The contribution of color information to rapid face categorization in natural scenes

Color’s contribution to rapid categorization of natural images is debated. We examine its effect on high-level face categorization responses using fast periodic visual stimulation (Rossion et al., 2015). A high-density electroencephalogram (EEG) was recorded during presentation of sequences of...

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Main Authors: Or, Charles C.-F., Retter, Talia L., Rossion, Bruno
Other Authors: School of Social Sciences
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: 2019
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Online Access:https://hdl.handle.net/10356/90306
http://hdl.handle.net/10220/49453
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Institution: Nanyang Technological University
Language: English
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spelling sg-ntu-dr.10356-903062020-03-07T13:00:26Z The contribution of color information to rapid face categorization in natural scenes Or, Charles C.-F. Retter, Talia L. Rossion, Bruno School of Social Sciences Face Categorization Color Vision Social sciences::Psychology Color’s contribution to rapid categorization of natural images is debated. We examine its effect on high-level face categorization responses using fast periodic visual stimulation (Rossion et al., 2015). A high-density electroencephalogram (EEG) was recorded during presentation of sequences of natural object images every 83 ms (i.e., at F ¼ 12.0 Hz). Natural face images were embedded in the sequence at a fixed interval of F/ 9 (1.33 Hz). There were four conditions: (a) full-color images; (b) grayscale images; and (c) and (d) phasescrambled images from Conditions 1 and 2, respectively, making faces and objects unrecognizable. Observers’ task was to respond to color changes of the fixation cross (Experiment 1). We found face-categorization responses at 1.33 Hz and its harmonics (2.67 Hz, etc.) over occipitotemporal areas, with right-hemisphere dominance; responses to color images were not significantly different from those to grayscale images. Behavioral analysis revealed longer response times when images contained color, despite nearly-all-correct performance in all conditions, suggesting that color change in the task might detract from color’s contribution to face categorization. We subsequently changed the task to responding to fixation shape changes so that such response-time differences were eliminated (Experiment 2). The aggregate facecategorization response became 21.6% stronger to color than to grayscale images. This color advantage occurred late, at 290–415 ms after stimulus onset. Our results suggest that the color advantage for face categorization interacts with behavior, and that color only has a moderate and relatively late contribution to rapid face categorization in natural images. MOE (Min. of Education, S’pore) Published version 2019-07-24T01:12:17Z 2019-12-06T17:45:20Z 2019-07-24T01:12:17Z 2019-12-06T17:45:20Z 2019 Journal Article Or, C. C.-F., Retter, T. L., & Rossion, B. (2019). The contribution of color information to rapid face categorization in natural scenes. Journal of Vision, 19(5), 20-. doi:10.1167/19.5.20 https://hdl.handle.net/10356/90306 http://hdl.handle.net/10220/49453 10.1167/19.5.20 en Journal of Vision © 2019 The Authors. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. 20 p. application/pdf
institution Nanyang Technological University
building NTU Library
country Singapore
collection DR-NTU
language English
topic Face Categorization
Color Vision
Social sciences::Psychology
spellingShingle Face Categorization
Color Vision
Social sciences::Psychology
Or, Charles C.-F.
Retter, Talia L.
Rossion, Bruno
The contribution of color information to rapid face categorization in natural scenes
description Color’s contribution to rapid categorization of natural images is debated. We examine its effect on high-level face categorization responses using fast periodic visual stimulation (Rossion et al., 2015). A high-density electroencephalogram (EEG) was recorded during presentation of sequences of natural object images every 83 ms (i.e., at F ¼ 12.0 Hz). Natural face images were embedded in the sequence at a fixed interval of F/ 9 (1.33 Hz). There were four conditions: (a) full-color images; (b) grayscale images; and (c) and (d) phasescrambled images from Conditions 1 and 2, respectively, making faces and objects unrecognizable. Observers’ task was to respond to color changes of the fixation cross (Experiment 1). We found face-categorization responses at 1.33 Hz and its harmonics (2.67 Hz, etc.) over occipitotemporal areas, with right-hemisphere dominance; responses to color images were not significantly different from those to grayscale images. Behavioral analysis revealed longer response times when images contained color, despite nearly-all-correct performance in all conditions, suggesting that color change in the task might detract from color’s contribution to face categorization. We subsequently changed the task to responding to fixation shape changes so that such response-time differences were eliminated (Experiment 2). The aggregate facecategorization response became 21.6% stronger to color than to grayscale images. This color advantage occurred late, at 290–415 ms after stimulus onset. Our results suggest that the color advantage for face categorization interacts with behavior, and that color only has a moderate and relatively late contribution to rapid face categorization in natural images.
author2 School of Social Sciences
author_facet School of Social Sciences
Or, Charles C.-F.
Retter, Talia L.
Rossion, Bruno
format Article
author Or, Charles C.-F.
Retter, Talia L.
Rossion, Bruno
author_sort Or, Charles C.-F.
title The contribution of color information to rapid face categorization in natural scenes
title_short The contribution of color information to rapid face categorization in natural scenes
title_full The contribution of color information to rapid face categorization in natural scenes
title_fullStr The contribution of color information to rapid face categorization in natural scenes
title_full_unstemmed The contribution of color information to rapid face categorization in natural scenes
title_sort contribution of color information to rapid face categorization in natural scenes
publishDate 2019
url https://hdl.handle.net/10356/90306
http://hdl.handle.net/10220/49453
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