Schedule of Events | Symposia

Age-related differences in preferred fixated region (PFR) for face perception

Poster Session F - Tuesday, April 1, 2025, 8:00 – 10:00 am EDT, Back Bay Ballroom/Republic Ballroom

M. Eric Cui^1,2 (mcui@research.baycrest.org), Björn Herrmann^1,2, Allison B. Sekuler^1,2,3; ¹Rotman Research Institute, Baycrest Academy for Research and Education, ²Department of Psychology, University of Toronto, ³Department of Psychology, Neuroscience, and Behavioural Neuroscience, McMaster University

The eyes offer more information value for face discrimination than the nose, however, individuals vary in their preferred fixation region (PFR) when viewing faces: There are eye-lookers and nose-lookers. This could reflect individual differences in optimal processing regions for face perception. Older adults as a group fixate on the lower halves of faces more than younger adults (e.g., Firestone et al. 2007), and older adults show reduced face perception accuracy (e.g., Konar et al., 2013). Here, we ask: Are nose-lookers more prevalent among older adults? and Is the link between PFR and optimal processing the same in older and younger adults? We investigated PFR in 27 younger and 27 older adults, examining face perception accuracy under free and region-restricted viewing (forehead, eye, nose, and mouth; Peterson 2013). Preliminary findings revealed a higher proportion of nose-lookers among older (50%) than younger adults (20%). Older generally showed worse performance accuracy than younger adults, but performance between eye- and nose-lookers did not differ for each age group. Overall patterns of performance were similar across age groups for eye-lookers, with peak performance for eyes. Older nose-lookers showed a clear benefit for nose, but younger nose-lookers showed strong performance for eyes and nose. All nose-lookers showed strong performance for the mouth. These findings suggest that age-related changes in PFR do not fully explain reduced face perception in older adults. We currently are analyzing EEG measures to learn how neural activities associated with face detection (N170) and identification (N250) relate to PFR across adulthood.

Topic Area: PERCEPTION & ACTION: Vision