Phenomenal competition for poses of the human head

Abstract

Abstract. We show a cylindrical projection of the human head. This projection is ambiguous with respect to head pose. Viewing such a projection produces perceptual competition for a few discrete views. In a number of studies it is suggested that the brain may represent head pose in terms of a discrete set of preferred views. Exactly what these views are and how their representations enable visual face recognition and pose estimation is not entirely clear. On the one hand, it is easier to find neurons in the primate inferotemporal cortex that are more selective for head-on, profile, or back views than other angles (Perrett et al 1991). On the other hand, psychophysical studies have shown that human face recognition generalizes better from a learned view near 45° about the vertical axis than from other views (Bruce and Valentine 1987; Troje and BulthofF, in press). This latter observation is consistent with theoretical predictions based on virtual views for symmetric objects (Vetter et al 1993). In either case, one might expect that if an image of a human head is presented in such a way as to make pose assignment ambiguous, we might visually experience a competition for preferred poses