@article{gingras_cultural_2026,

title = {Cultural differences in spatial frequency tunings to faces do not generalize to visual scenes and object stimuli},

author = {F. Gingras and D. Fiset and M. -P. Plouffe-Demers and A. Estéphan and M. N’Guiamba and D. Sun and Y. Zhang and C. Blais},

url = {https://www.scopus.com/inward/record.uri?eid=2-s2.0-105025378146&doi=10.3758%2Fs13423-025-02832-0&partnerID=40&md5=43840b8cfa4c2df54e647f03a452f8e5},

doi = {10.3758/s13423-025-02832-0},

issn = {10699384 (ISSN)},

year  = {2026},

date = {2026-01-01},

journal = {Psychonomic Bulletin and Review},

volume = {33},

number = {1},

abstract = {Previous research has identified cultural differences in visual perception, where East Asians focus more on global object structure and display a larger breadth of attention compared with Westerners. East Asians rely on lower spatial frequencies (SFs) compared to Westerners for face recognition, which may be linked to this. Investigating whether such differences extend to other high-level stimulus categories would clarify if SF tuning differences reflect more general or face specific cognitive processes. The present study compared the SF tunings of Canadians and Chinese during object (Exp. 1; N = 50) and scene (Exp. 3; N = 47) categorization. In both experiments, results did not indicate a significant difference between groups. In Experiment 3 (N = 128), we conducted an online replication of Experiment 1 while measuring the SF tunings of the same participants during face perception. Again, no significant difference between the groups was found during object categorization, but the finding that East Asians rely on lower SF than Westerners was replicated. Together, these results suggest that unique mechanisms may underlie the cultural differences in face processing, though alternative explanations, such as the feature consistency of faces, could also account for these findings. © The Psychonomic Society, Inc. 2025.},

keywords = {Adolescent, adult, Asian, Asian People, Canada, Caucasian, China, Cross-Cultural Comparison, Cross-cultural psychology, cultural factor, Depth Perception, Face processing, Facial Recognition, female, human, Humans, male, Object processing, Pattern Recognition, physiology, Scene processing, Space Perception, Spatial frequencies, Visual, visual pattern recognition, Visual Perception, White People, Young Adult},

pubstate = {published},

tppubtype = {article}

}

@article{charbonneau_facial_2025,

title = {Facial expression categorization predominantly relies on mid-spatial frequencies},

author = {I. Charbonneau and J. Duncan and C. Blais and J. Guérette and M. -P. Plouffe-Demers and F. Smith and D. Fiset},

url = {https://www.scopus.com/inward/record.uri?eid=2-s2.0-105003427898&doi=10.1016%2Fj.visres.2025.108611&partnerID=40&md5=508d315d8092a9142c2d82f1b774cfdb},

doi = {10.1016/j.visres.2025.108611},

issn = {00426989 (ISSN)},

year  = {2025},

date = {2025-01-01},

journal = {Vision Research},

volume = {231},

abstract = {Facial expressions are crucial in human communication. Recent decades have seen growing interest in understanding the role of spatial frequencies (SFs) in emotion perception in others. While some studies have suggested a preferential treatment of low versus high SFs, the optimal SFs for recognizing basic facial expressions remain elusive. This study, conducted on Western participants, addresses this gap using two complementary methods: a data-driven method (Exp. 1) without arbitrary SF cut-offs, and a more naturalistic method (Exp. 2) simulating variations in viewing distance. Results generally showed a preponderant role of low over high SFs, but particularly stress that facial expression categorization mostly relies on mid-range SF content (i.e. ∼6–13 cycles per face), often overlooked in previous studies. Optimal performance was observed at short to medium viewing distances (1.2–2.4 m), declining sharply with increased distance, precisely when mid-range SFs were no longer available. Additionally, our data suggest variations in SF tuning profiles across basic facial expressions and nuanced contributions from low and mid SFs in facial expression processing. Most importantly, it suggests that any method that removes mid-SF content has the downfall of offering an incomplete account of SFs diagnosticity for facial expression recognition. © 2025 The Authors},

note = {Publisher: Elsevier Ltd},

keywords = {adult, article, Bubbles, Classification, controlled study, emotion, Emotions, Facial Expression, facial expressions, Facial Recognition, female, human, Humans, male, physiology, Psychophysics, simulation, Spatial frequencies, Young Adult},

pubstate = {published},

tppubtype = {article}

}