Putting culture under the spotlight reveals universal information use for face recognition

Caldara, R., Zhou, X. and Miellet, S. (2010) Putting culture under the spotlight reveals universal information use for face recognition. PLoS ONE, 5(3), e9708. (doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0009708)

Abstract

Background: Eye movement strategies employed by humans to identify conspecifics are not universal. Westerners predominantly fixate the eyes during face recognition, whereas Easterners more the nose region, yet recognition accuracy is comparable. However, natural fixations do not unequivocally represent information extraction. So the question of whether humans universally use identical facial information to recognize faces remains unresolved. Methodology/Principal Findings: We monitored eye movements during face recognition of Western Caucasian (WC) and East Asian (EA) observers with a novel technique in face recognition that parametrically restricts information outside central vision. We used ‘Spotlights’ with Gaussian apertures of 2°, 5° or 8° dynamically centered on observers’ fixations. Strikingly, in constrained Spotlight conditions (2°, 5°) observers of both cultures actively fixated the same facial information: the eyes and mouth. When information from both eyes and mouth was simultaneously available when fixating the nose (8°), as expected EA observers shifted their fixations towards this region. Conclusions/Significance: Social experience and cultural factors shape the strategies used to extract information from faces, but these results suggest that external forces do not modulate information use. Human beings rely on identical facial information to recognize conspecifics, a universal law that might be dictated by the evolutionary constraints of nature and not nurture.

• Item Type: Articles
• Additional Information: This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
• Status: Published
• Refereed: Yes
• Glasgow Author(s) Enlighten ID: Caldara, Professor Roberto and Miellet, Dr Sebastien
• Authors: Caldara, R., Zhou, X., and Miellet, S.
• College/School: College of Science and Engineering > School of Psychology
• Journal Name: PLoS ONE
• Publisher: Public Library of Science
• ISSN: 1932-6203
• ISSN (Online): 1932-6203
• Published Online: 01 January 2010
• Copyright Holders: © 2010 Caldara et al
• First Published: First published in PLoS ONE 2010 5(3): e9708
• Publisher Policy: Reproduced in accordance with the copyright policy of the publisher

Project Code	Award No	Project Name	Principal Investigator	Funder's Name	Funder Ref	Lead Dept
44988	1	Social interaction - a cognitive-neurosciences approach	Simon Garrod	Economic & Social Research Council (ESRC)	ES/E020933/1	Cognitive Neuroimaging & Neuroengineering Technologies