Carleton Author

Neiworth, Julie J.; Hassett, Janice M.; Sylvester, Cara J.

Department

Psychology

Journal Title

Animal Cognition

Publication Date

2007

First Page

125

Last Page

135

Publisher

Springer Verlag

File Name

034_Neiworth-Julie_FaceProcessingInHumansAndNewWorldMonkeys.pdf

Keywords

Face processing, Monkeys, Conspecific, Perception, Tamarins

Abstract

This study tests whether the face-processing sys- tem of humans and a nonhuman primate species share char- acteristics that would allow for early and quick processing of socially salient stimuli: a sensitivity toward conspecific faces, a sensitivity toward highly practiced face stimuli, and an ability to generalize changes in the face that do not sug- gest a new identity, such as a face differently oriented. The look rates by adult tamarins and humans toward conspecific and other primate faces were examined to determine if these characteristics are shared. A visual paired comparison (VPC) task presented subjects with either a human face, chimpanzee face, tamarin face, or an object as a sample, and then a pair containing the previous stimulus and a novel stimulus was presented. The stimuli were either presented all in an upright orientation, or all in an inverted orientation. The novel stim- ulus in the pair was either an orientation change of the same face/object or a new example of the same type of face/object, and the stimuli were shown either in an upright orientation or in an inverted orientation. Preference to novelty scores re- vealed that humans attended most to novel individual human faces, and this effect decreased significantly if the stimuli were inverted. Tamarins showed preferential looking toward novel orientations of previously seen tamarin faces in the up- right orientation, but not in an inverted orientation. Similarly, their preference to look longer at novel tamarin and human faces within the pair was reduced significantly with inverted stimuli. The results confirmed prior findings in humans that novel human faces generate more attention in the upright than in the inverted orientation.

Rights Management

Carleton College does not own the copyright to this work and the work is available through the Carleton College Library following the original publisher's policies regarding self-archiving. For more information on the copyright status of this work, refer to the current copyright holder.

RoMEO Color

Green

Preprint Archiving

Yes

Postprint Archiving

Yes

Publisher PDF Archiving

No

Contributing Organization

Carleton College

Type

Article

Format

application/pdf

Language

English

DOI

10.1007/s10071-006-0045-4

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