Westerners tend to engage analytic strategies for processing the visual environment [16] and consequently their triangular facial feature-by-feature strategy [2] was not affected by Spotlight sizes.
AS the National Park Service readies for its close-up this fall in Ken Burns's new documentary, "The National Parks Americaa's Best Idea," the frenzy of attention sure to accompany the series will fix a spotlight the size of the Grand Canyon on the country's famed wilderness areas like Yellowstone and Yosemite.
The number of fixations was not modulated by Spotlight aperture size within this condition (F 2, 54) = 1.27, P = .28).28
To ensure that observers would deploy a reliable strategy with such strong visual constraints, they performed the entire experiment with the same Spotlight aperture size.
The interaction for accuracy (F 2, 54) = .6, P = .55) and response times (F 2, 54) = .58, P = .56) between the Culture of the observer and the Spotlight aperture size factors failed to reach significance.
Regardless of their culture, observers showed an increase of face recognition accuracy (F 2, 54) = 43.8, P<0.001) and faster response times (F 2, 54) = 15.63, P<0.001) as Spotlight aperture size increased.
During learning, however, Western Caucasian observers used significantly more fixations (M = 28.8) than East Asian observers (M = 27) (F(1, 54) = 6.38, P = .014) and the number of fixations increased for both group of observers as Spotlight aperture size increased (F 2, 54) = 9.23, P<.001) (see Figure 1).
We did not observe an interaction between the Culture of the observer and the Spotlight aperture sizes on the average number of fixations deployed during the learning (F 2, 54) = .99, P = .37) and the recognition stage (F 2, 54) = .13, P = .87) (Figure 3).
Raised in Bayonne, N.J., Mr. Langella was drawn to the "comforting glow" of the spotlight when his diminutive size as a sixth grader won him a walk-on as an elf in a school pageant.
