The concept of holistic processing is a cornerstone of face-recognition research. In the study reported here, we demonstrated that holistic processing predicts face-recognition abilities on the Cambridge Face Memory Test and on a perceptual face-identification task. Our findings validate a large body of work that relies on the assumption that holistic processing is related to face recognition. These findings also reconcile the study of face recognition with the perceptualexpertise work it inspired; such work links holistic processing of objects with people's ability to individuate them. Our results differ from those of a recent study showing no link between holistic processing and face recognition. This discrepancy can be attributed to the use in prior research of a popular but flawed measure of holistic processing. Our findings salvage the central role of holistic processing in face recognition and cast doubt on a subset of the face-perception literature that relies on a problematic measure of holistic processing.Keywords face perception; individual differences; holistic processing Face recognition challenges perception because similar facial features are arranged in similar configurations on all human faces. As such, subtle differences in facial features and their spatial relations are particularly useful for discriminating faces. To facilitate extraction of configural information, people process faces holistically, as evidenced by the fact that it is more difficult to ignore part of a face than part of an object (Farah, Wilson, Drain, & Tanaka, 1998;Maurer, Le Grand, & Mondloch, 2002;Young, Hellawell, & Hay, 1987). Accordingly, people's ability to discriminate and recognize faces should depend at least in part on holistic processing. Surprisingly, holistic processing and face-recognition ability have never been linked empirically. Support for the relationship between holistic processing and face-recognition ability is mainly indirect, coming from studies in which perceptual experts with superior object-identification ability also demonstrate holistic processing in their domain of expertise (Bukach, Phillips, & Gauthier, 2010;Gauthier & Tarr, 2002;. However, in a recent article, Konar, Bennett, and Sekuler (2010) argued that holistic processing does not predict face-identification ability. It is important to examine this issue further because holistic processing plays a pivotal role in studies of face recognition. Studies Konar et al. (2010) suggested that their failure to find a relationship between face identification and holistic processing could be related to the specific nature of the tasks they used. We followed up on this concern by reassessing the relationship between holistic processing and face processing. In particular, we addressed two key issues.First, we have questioned the validity of the composite design used by Konar et al. (2010 this design was adapted from a naming task with familiar faces devised by Young et al., 1987; see also Hole, 1994) elsewhere because of its susceptibility to...
V. Goffaux and B. Rossion (2006) argued that holistic processing of faces is largely supported by low spatial frequencies (LSFs) but less so by high spatial frequencies (HSFs). We addressed this claim using a sequential matching task with face composites. Observers judged whether the top halves of aligned or misaligned composites were identical. We replicated the V. Goffaux and B. Rossion (2006) results, finding a greater alignment effect in accuracy for LSF compared with HSF faces on same trials. However, there was also a greater bias for responding "same" for HSF compared with LSF faces, indicating that the alignment effects arose from differential response biases. Crucially, comparable congruency effects found for LSF and HSF suggest that LSF and HSF faces are processed equally holistically. These results demonstrate that it is necessary to use measures that take response biases into account in order to fully understand the holistic nature of face processing.
The human brain continuously generates predictions about the environment based on learned regularities in the world. These predictions actively and efficiently facilitate the interpretation of incoming sensory information. We review evidence that, as a result of this facilitation, predictions directly influence conscious experience. Specifically, we propose that predictions enable rapid generation of conscious percepts and bias the contents of awareness in situations of uncertainty. The possible neural mechanisms underlying this facilitation are discussed.
The composite paradigm is widely used to quantify holistic processing (HP) of faces, but there is debate regarding the appropriate design (partial vs. complete) and measures in this task. Here, we argue that some operational definitions of HP are problematic because they are sensitive to top-down influences, even though the underlying concept is assumed to be cognitively impenetrable. In Experiment 1, we told one group of participants that the target face half would remain the same on 75% of trials, and another group that it would change on 75% of trials. The true proportion of same/different trials was 50% - groups only differed in their beliefs about the target halves. In Experiment 2, we manipulated the actual proportion of same/different trials in the experiment (75% of trials were same for one group, 75% of trials were different for another group), but did not give explicit instructions about proportions. In both experiments these manipulations influenced response biases that altered partial design measures of HP while the complete design measure was unaffected. We argue that the partial design should be abandoned because it has poor construct validity.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.
hi@scite.ai
10624 S. Eastern Ave., Ste. A-614
Henderson, NV 89052, USA
Copyright © 2024 scite LLC. All rights reserved.
Made with 💙 for researchers
Part of the Research Solutions Family.