Graduation Date
Summer 2019
Document Type
Thesis
Program
Master of Arts degree with a major in Psychology, option Academic Research
Committee Chair Name
Amanda Hahn
Committee Chair Affiliation
HSU Faculty or Staff
Second Committee Member Name
Kauyumari Sanchez
Second Committee Member Affiliation
HSU Faculty or Staff
Third Committee Member Name
Christopher Aberson
Third Committee Member Affiliation
HSU Faculty or Staff
Keywords
Eye movement behaviors, Learned faces, Face recognition, Face perception, Continuous recognition method
Subject Categories
Psychology
Abstract
Humans demonstrate a perceptual specialization for faces that is astonishing. This project attempts determine if and where within the perceptual process face perception and face recognition diverge at the level of eye movement behaviors. Participants were exposed to a series of 36 faces, of which six were randomly selected to be learned over five subsequent exposures; thus the same face identities served as both the novel faces (block 1) and the learned faces (block 5), allowing for the measurement of eye gaze patterns during initial face perception (novel) and face recognition (learned). These six faces were randomly assigned to different orders within five presentation blocks along with 30 interspersed novel distractor faces (six novel faces per block). Eye movement patterns were recorded using the Gazepoint eye tracker and measured in the form of fixation duration and number of fixations for a set of regions of interest (ROIs). A linear mixed effects model was run for both fixation duration and number of fixations accounting for the potential effects and interaction of ROI and familiarity (i.e., face perception vs face recognition). It was determined that participants spent more time and looked the most often at the eyes of the faces they viewed (more so than any other ROI) regardless of their level of familiarity with the face. This suggests that while novel and familiar faces may be processed in overlapping but distinct manners, the way people visually scan a face may not differ for the processes of face perception and face recognition.
Citation Style
APA
Recommended Citation
Lehnertz, Mariah, "Eye movements for learned faces" (2019). Cal Poly Humboldt theses and projects. 316.
https://digitalcommons.humboldt.edu/etd/316