High-level face adaptation without awareness

Adams, W., Gray, K. H. L. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6071-4588, Garner, M. and Graf, E. (2010) High-level face adaptation without awareness. Psychological Science, 21 (2). pp. 205-210. ISSN 0956-7976 doi: 10.1177/0956797609359508

Abstract/Summary

When a visual stimulus is suppressed from awareness, processing of the suppressed image is necessarily reduced. Although adaptation to simple image properties such as orientation still occurs, adaptation to high-level properties such as face identity is eliminated. Here we show that emotional facial expression continues to be processed even under complete suppression, as indexed by substantial facial expression aftereffects.