庭和社交生活的物体有有限的兴趣。我们将利用这种可变性来确定儿童对特定对象（例如，火车）的体验是否以及以何种方式有助于对这些对象的感知专门知识的发展。我们将在对象和面部处理的背景下研究选择性注意的组成部分（即，定向和脱离注意，寻找目标，过滤干扰物和启动-先前经验/期望的影响）。我们还将研究在自由观看条件下的注意力，并跟踪眼睛对专家物体和面部的运动模式。这些发现将告诉我们儿童对物体体验的数量和质量，以及当感兴趣的物体是自我选择的，并在很长一段时间内集中追求时，这些体验如何促进感知专业知识的发展。我们将能够报告知觉专业知识如何影响面部加工，以及选择性注意是否以及以何种方式在物体和面部加工的发展中发挥作用。这些发现将使研究人员对包括选择性注意的作用在内的知觉发展有更好的概念和方法上的理解。

The focus of my research is to elucidate basic mechanisms of perception and attention involved in the development of object and face processing. There is a longstanding debate about how children develop expertise in face processing - is a specialized mechanism involved or are faces processed much like other objects of interest? To answer this question we will look at how perceptual expertise for face and object processing develops over time as children fine-tune their experience with objects and faces between the ages of 7 and 13 years. Whereas the interest in faces is ubiquitous in most children, there is considerable variability in the interest in objects among children. Some children have no particular interest in specific objects, others pursue hobbies that involve objects, and still others (e.g., an estimated 75% of children with Autism Spectrum Disorder have a circumscribed interest in objects that interferes with their family and social life. We will capitalize on this variability to determine if, and in what way, children's experience with a specific object (e.g., trains) contributes to the development of perceptual expertise for those objects. We will examine the components of selective attention (i.e., orienting and disengaging attention, searching for targets, filtering distractors, and priming - the influence of previous experience/expectations) within the context of object and face processing. We will also examine attention in free-viewing conditions and track eye-movement patterns to expert objects and faces. The findings will inform us about the quantity and quality of children's experience with objects and how these contribute to the development of perceptual expertise when the object of interest is self-selected and pursued intensively and over an extensive period of time. We will be able to report on how perceptual expertise may affect face processing and if and in what way selective attention plays a role in the development of object and face processing. The findings will equip researchers with better conceptual as well as methodological understanding of perceptual development that includes the role of selective attention.