Face Adaptation—Investigating Nonconfigural Saturation Alterations

Abstract

Recognizing familiar faces requires a comparison of the incoming perceptual information with mental face representations stored in memory. Mounting evidence indicates that these representations adapt quickly to recently perceived facial changes. This becomes apparent in face adaptation studies where exposure to a strongly manipulated face alters the perception of subsequent face stimuli: original, non-manipulated face images then appear to be manipulated, while images similar to the adaptor are perceived as “normal.” The face adaptation paradigm serves as a good tool for investigating the information stored in facial memory. So far, most of the face adaptation studies focused on configural (second-order relationship) face information, mainly neglecting non-configural face information (i.e., that does not affect spatial face relations), such as color, although several (non-adaptation) studies were able to demonstrate the importance of color information in face perception and identification. The present study therefore focuses on adaptation effects on saturation color information and compares the results with previous findings on brightness. The study reveals differences in the effect pattern and robustness, indicating that adaptation effects vary considerably even within the same class of non-configural face information.