Does Extensive Training at Individuating Novel Objects in Adulthood Lead to Visual Expertise? The Role of Facelikeness

Abstract

Human adults have a rich visual experience thanks to seeing human faces since birth, which may contribute to the acquisition of perceptual processes that rapidly and automatically individuate faces. According to a generic visual expertise hypothesis, extensive experience with nonface objects may similarly lead to efficient processing of objects at the individual level. However, whether extensive training in adulthood leads to visual expertise remains debated. One key issue is the extent to which the acquisition of visual expertise depends on the resemblance of objects to faces in terms of the spatial configuration of parts. We therefore trained naive human adults to individuate a large set of novel parametric multipart objects. Critically, one group of participants trained with the objects in a "facelike" stimulus orientation, whereas a second group trained with the same objects but with the objects rotated 180° in the picture plane into a "nonfacelike" orientation. We used a fast periodic visual stimulation EEG protocol to objectively quantify participants' ability to discriminate untrained exemplars before and after training. EEG responses associated with the frequency of identity change in a fast stimulation sequence, which reflects rapid and automatic perceptual processes, were observed over lateral occipital sites for both groups before training. There was a significant, albeit small, increase in these responses after training but only for the facelike group and only to facelike stimuli. Our findings indicate that perceived facelikeness plays a role in visual expertise and highlight how the adult perceptual system exploits familiar spatial configurations when learning new object categories.

Understanding human individuation of unfamiliar faces with oddball fast periodic visual stimulation and electroencephalography

“…These observations indicate that, all other things being equal, perceived face‐likeness plays a role in the magnitude of the EEG individuation response. This finding also illustrates how the adult visual recognition system exploits familiar spatial configurations when learning new object categories (Lochy et al., 2017; see also Vuong et al., 2017).…”

“…Recent studies have shown that the FI inversion effect is due to knowledge of stimulus orientation derived from experience. In a developmental study, 5‐year‐old children had significant FI responses but showed only a small amplitude reduction with inversion (11%; Lochy & Schiltz, 2020). In contrast, 8‐ to 12‐year‐olds tested with the same stimuli already show a much larger, almost adult‐like face inversion effect (Vettori, Dzhelyova, et al, 2019; see Section 7.4 on development below).…”

Damasio's error – Prosopagnosia with intact within‐category object recognition

“…According to a particular version of this view, this expert system would even be so flexible that it could become involved in adulthood for non‐face object shapes, for example, after learning to individualize these shapes for only a few hours (Gauthier & Tarr, ; Wong, Palmeri, & Gauthier, ). As discussed extensively in previous reviews (McKone, Kanwisher, & Duchaine, ; Rossion, ), but also demonstrated with cases of reported prosopagnosia (Rezlescu, Barton, PItcher, & Duchaine, ), this latter view does not hold (see also Lochy et al ., ; Vuong et al ., , for evidence that small learning effects attributed to visual expertise acquired in adulthood depend on stimulus facelikeness).…”

Visual training with musical notes changes late but not early electrophysiological responses in the visual cortex

“…The functional specialization of higher visual areas for different objects is often associated with visual expertise as suggested in studies comparing real-world experts and novices with an object category (chessboards: Bilalić, Langner, Ulrich, & Grodd, 2011;fingerprints: Busey & Vanderkolk, 2005;birds and cars: Gauthier, Skudlarski, Gore, & Anderson, 2000;radiographs: Harley et al, 2009; words and characters: A. C. Wong, Jobard, James, James, & Gauthier, 2008; musical notes: Y. K. Wong & Gauthier, 2010) as well as in object training studies comparing individuals' neural responses before and after training (Gauthier, Tarr, Anderson, Skudlarski, & Gore, 1999;Lochy et al, 2018;Moore, Cohen, & Ranganath, 2006;Rossion, Gauthier, Goffaux, Tarr, & Crommelinck, 2002;Scott, Tanaka, Sheinberg, & Curran, 2006A. C.-N. Wong, Palmeri, Rogers, Gore, & Gauthier, 2009; Y. K. Wong, Folstein, & Gauthier, 2012).…”