TY - JOUR T1 - Looking at my own Face: Visual Processing Strategies in Physical Self-representation JF - bioRxiv DO - 10.1101/096073 SP - 096073 AU - Anya Chakraborty AU - Bhismadev Chakrabarti Y1 - 2016/01/01 UR - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2016/12/22/096073.abstract N2 - We live in an age of ‘selfies’. Yet, how we look at our own faces has seldom been systematically investigated. In this study we test if visual processing of self-face is different from other faces, using psychophysics and eye-tracking. This paradigm also enabled us to test the association between the psychophysical properties of self-face representation and visual processing strategies involved in self-face recognition. Thirty-three adults performed a self-face recognition task from a series of self-other face morphs with simultaneous eye-tracking. Participants were found to look at lower part of the face for longer duration for self-face compared to other-face. Participants with a more distinct self-face representation, as indexed by a steeper slope of the psychometric response curve for self-face recognition, was found to look longer at upper part of the faces identified as ‘self’ in relation to those identified as ‘other’. We also investigated the association of autism-related traits with self-face processing metrics since autism has previously been associated with atypical self-processing, particularly in the psychological domain. This study tested physical aspects of self-processing and did not find any self-face specific association with autistic traits, suggesting that autism-related features may be related to self-processing in a domain specific manner. ER -