Gains and costs of visual expertise – a training study with novel objects V Willenbockel1, B Rossion2, Q C Vuong1 |
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1Institute of Neuroscience, University of Newcastle, United Kingdom |
| Adult observers typically have remarkable face recognition skills and are therefore considered face "experts". The mechanisms mediating these skills and especially their relation to other domains of visual expertise are still debated. In the present study, we investigated whether behavioral markers of face expertise could be obtained with novel non-face objects after lab-based training. Observers’ performance with both faces and novel 3D objects was assessed before and after training using matching tasks previously shown to elicit face composite, face inversion, and face contrast reversal effects. During several hours of training, observers learned to individuate novel objects from different viewpoints using a number of naming and verification tasks. As predicted, pre-training results revealed the composite, inversion and contrast reversal effects in efficiency for faces but not for non-face objects. Preliminary post-training results showed that the magnitude of the effects for faces diminished relative to pre-training results whereas the effects for objects increased. This overall pattern of results is consistent with competition for neural resources between face and non-face domains of expertise and highlights the plasticity of visual processing mechanisms even at an adult age. |
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