We have made cyclic morphing animations using two different faces. The morphing animations gradually evolved from one face to the other, and vice versa. When free viewing, the perceived changes were not very large, but the changes could easily be observed. Observers were asked to fixate on a dot that was projected on the morphing faces. The dot clearly affected the appearance of the morphing faces. When the dot made small movements (eg, a circular trajectory between the eyes), the morphing was hardly perceived. However, when the dot was suddenly projected stationary on the morphing faces (again between the eyes), the perceived morphing increased dramatically; relatively small differences between the two faces appeared to be blown up to much larger proportions. This perceptual enhancement of facial differences included various characteristics such as the shape of the eyes, the position of the eye brows, and the colour of the skin. We discuss the observed differences and relate them to the attentional modulation of transient signals and to phenomena like saccadic suppression, peripheral fading, and the representational momentum.

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