Sex-contingent face aftereffects depend on perceptual category rather than structural encoding

Adolescents’ preferences for sexual dimorphism are influenced by relative exposure to male and female faces

“…This seems superficially at odds with previous findings that visual adaptation should be specific to sex category, such that experience of female faces can affect female but not male faces and vice versa (Bestelmeyer et al, 2008;Little et al, 2005). However, Webster et al (2004) showed that visual adaptation can also shift the relative positioning of facial category 13 boundaries in a more global way: so for example exposure to female faces made participants more likely to see the subsequent face as male, as though expectations of the appearance of all faces had been shifted towards femininity.…”

“…On the one hand, in laboratory testing sessions, visual adaptation effects can be instilled independently in male and female faces (Bestelmeyer et al, 2008;Little et al, 2005). Further, studies of contemporary partners have found similarity between an individual's partner and oppositesex parent, and not, or to a greater extent than, that individual's same-sex parent (Bereczkei et al, 2008;Little et al, 2003), suggesting that changes in attractiveness judgements that are contingent upon differences in experience can be greater within sex.…”

“…Similarly, visual adaptation to images of masculinised faces increases the rated attractiveness 4 of new masculinised faces viewed subsequently, so long as the sex of the adapting face is congruent with the sex of the rated face (Buckingham et al, 2006;Little et al, 2005; see also Bestelmeyer et al, 2008 for further evidence of sex-contingent face aftereffects).…”

Sustained effects of adaptation on the perception of familiar faces.

“…Adaptation transfer effects are of particular interest as they shed light not only on feature selectivity but also on the organizational principles of multiple face representations in the perceptual system. In studies investigating contingent aftereffects, it has been demonstrated that the transfer of aftereffects is more pronounced when adaptation and test stimuli are matched on specific dimensions (e.g., gender; Bestelmeyer et al, 2008;Jaquet & Rhodes, 2008;Little, DeBruine, & Jones, 2005), which points toward feature-selective neurons in high-level vision. Jiang, Blanz, and O'Toole (2009) recently found that learning multiple face views enhanced the transfer of adaptation effects across illumination changes and thus suggested that three-dimensional information is available in representations of familiar faces.…”

Adaptation to different mouth shapes influences visual perception of ambiguous lip speech

“…Furthermore, aftereffects for normality and attractiveness judgments of faces occur when the faces shown during the adaptation and test phases differ in size (e.g., Bestelmeyer et al, 2008;Little et al, 2005) or in orientation (e.g., Jeffery, Rhodes, & Busey, 2006;Rhodes et al, 2003), suggesting that face aftereffects reflect adaptation of neurons that code high-level aspects of faces, rather than low-level (e.g. …”