Perceptual Dominance in Face Rivalry Is Driven by Low-Level Properties
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Two superimposed semitransparent orthogonally oriented faces produce perceptual rivalry with one face being clearly perceived at a time and perception continuously switching between them. We investigated whether perceptual dominance of an individual face is determined by high-level properties, such as gender, age, or emotion, or low-level properties. To this end, we used 20 female and 20 male faces, aged 20 to 25 years, from the Chicago Face Database. They were randomly paired using a round-robin tournament schedule (eight blocks, 20 trials each). Participants viewed a face pair and continuously indicated which face they currently perceive via key presses. We computed two measures of face dominance, (a) as a proportion of trials in which it was the first face perceived at onset and (b) as a proportion of time it was dominant throughout the trial. An exploratory data analysis using linear mixed models showed no systematic relationship between either of the two measures and high-level face descriptors, such as gender, age, or emotions (see https://osf.io/q2fjd). We conclude that in face rivalry, perceptual dominance is determined primarily by low-level features such as the size or relative width of the face, or salient local features such as birthmarks.
Recommended citation: Koßmann, L., Pastukhov, A. & Carbon, C.-C. (2019). Perceptual Dominance in Face Rivalry Is Driven by Low-Level Properties [Poster]. 42nd European Conference on Visual Perception (ECVP), Leuven, Belgium.