| 其他摘要 | As unique self-related stimuli, self-face-specific representations have receivedextensive attention and research at both the behavioral and neural levels. However, self-faces are highly familiar face stimuli, and even if familiar faces are introduced asexperimental controls during the experiment, the confounding of familiarity in self-face-specific studies cannot be completely ruled out, because it is difficult for us to finda match with self-face familiarity control stimulus. Based on the limitations of researchmethods, there is still controversy about whether self-faces have specificrepresentations. Therefore, this study pioneered the associative learning paradigm togenerate self-associated images and other-associated images with the same degree offamiliarity to further excluded the influence of familiarity. Through three levels ofbehavioral level, physiological level, and neural level, we investigated the specificcognitive and neural mechanisms of self-face. At the behavioral level, since the face-related tasks used in previous studies are easily involved in familiarity, this paperadopted a perceptual task unrelated to face processing to explore self-face-specificrepresentations.
Existing evidence points out that self-face-specific representations are embodiedin cognitive processes such as recognition, attention, and emotion. However, whetherself-face perception representations are specific remains unknown. Therefore, Study 1combines the size discrimination paradigm and the associative learning paradigm toexamine the specific representation of self-face perception from the spatial dimension.We found that people tended to perceive the self-face as larger when the self-face wasthe same size as the other's face. Further, this size illusion was not derived from facefamiliarity, as it can also be found by directly comparing the size of self and celebrityfaces. What's more, even cartoon faces that are briefly associated with self-faces wasperceived to be larger than other-associated faces, and can even affect the sizeperception of other objects in the environment. These findings demonstrated a novel perceptual illusion that self-face can enlarge its perceived size, pointed to a specialmechanism of size perception tuned to self-referential information and emphasized thecrucial role of self-awareness in size perception.
In Study 2, adopting the temporal discrimination paradigm and the associativelearning paradigm, we investigated the specific representation of self-face perceptionfrom the time dimension. Results revealed that people tended to perceive self-faces asshorter when self-faces and celebrity faces were presented for the same duration.Furthermore, the time compression illusion of self-faces could be extended to cartoonfaces associated with self-faces. Interestingly, when celebrity faces were presented forthe same duration as others, people tended to perceive celebrity faces as longer.Moreover, the time dilation illusion of celebrity faces cannot be transferred to cartoonfaces associated with celebrity faces, indicating that self-face specificity, rather thanfamiliarity, could be attached to irrelevant cartoon faces through associative learning,thereby modulating the time perception of self-associated faces. The separation resultsof self-face and celebrity face strongly demonstrated the specificity of the timeperceptual representation of self-face, pointed out the special mechanism of self-relatedinformation regulating time perception, and emphasized the key role of self-awarenessin time perception.
In study 3, we introduced pupil size index and explored whether self-face canspecifically regulate pupil size from a physiological level. Using the passive viewingparadigm and the associative learning paradigm, it was found that although the self-face and the other's face were equally bright, the pupils contracted more when seeingthe self-face. Furthermore, pupil constriction induced by self-faces could also beextended to self-associated faces. However, it turned out that familiar faces could notregulate pupil size. Study 3 provided evidence that self-face could specifically modulatepupil size, pointed out the special mechanism of self-related information modulatingpupil size, and emphasized the important role of self-awareness in the regulation ofpupil size.
Since familiar faces themselves involve the invocation of different neural networks(such as emotional networks), over-focusing on familiarity can easily lead tomisunderstandings in experimental results, thereby increasing the variability ofresearch results. With the help of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI)technology, by using self-associated faces, Study 4 realized the exploration of the brainmechanism of self-face-specific representation without introducing complex variables,and further separated the self-face——the self-face-specific and the self-specific. Thecurrent study found that on the basis of general self-related information (self-specific)processing, the visual sensory cortex(occipito and temporal cortex), the right inferiorfrontal gyrus was specifically involved in self-face processing.
Taken together, these findings provided evidence for the view that “self-face isspecial” from three aspects of spatio-temporal perception level, physiological level, andneural level Moreover, at the behavioral level, self-face specific representations arefurther extended to unexplored perceptual domains. In general, these findings providestrong supporting evidence for self-face representation specificity. |
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