Collaborative Research: Eye movements and retinotopic face encoding in children, adults, and developmental prosopagnosia

面部识别是社会互动的核心，而有面部识别障碍的人遭受着影响他们个人和职业生活的困难。先前的研究表明，人脸识别能力受到人们看脸的位置的强烈影响，而且这对特定的人来说往往是一致的。例如，有些人总是看两眼之间，而另一些人则看鼻尖或嘴。研究还表明，当每个人看向他们通常注视的位置附近时，他们识别人脸的效果最好。这些习惯表明，每个人的面部处理系统和眼球运动系统已经相互塑造或调整，以优化识别能力。然而，对于这些因素是如何导致人脸识别能力差异的，它们在成人中是如何变化的，以及它们在儿童中是如何发展的，人们知之甚少。该项目将解决这些基本问题，并可能在治疗面部识别缺陷患者方面发挥重要作用。该项目将由三个部分组成：在项目的第一个部分，研究人员将调查18至50岁的成年人通常看人脸的哪里，以及他们的“最佳点”（固定和处理之间的最佳匹配）在哪里。初步研究结果表明，随着年龄的增长，成年人往往会把脸看得更低，这表明我们的面部系统甚至在成年后也会发生变化。这项研究将通过比较不同年龄的人来检验这是否适用于更大的样本，并将通过对同一参与者进行一次和三年后的再次测量来探索个体凝视变化的动态。在第二部分中，研究人员将检查患有发展性面孔失认症（DP）（一种以严重的面部识别障碍为特征的疾病）的人看脸的位置，以及他们看的位置和他们的最佳位置之间是否表现出良好的匹配。在第三部分，研究人员将确定孩子们看脸的位置，以及随着年龄的增长，他们对脸的调整是如何变化的。据估计，随着年龄的增长，孩子们看的方向不会改变，但他们的面部特征会变得更加明显。这些可能性将通过比较不同年龄的儿童和通过对同一儿童的纵向测试来检验。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Face recognition is central for social interaction, and people with face recognition impairments suffer from difficulties that impact their personal and professional lives. Previous research has indicated that face recognition ability is strongly influenced by where on the face people look, and that this tends to be consistent for a given person. For example, some people always look between the eyes, while others look close to the tip of the nose or the mouth. It has also been shown that each person recognizes faces best when they look near the location they normally fixate. These habits suggest that each person's face processing and eye movement systems have been mutually shaped, or tuned, to optimize recognition ability. However, little is known about how these factors contribute to differences in face recognition ability, how they change in adults, and how they develop in children. This project will address these fundamental questions, and could prove important in treating patients with deficits in face recognition. The project will consist of three components: In the project’s first component, the investigators will examine where adults between the ages of 18 and 50 usually look on faces and where their “sweet spot” (optimal match between fixation and processing) lies. Preliminary results indicate that adults tend to look lower on faces as they age, indicating that the tuning of our face system changes even in adulthood. This study will examine whether this holds for a larger sample by comparing across ages and will explore the dynamics of gaze changes for individuals by measuring the same participants once and then again three years later. In the second component, the investigators will examine where people with developmental prosopagnosia (DP), a condition characterized by severe face recognition impairments, look on faces and whether they show a good match between where they look and their sweet spot. In the third component, the investigators will determine where children look on the face and how their tuning to faces changes as they age. It is expected that where children look will not change but that their face tuning will become sharper as they age. These possibilities will be tested by comparing children across different ages and through longitudinal testing of the same children.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.