Abstract
Background: Faces have both shape and texture, but the relative importance of the two in face representations is unclear. Objective: We determined the relative contribution of shape and texture to aftereffects for facial age and identity. We then assessed whether adaptation transferred from texture to shape and vice versa, to determine if these were integrated in a single representation. Methods: The first experiment examined age aftereffects. We obtained young and old images of two celebrities and created hybrid images, one combining the structure of the old face with the texture of the young face, the other combining the young structure with the old texture. This allowed us to create adaptation contrasts where structure was the same but texture differed between two adaptors, and vice versa. In the second experiment, we performed a similar study but this time examining identity aftereffects between two people of a similar age. In the last experiment, we used the normal and hybrid images to determine if adaptation to one property (i.e. texture) could create aftereffects in the perception of age in the other property (i.e. shape). Results: Both texture and shape generated significant age aftereffects, but texture contributed the majority of adaptation (77%). Both texture and shape also generated significant identity aftereffects, but the balance was different here, with texture accounting for only 32% of adaptation. In the last experiment, we found no transfer of age aftereffects between texture and shape. Conclusions: Shape and texture contribute differently to different face representations, with texture dominating for age and shape dominating for identity. The lack of adaptation transfer may indicate that these properties are encoded independently.
NSERC Discovery Grant RGPIN 355879-08.