A new study from the lab has been accepted for publication in Attention, Perception, & Psychophysics, investigating how the visual system flexibly integrates coarse and fine information during face perception.

The work explores how low spatial frequency (LSF) and high spatial frequency (HSF) information interact when observers recognize faces under different conditions of familiarity and orientation. Using a rapid face-matching paradigm, the study examined whether face perception follows a rigid “coarse-to-fine” processing sequence or whether integration strategies adapt dynamically to context.

Across two experiments, participants matched familiar and unfamiliar faces presented with different spatial frequency contents. The results revealed that, for familiar upright faces, performance improved when coarse LSF information was matched onto detailed HSF templates, suggesting a flexible integration process rather than a fixed hierarchical sequence. Importantly, this effect disappeared for inverted or unfamiliar faces, indicating that familiarity and holistic processing strongly shape how visual information is combined.

These findings provide new evidence that spatial frequency integration in face recognition is adaptive and context-dependent, offering further insight into the mechanisms underlying human visual perception.