21st Annual Student Research Conference
The Allocation of Attention to Specific Facial Regions
Joshua P. Tonnies* and Christina L. Rector
Dr. Terry Palmer, Faculty Mentor
Converging evidence from neurophysiology and cognitive psychology suggest an attentional bottleneck in scene processing. A fundamental question concerns how attention is deployed for the accurate detection and recognition of brief visual events. The present study examines the perception of emotional expression and tests whether certain regions of the face tend to capture attention more than others. Twenty participants viewed 16 different emotionally expressive faces in a partial suppression paradigm. The participants' task was to indicate which quadrants of the face were visible. The upper right quadrant produced the highest average visibility score. Implications concerning production/perception interrelationships are discussed.
Keywords: attention, scene processing, binocular rivialry, suppression, cognitive psychology, emotional expression, perception, neurophysiology
Topic(s):Psychology
Presentation Type: Oral Paper
Session: 26-4
Location: VH 1232
Time: 10:30