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Effects of expectation on face perception and its association with expertise

Mares, I; Smith, FW; Goddard, EJ; Keighery, L; Pappasava, M; Ewing, L; Smith, ML; (2024) Effects of expectation on face perception and its association with expertise. Scientific Reports , 14 (1) , Article 9402. 10.1038/s41598-024-59284-0. Green open access

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Abstract

Perceptual decisions are derived from the combination of priors and sensorial input. While priors are broadly understood to reflect experience/expertise developed over one’s lifetime, the role of perceptual expertise at the individual level has seldom been directly explored. Here, we manipulate probabilistic information associated with a high and low expertise category (faces and cars respectively), while assessing individual level of expertise with each category. 67 participants learned the probabilistic association between a color cue and each target category (face/car) in a behavioural categorization task. Neural activity (EEG) was then recorded in a similar paradigm in the same participants featuring the previously learned contingencies without the explicit task. Behaviourally, perception of the higher expertise category (faces) was modulated by expectation. Specifically, we observed facilitatory and interference effects when targets were correctly or incorrectly expected, which were also associated with independently measured individual levels of face expertise. Multivariate pattern analysis of the EEG signal revealed clear effects of expectation from 100 ms post stimulus, with significant decoding of the neural response to expected vs. not stimuli, when viewing identical images. Latency of peak decoding when participants saw faces was directly associated with individual level facilitation effects in the behavioural task. The current results not only provide time sensitive evidence of expectation effects on early perception but highlight the role of higher-level expertise on forming priors.

Type: Article
Title: Effects of expectation on face perception and its association with expertise
Location: England
Open access status: An open access version is available from UCL Discovery
DOI: 10.1038/s41598-024-59284-0
Publisher version: http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-024-59284-0
Language: English
Additional information: © 2024 Springer Nature Limited. This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
Keywords: Expectation, Prediction, Expertise, Face processing, EEG, MVPA
UCL classification: UCL
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Brain Sciences
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Brain Sciences > UCL Queen Square Institute of Neurology
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Brain Sciences > UCL Queen Square Institute of Neurology > Clinical and Movement Neurosciences
URI: https://discovery-pp.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10191844
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