Are faces special?

The Faces/Houses task measures people's ability to process the visual features of an object, in this case, faces and houses. Face recognition is key to social interactions, informing us about a person’s identity as well as their sex, age and mood. Face perception has been linked to a specific brain area on the temporal lobe, the Fusiform Face Area. Face recognition may be influenced by a number of factors, including facial expression and race. Some researchers argue that faces are not special per se: we’re just experts because we see so many of them… so then perhaps realtors process houses just as fast as faces?

Resources:

• Weiner, K.S., Grill-Spector, K. (2012). The improbable simplicity of the fusiform face area. Trends in Cognitive Science. 16(5):251-4. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tics.2012.03.003
• Kanwisher, N., et al. (1979). The fusiform face area: a module in human extrastriate cortex specialized for face perception. Journal of Neuroscience;17(11):4302-11. https://doi.org/10.1523/JNEUROSCI.17-11-04302.1997
• Neuroskeptic. (2017). "Facephenes": Brain Stimulation Creates Phantasmal Faces. https://www.discovermagazine.com/mind/facephenes-brain-stimulation-creates-phantasmal-faces

Parameters
The following features can be tweaked (default values in parentheses):

• Task instructions
• Number of trials (96)
• Number of practice trials (6)
• Duration of fixation cross (500 ms)
• Duration of feedback (1000 ms)
• Whether trials should be randomized (yes)
  Note: trial sequences are randomized and balanced across conditions (face/house)

What data is collected? How is it scored?
The following variables are recorded:

• FHT_reaction_time_house
• FHT_reaction_time_face
• FHT_correct_response_proportion_house
• FHT_correct_response_proportion_face

The main variables are reaction time (ms) and the percentage of correct responses, calculated for both houses and faces.