Facial perception of conspecifics: chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) preferentially attend to proper orientation and open eyes

Hirata, Satoshi; Fuwa, Koki; Sugama, Keiko; Kusunoki, Kiyo; Fujita, Shin

doi:10.1007/s10071-010-0316-y

Cited by 44 publications

(47 citation statements)

References 47 publications

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“…However, if this was the case no difference in discriminability would have been found whatever internal face region was masked. Therefore the eye region seems to have a special role in human face processing of dogs, corroborating the findings of Somppi et al [9] and supporting the hypothesis for a role of the eyes region in a global mechanism of face processing [34], [55], [56].…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 86%

Part-Based and Configural Processing of Owner's Face in Dogs

et al. 2014

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Dogs exhibit characteristic looking patterns when looking at human faces but little is known about what the underlying cognitive mechanisms are and how much these are influenced by individual experience. In Experiment 1, seven dogs were trained in a simultaneous discrimination procedure to assess whether they could discriminate a) the owner's face parts (eyes, nose or mouth) presented in isolation and b) whole faces where the same parts were covered. Dogs discriminated all the three parts of the owner's face presented in isolation, but needed fewer sessions to reach the learning criterion for the eyes than for both nose and mouth. Moreover, covering the eyes region significantly disrupted face discriminability compared to the whole face condition while such difference was not found when the nose or mouth was hidden. In Experiment 2, dogs were presented with manipulated images of the owner's face (inverted, blurred, scrambled, grey-scale) to test the relative contribution of part-based and configural processing in the discrimination of human faces. Furthermore, by comparing the dogs enrolled in the previous experiment and seven ‘naïve’ dogs we examined if the relative contribution of part-based and configural processing was affected by dogs' experience with the face stimuli. Naïve dogs discriminated the owner only when configural information was provided, whereas expert dogs could discriminate the owner also when part-based processing was necessary. The present study provides the first evidence that dogs can discriminate isolated internal features of a human face and corroborate previous reports of salience of the eyes region for human face processing. Although the reliance on part-perception may be increased by specific experience, our findings suggest that human face discrimination by dogs relies mainly on configural rather than on part-based elaboration.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 86%

Part-Based and Configural Processing of Owner's Face in Dogs

et al. 2014

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“…In case of chimpanzees, calibration error was estimated before testing, and the average error across participants was 0.40° (s.d. = 0.38°) of the visual angle of the chimpanzees 29 . We did not measure the calibration errors precisely in case of human infants and adults, because of accumulated knowledge about the validity of data collection using exactly the same device 11,12,25 , but the errors can be estimated as within the range of 1° of visual angle at most for our participants, judging from their fixation data with the stimulus used for attention getting.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 92%

“…The two males (both 15 years old) and four females (14, 14, 11 and 5 years old) lived as a group. All of them previously participated in several kinds of behavioural cognitive tasks, including tool use, sequential learning using touch screens and eye-tracking 29 . The chimpanzees spent a few hours each day interacting with humans indoors for study or husbandry purposes.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Humans and chimpanzees attend differently to goal-directed actions

2012

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Humans comprehend the actions of others by making inferences about intentional mental states of another. However, little is known about how this capacity develops and whether this is shared with other animals. Here we show the ontogenetic and evolutionary foundations of this ability by comparing the eye movements of 8-and 12-month-old human infants, adults and chimpanzees as they watched videos presenting goal-directed and non-goal-directed actions by an actor. We find that chimpanzees anticipate action goals in the same way as do human adults. Humans and chimpanzees, however, scan goal-directed actions differently. Humans, particularly infants, refer to actors' faces significantly more than do chimpanzees. In human adults, attentional allocation to an actor's face changes as the goal-directed actions proceed. In the case of non-goal-directed actions, human adults attend less often to faces relative to goal-directed actions. These findings indicate that humans have a predisposition to observe goal-directed actions by integrating information from the actor.

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“…Again, the eyes of familiar individuals received more attention than the eyes of unfamiliar conspecifics. Preferential gaze towards the eye region of conspecific faces has also been found in chimpanzees (Hirata et al 2010).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 80%

Seeing two faces together: preference formation in humans and rhesus macaques

Méary

et al. 2014

Anim Cogn

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Humans, great apes and old world monkeys show selective attention to faces depending on conspecificity, familiarity, and social status supporting the view that primates share similar face processing mechanisms. Although many studies have been done on face scanning strategy in monkeys and humans, the mechanisms influencing viewing preference have received little attention. To determine how face categories influence viewing preference in humans and rhesus macaques (Macaca mulatta), we performed two eye-tracking experiments using a visual preference task whereby pairs of faces from different species were presented simultaneously. The results indicated that viewing time was significantly influenced by the pairing of the face categories. Humans showed a strong bias towards an own-race face in an Asian-Caucasian condition. Rhesus macaques directed more attention towards non-human primate faces when they were paired with human faces, regardless of the species. When rhesus faces were paired with faces from Barbary macaques (Macaca sylvanus) or chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes), the novel species' faces attracted more attention. These results indicate that monkeys' viewing preferences, as assessed by a visual preference task, are modulated by several factors, species and dominance being the most influential. Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article

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Facial perception of conspecifics: chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) preferentially attend to proper orientation and open eyes

Cited by 44 publications

References 47 publications

Part-Based and Configural Processing of Owner's Face in Dogs

Part-Based and Configural Processing of Owner's Face in Dogs

Humans and chimpanzees attend differently to goal-directed actions

Seeing two faces together: preference formation in humans and rhesus macaques

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