Abstract
We have reported that attractiveness of an attended object is implicitly modulated by that of the task-irrelevant “ignored” object(s), using a central geometric figure with surrounding faces (Shimojo et al., VSS'10), or an attended hair (HR) and ignored face (FC) (Saegusa et al., VSS'10). In the research of face perception, it is said that the holistic perceptual process plays an important role in the attractiveness judgment (Abbas et al., 2008). If so, the attractiveness “leakage” from task-irrelevant FC to the target HR may be proportional to holistic perceptual organization between them. Here, we aimed to see how the holistic perceptual integration influences the attractiveness leakage phenomenon.
Eight FC images and 16 HR images were selected from a pre-rated set to maximize the baseline attractiveness differences. Each FC and HR were 1) combined in the natural spatial alignment and shown in upright orientation, 2) shown in a spaced, side-by-side relation to each other, or 3) combined in the natural spatial alignment, but shown in upside-down orientation. Participants were asked to judge the attractiveness of HR only in a 7-point scale.
Results showed that the baseline FC attractiveness was implicitly integrated into HR attractiveness judgment in 1), though it was not in other two conditions. Also, participants who took a shorter time to perform the task tended to show a stronger leakage effect, relative to those who took a longer time. It is consistent with the idea that the holistic perception requires shorter time to process the whole image. The results together suggest that the degree of holistic perceptual organization positively correlates with the attractiveness integration across the task-irrelevant FC and target HR images.