The development of upright face perception depends on evolved orientation-specific mechanisms and experience

• Published in: iScience 2023-10, Vol.26 (10), p.107763-107763, Article 107763
• Main Authors: Duchaine, Brad, Rezlescu, Constantin, Garrido, Lúcia, Zhang, Yiyuan, Braga, Maira V., Susilo, Tirta
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Cognitive neuroscience; Psychology
• ISSN: 2589-0042; 2589-0042
• DOI: 10.1016/j.isci.2023.107763

Here we examine whether our impressive ability to perceive upright faces arises from evolved orientation-specific mechanisms, our extensive experience with upright faces, or both factors. To do so, we tested Claudio, a man with a congenital joint disorder causing his head to be rotated back so that it is positioned between his shoulder blades. As a result, Claudio has seen more faces reversed in orientation to his own face than matched to it. Controls exhibited large inversion effects on all tasks, but Claudio performed similarly with upright and inverted faces in both detection and identity-matching tasks, indicating these abilities are the product of evolved mechanisms and experience. In contrast, he showed clear upright superiority when detecting “Thatcherized” faces (faces with vertically flipped features), suggesting experience plays a greater role in this judgment. Together, these findings indicate that both evolved orientation-specific mechanisms and experience contribute to our proficiency with upright faces. [Display omitted] •Claudio has viewed more faces mismatched to his face’s orientation than matched to it•We compared matched vs. mismatched to assess role of experience & evolved factors•No difference for detection, identity matching; mismatched better for Thatcher task•Experience & evolved mechanisms contribute to upright superiority in neurotypicals Cognitive neuroscience; Psychology