Autori: Rezlescu, C., Susilo, T., Barton, J., & Duchaine, B.

Editorial: Journal of Vision, 12(9), p.491, 2012.

Rezumat:

Facial trait perception is a crucial element of social interactions, but its relationship to other aspects of face perception such as identity and expression is unclear. Some researchers claim trait perception is by-product of mechanisms responsible for expression perception (Said, Sebe & Todorov, 2009), while others argue that trait perception is influenced by aspects unrelated to expression such as facial-width (Stirratt & Perrett, 2010) and self-resemblance (DeBruine, 2002). Here we investigate perception of trait and expression in KH, a case of acquired prosopagnosia. For trait perception we focused on trustworthiness and aggressiveness, and for expression perception we focused on happiness and anger. Our battery of tests consisted of four task formats: a sorting task modeled after the Cambridge Face Perception Test (Duchaine et al., 2007), an odd-one-out task, a categorical yes/no task, and explicit ratings. All tests were matched for difficulty and were free from floor and ceiling effects. Despite substantial impairments in identity perception, KH’s perception of trustworthiness and aggressiveness is comparable to controls. Importantly, these results were robust across different test formats and different face databases (Glasgow, Karolinska, and Facegen). KH also displayed poor (but not clearly impaired) perception of happiness and anger. Our findings provide systematic evidence of intact trait perception in acquired prosopagnosia.

Cuvinte cheie: acquired prosopagnosia; trait impressions

URL: http://w.journalofvision.org/content/12/9/491.short