Visual Field Biases in 2D and 3D Face Processing

Abstract

The reported upper visual field bias for face processing tends to be small and inconsistent; this may be due to the use of 2D images, that lack the stereoscopic depth information which is typically available in the real world. Here we evaluate the impact of viewing naturalistic stereoscopic 3D face stimuli on face detection and recognition, as a function of location in the visual field. A series of studies using low- and high- level tasks (e.g., orientation discrimination and face recognition) were conducted. Photorealistic face stimuli were presented using a mirror stereoscope with and without binocular disparity in the upper and lower visual field. Our results show that previously reported visual field biases for faces are task dependent. Further, we find no significant differences between 2D and 3D viewing, suggesting that 2D face stimuli can be reasonable proxies for natural 3D faces.