The role of surface pigmentation for recognition revealed by contrast reversal 
in faces and Greebles

Vuong, QC; Peissig, JJ; Harrison, MC; Tarr, MJ

doi:10.1016/j.visres.2004.11.015

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The role of surface pigmentation for recognition revealed by contrast reversal in faces and Greebles

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Vuong, QC
Department Human Perception, Cognition and Action, Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics, Max Planck Society;
Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics, Max Planck Society;

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https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0042698904005863
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Citation

Vuong, Q., Peissig, J., Harrison, M., & Tarr, M. (2005). The role of surface pigmentation for recognition revealed by contrast reversal in faces and Greebles. Vision Research, 45(10), 1213-1223. doi:10.1016/j.visres.2004.11.015.

Cite as: https://hdl.handle.net/11858/00-001M-0000-0013-D599-6

Abstract

Faces are difficult to recognize when viewed as negatives [Galper (1970). Recognition of faces in photographic negative. Psychonomic
Science, 19, 207]. Here we examined the contribution of surface properties to this contrast effect, and whether it is modulated by object category. We tested observers in a matching task using faces or Greebles, presented with or without pigmentation. When
stimulus pairs were shown with mismatched contrast (e.g., positivenegative), there was a decrement in performance. This decrement was larger when the stimuli were shown with pigmentation, and this difference was more pronounced with faces than with Greebles. Overall, contrast reversal disrupts the recognition of both faces and objects to a greater degree in the presence of pigmentation,
suggesting that surface properties are important components of the object representation.