Rapid integration of face detection and task set in visually guided reaching.

The superior colliculus (SC) has been increasingly implicated in the rapid processing of evolutionarily relevant stimuli like faces, but the behavioural relevance of such processing is unclear. The SC has also been implicated in the generation of express visuomotor responses (EVR), which are very short-latency (~80 ms) bursts of muscle activity time-locked to visual target presentation. These observations led us to investigate the influence of faces on EVRs.

The contribution of semantic distance knowledge to size constancy in perception and grasping when visual cues are limited.

To achieve a stable perception of object size in spite of variations in viewing distance, our visual system needs to combine retinal image information and distance cues. Previous research has shown that, not only retinal cues, but also extraretinal sensory signals can provide reliable information about depth and that different neural networks (perception versus action) can exhibit preferences in the use of these different sources of information during size-distance computations. Semantic knowledge of distance, a purely cognitive signal, can also provide distance information.

Revisiting the effect of visual illusions on grasping in left and right handers.

Visual illusions have provided compelling evidence for a dissociation between perception and action. For example, when two different-sized objects are placed on opposite ends of the Ponzo illusion, people erroneously perceive the physically smaller object to be bigger than the physically larger one, but when they pick up the objects, their grip aperture reflects the real difference in size between the objects. This and similar findings have been demonstrated almost entirely for the right hand in right handers.

Neural correlates of visual acuity for fine text.

Human sensitivity to visual input often scales with the magnitude of evoked responses in the brain. Here, we demonstrate an exception. We record electroencephalography (EEG) while people attempt to resolve fine print - similar to people attempting to read eye charts (the world's most popular means of testing vision).

Faster social attention disengagement in individuals with higher autism traits.

Introduction: Atypical visual and social attention has often been associated with clinically diagnosed autism spectrum disorder (ASD), and with the broader autism phenotype. Atypical social attention is of particular research interest given the importance of facial expressions for social communication, with faces tending to attract and hold attention in neurotypical individuals. In autism, this is not necessarily so, where there is debate about the temporal differences in the ability to disengage attention from a face.

Biases in human perception of facial age are present and more exaggerated in current AI technology.

Our estimates of a person's age from their facial appearance suffer from several well-known biases and inaccuracies. Typically, for example, we tend to overestimate the age of smiling faces compared to those with a neutral expression, and the accuracy of our estimates decreases for older faces. The growing interest in age estimation using artificial intelligence (AI) technology raises the question of how AI compares to human performance and whether it suffers from the same biases.

Looking at the Ebbinghaus illusion: differences in neurocomputational requirements, not gaze-mediated attention, explain a classic perception-action dissociation.

Perceiving and grasping an object present an animal with different sets of computational problems. The solution in primates entails the specialization of separate neural networks for visual processing with different object representations. This explains why the Ebbinghaus illusion minimally affects the grasping hand's in-flight aperture, which normally scales with target size, even though the size of the target disc remains misperceived.

Smiling makes you look older, even when you wear a mask: the effect of face masks on age perception.

The widespread use of face masks in the era of the Covid-19 pandemic has promoted research on their effect on the perception and recognition of faces. There is growing evidence that masks hinder the recognition of identity and expression, as well as the interpretation of speech from facial cues. It is less clear whether and in what manner masks affect the perception of age from facial cues.

The role of animal faces in the animate-inanimate distinction in the ventral temporal cortex.

Animate and inanimate objects elicit distinct response patterns in the human ventral temporal cortex (VTC), but the exact features driving this distinction are still poorly understood. One prominent feature that distinguishes typical animals from inanimate objects and that could potentially explain the animate-inanimate distinction in the VTC is the presence of a face. In the current fMRI study, we investigated this possibility by creating a stimulus set that included animals with faces, faceless animals, and inanimate objects, carefully matched in order to minimize other visual differences.

The effect of smiling on the perceived age of male and female faces across the lifespan.

Previous research has shown an unintuitive effect of facial expression on perceived age: smiling faces are perceived as older compared to neutral faces of the same people. The aging effect of smiling (AES), which is thought to result from the presence of smile-related wrinkles around the eyes, contradicts the common belief that smiling faces should be perceived as younger, not older. Previous research, however, has focused on faces of young adults, where the absence of inherent, age-related wrinkles and other age signs is offset by the weight of the smile-related wrinkles.

A priming study on naming real versus pictures of tools.

There is a growing body of literature demonstrating the relationship between the activation of sensorimotor processes in object recognition. It is unclear, however, if these processes are influenced by the differences in how real (3D) tools and two-dimensional (2D) images of tools are processed by the brain. Here, we examined if these differences could influence the naming of tools.

The Role of Haptic Expectations in Reaching to Grasp: From Pantomime to Natural Grasps and Back Again.

When we reach to pick up an object, our actions are effortlessly informed by the object's spatial information, the position of our limbs, stored knowledge of the object's material properties, and what we want to do with the object. A substantial body of evidence suggests that grasps are under the control of "automatic, unconscious" sensorimotor modules housed in the "dorsal stream" of the posterior parietal cortex. Visual online feedback has a strong effect on the hand's in-flight grasp aperture.

Pupil size is modulated by the size of equal-luminance gratings.

Pupil size changes with light. For this reason, researchers studying the effect of attention, contextual processing, and arousal on the pupillary response have matched the mean luminance of their stimuli across conditions to eliminate the contribution of differences in light levels. Here, we argue that the match of mean luminance is not enough.

Grip Constancy but Not Perceptual Size Constancy Survives Lesions of Early Visual Cortex.

Object constancies are central constructs in theories of visual phenomenology. A powerful example is "size constancy," in which the perceived size of an object remains stable despite changes in viewing distance [1-4]. Evidence from neuropsychology [5], neuroimaging [6-11], transcranial magnetic stimulation [12, 13], single-unit and lesion studies in monkey [14-20], and computational modeling [21] suggests that re-entrant processes involving reciprocal interactions between primary visual cortex (V1) and extrastriate visual areas [22-26] play an essential role in mediating size constancy.

The Age-Dependent Neural Substrates of Blindsight.

Some patients who are considered cortically blind due to the loss of their primary visual cortex (V1) show a remarkable ability to act upon or discriminate between visual stimuli presented to their blind field, without any awareness of those stimuli. This phenomenon is often referred to as blindsight. Despite the range of spared visual abilities, the identification of the pathways mediating blindsight remains an active and contentious topic in the field.

Corrigendum: Saccade Latency Provides Evidence for Reduced Face Inversion Effects With Higher Autism Traits.

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.3389/fnhum.2019.

Saccade Latency Provides Evidence for Reduced Face Inversion Effects With Higher Autism Traits.

Individuals on the autism spectrum are reported to show impairments in the processing of social information, including aspects of eye-movements towards faces. Abnormalities in basic-level visual processing are also reported. In the current study, we sought to determine if the latency of saccades made towards social targets (faces) in a natural scene as opposed to inanimate targets (cars) would be related to sub-clinical autism traits (ATs) in individuals drawn from a neurotypical population.

Changing the Real Viewing Distance Reveals the Temporal Evolution of Size Constancy in Visual Cortex.

Our visual system provides a distance-invariant percept of object size by integrating retinal image size with viewing distance (size constancy). Single-unit studies with animals have shown that some distance cues, especially oculomotor cues such as vergence and accommodation, can modulate the signals in the thalamus or V1 at the initial processing stage [1-7]. Accordingly, one might predict that size constancy emerges much earlier in time [8-10], even as visual signals are being processed in the thalamus.

A pantomiming priming study on the grasp and functional use actions of tools.

It has previously been demonstrated that tool recognition is facilitated by the repeated visual presentation of object features affording actions, such as those related to grasping and their functional use. It is unclear, however, if this can also facilitate pantomiming. Participants were presented with an image of a prime followed by a target tool and were required to pantomime the appropriate action for each one.

When perception intrudes on 2D grasping: evidence from Garner interference.

When participants reach out to pick up a real 3-D object, their grip aperture reflects the size of the object well before contact is made. At the same time, the classical psychophysical laws and principles of relative size and shape that govern visual perception do not appear to intrude into the control of such movements, which are instead tuned only to the relevant dimension for grasping. In contrast, accumulating evidence suggests that grasps directed at flat 2D objects are not immune to perceptual effects.