Contrast sensitivity tuning function for rapid categorization of natural face images
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1
Institute of Research in Psychological Sciences, Catholic University of Louvain, Belgium
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2
Institute of NeuroScience, Université Catholique de Louvain, Belgium
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3
University of Lorraine, CNRS, CRAN, France
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4
University of Lorraine, CHRU-Nancy, Service de Neurologie, France
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5
Department of Cognitive Neuroscience, Maastricht University, Netherlands
How contrast sensitivity, a fundamental low-level visual function, influences human face categorization is not well understood. We investigated the role of contrast on neural face-selective responses using an EEG “sweep” frequency-tagging paradigm. Subjects viewed 1-minute sequences of naturalistic object images presented at a fast 12 Hz rate, with faces interleaved every 8th stimuli (1.5 Hz). Throughout a sequence, stimulus contrast either increased (low-to-high, LtoH) or decreased (high-to-low, HtoL) logarithmically in 14 steps between 0.8% and 100%. Responses at 12 Hz, reflecting general visual processing, emerged over medial-occipital cortex at 3.5% contrast to reach ceiling at 32.8% contrast, and did not differ between conditions. However, responses at 1.5 Hz (and harmonics), indexing generic face categorization located over right occipito-temporal regions, emerged at slightly lower contrast in LtoH (7.4%) than their disappearance threshold in HtoL (10.8%) sequences. Response saturation occurred at the same 15.6 % contrast in both conditions. To summarise, the human brain requires nearly twice as much contrast for rapidly categorizing faces among objects than to merely detect visual stimuli. Yet the small offset between onset and saturation of the neural face-selective response suggests fast and efficient information accumulation for face categorization.
Keywords:
face dectection,
EEG,
Fast periodic visual stimulation,
contrast,
human vision
Conference:
13th National Congress of the Belgian Society for Neuroscience , Brussels, Belgium, 24 May - 24 May, 2019.
Presentation Type:
Poster presentation
Topic:
Behavioral/Systems Neuroscience
Citation:
Yang
Y,
Liu-Shuang
J,
Rossion
B and
Goffaux
V
(2019). Contrast sensitivity tuning function for rapid categorization of natural face images.
Front. Neurosci.
Conference Abstract:
13th National Congress of the Belgian Society for Neuroscience .
doi: 10.3389/conf.fnins.2019.96.00010
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Received:
30 Apr 2019;
Published Online:
27 Sep 2019.
*
Correspondence:
Dr. Yu-Fang Yang, Institute of Research in Psychological Sciences, Catholic University of Louvain, Louvain-la-Neuve, Walloon Brabant, 1348, Belgium, yu-fang.yang@uclouvain.be