Face-perception is superior in the upper visual field : evidence from masked priming

The upper visual field (UVF) is linked to the visual search and recognition mechanisms most often required in far or "extrapersonal" space"”the region in which one typically search for objects and people. In light of this suggestion, one intuitive and as yet largely unanswered question is whether the visual system's capacity for higher-level face perception is advantaged in the UVF. The present study sought to explore this possibility, using masked priming techniques to examine how sex-categorization of human faces varies between the upper and lower hemifields. This study reports two results that suggest human face perception enjoys a UVF advantage. First, sex-categorization of visible target faces was more accurate in the UVF than the lower visual field (LVF). Second, subliminal prime faces affected participants' sex categorization of targets earlier when the stimuli appeared in the UVF compared to the LVF. That the masked congruence effect (MCE) emerged earlier for UVF face stimuli than LVF face stimuli suggests that face processing may be more efficient in the upper hemifield than the lower hemifield.