When pretty girls turn ugly: The flash face distortion effect

Billy (Cho Yin) Sung (2011). When pretty girls turn ugly: The flash face distortion effect Honours Thesis, , The University of Queensland.

       
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Author Billy (Cho Yin) Sung
Thesis Title When pretty girls turn ugly: The flash face distortion effect
Institution The University of Queensland
Publication date 2011-10-13
Thesis type Honours Thesis
Supervisor Dr Jason Tangen
Total pages 97
Language eng
Subjects 1701 Psychology
Abstract/Summary In the ‘Flashed Face Distortion Effect’, eye-aligned faces flashed in a successive and rapid sequence would gradually deform into a non-human and even grotesque figure. Given that the FFDE is a novel effect, we conducted a series of experiments to investigate the optimal conditions and the possible theoretical explanations for the effect. We manipulated different presentation conditions of the flash sequences and asked participants to indicate the sequence that appears more distorted in a forced-choice comparison. We found that sequences which lasted longer and presented 6.5o away from central fixation produced the strongest distortion. The optimal presentation rate for the FFDE was 350ms per face. Furthermore, the FFDE is independent of the similarity of faces in a sequence. However, the distortion appears to increases when there are more faces in a sequence. The observed dynamics of the FFDE appears to resemble a contrast effect in the variation between basic visual features on face. We found support for this hypothesis by replicating a systematic contrast effect on basic visual attributes and faces that differ on these elements. Overall, the results suggest that the FFDE is a simple contrast effect between local facial elements.
Keyword Flash face distortion effect

 
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Created: Wed, 27 Jun 2012, 11:14:53 EST by Mrs Ann Lee on behalf of School of Psychology