Spontaneous Perception of Whole Persons According the Distance

In the field of automated facial identification, relevant facial information are not always available (disguises, poor spatial orientation, distance, etc.). As a consequence, human perception performance decreases. However, the "whole person" can provide useful information. In the present study, we determine the way by which a person is visually explored, in order to identify a potential chronology in visual exploration. We also investigate the consequence of increasing the distance between the observer and the target person, since in this situation identification becomes more 'global' due to less processing possible for the individual features of the face. Results showed that the spontaneous perceptual strategy evolves with distance: the more distance increases, the more the interest in the person decreases, which is observed both for the body and face. Our data provide knowledge that will help to guide conception of effective automated systems.