TY - JOUR
T1 - Conscious awareness is required for holistic face processing
AU - Axelrod, Vadim
AU - Rees, Geraint
N1 - Funding Information: This study was supported by the Israeli Center of Research Excellence in Cognitive Sciences (VA), Daniel Turnberg Travel Fellowship (VA) and the Wellcome Trust (GR). We are grateful Galit Yovel for permission to conduct the experiments in her laboratory (Tel-Aviv University). We thank Aidan Horner for the advise. We would also like to thank two anonymous reviewers and Axel Cleeremans (Consciousness and Cognition editor) for their valuable suggestions.
PY - 2014/7
Y1 - 2014/7
N2 - Investigating the limits of unconscious processing is essential to understand the function of consciousness. Here, we explored whether holistic face processing, a mechanism believed to be important for face processing in general, can be accomplished unconsciously. Using a novel "eyes-face" stimulus we tested whether discrimination of pairs of eyes was influenced by the surrounding face context. While the eyes were fully visible, the faces that provided context could be rendered invisible through continuous flash suppression. Two experiments with three different sets of face stimuli and a subliminal learning procedure converged to show that invisible faces did not influence perception of visible eyes. In contrast, surrounding faces, when they were clearly visible, strongly influenced perception of the eyes. Thus, we conclude that conscious awareness might be a prerequisite for holistic face processing.
AB - Investigating the limits of unconscious processing is essential to understand the function of consciousness. Here, we explored whether holistic face processing, a mechanism believed to be important for face processing in general, can be accomplished unconsciously. Using a novel "eyes-face" stimulus we tested whether discrimination of pairs of eyes was influenced by the surrounding face context. While the eyes were fully visible, the faces that provided context could be rendered invisible through continuous flash suppression. Two experiments with three different sets of face stimuli and a subliminal learning procedure converged to show that invisible faces did not influence perception of visible eyes. In contrast, surrounding faces, when they were clearly visible, strongly influenced perception of the eyes. Thus, we conclude that conscious awareness might be a prerequisite for holistic face processing.
KW - Holistic face processing
KW - Unconscious processing
KW - Visual awareness
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84902513036&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.concog.2014.05.004
DO - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.concog.2014.05.004
M3 - مقالة
C2 - 24950500
SN - 1053-8100
VL - 27
SP - 233
EP - 245
JO - Consciousness and Cognition
JF - Consciousness and Cognition
IS - 1
ER -