Survival processing of faces

The mnemonic benefit of rating words according to their relevance in a survival scenario is well documented (e.g., Nairne, Thompson, & Pandeirada, 2007). The present study examined whether the survival processing effect would extend to face stimuli. We tested this hypothesis in five experiments, using multiple survival and control scenarios, real and computer-generated face sets, within- and between-subjects designs, and several memory tests, as well as free recall of survival-relevant and survival-neutral attribute statements written about the person. Although the standard survival processing effect was obtained for survival-relevant and neutral attribute statements, the survival processing effect was not obtained for face memory across all experiments. These results identify an important boundary condition for survival processing benefits.     

Holistic processing is tuned for in-group faces

Past research has found that mere in-group/out-group categorizations are sufficient to elicit biases in face memory. The current research yields novel evidence that mere social categorization is also sufficient to modulate processes underlying face perception, even for faces for which we have strong perceptual expertise: same-race (SR) faces. Using the composite face paradigm, we find that SR faces categorized as in-group members (i.e., fellow university students) are processed more holistically than are SR faces categorized as out-group members (i.e., students at another university). Hence, holding perceptual expertise with faces constant, categorizing an SR target as an out-group member debilitates the strong holistic processing typically observed for SR faces.     

Automatic identification of familiar faces

Much research has suggested that facial identification has some characteristics of automaticity, in that it is rapid, nonconscious, and mandatory. However, little research has tested whether it can occur even if attention is already devoted to the demanding central processes of another task. In the present study, we addressed this type of automaticity using the psychological refractory period paradigm. In Experiments 1 and 2, participants successfully identified familiar faces, even while they were engaged with another task, indicating the automaticity of familiar-face identification. In Experiments 3 and 4, however, participants could not identify unfamiliar faces as automatically as they could identify the familiar faces. We concluded that automatic face identification is possible, but dependent on prior familiarity.     

Size in the visual processing of faces and words

We studied the influence of variations of stimulus size upon recognition of words and faces. Size played an important role in the recognition of faces but was irrelevant to the recognition of words, over a range of sizes. More detailed analysis revealed that although irrelevant to recognition, size of words was nevertheless encoded, with some consequences similar to those for recognition of faces. The results were interpreted in terms of stimulus-specific analyses, and this view was contrasted with other notions of mental representation.     

Influences of familiarity on the processing of faces

Three experiments are reported in which undergraduate subjects made simple perceptual judgements about the faces of familiar and unfamiliar academic staff. Any effects of familiarity in these tasks were assessed by comparison with performance on the two groups of faces when both sets were unfamiliar to student subjects at a different university. In experiment 1 there was no effect of familiarity of the faces on a task requiring judgements of expression, consistent with recent models of face processing in which expression analysis proceeds independently from the analysis of identity. In experiment 2 there was a significant effect of familiarity on a task in which the sex of the faces was judged. This appeared to be due to familiarity acting to facilitate only those faces whose sex was difficult to judge from the picture presented. In experiment 3, significant effects of familiarity were also observed when the task was to distinguish intact faces from jumbled faces. Although the effects of familiarity in experiments 2 and 3 were small and emerged in interactions between item sets and university, they suggest that a simple perceptual hierarchy of the kind proposed by Ellis requires some revision.     

Context effects in the processing of familiar faces

Summary In this paper we report five experiments that investigate the influence of prime faces upon the speed with which familiar faces are recognized and named. Previously, priming had been reported when the prime and target faces were closely associated, e.g., Prince Charles and Princess Diana (Bruce & Valentine, 1986). In Experiment 1 we show that there is a reliable effect of relatedness on a double-familiarity decision, even when the faces are only categorially related, e. g., Kirk Douglas and Clint Eastwood. Then it was shown that such an effect emerges only on a double decision task (Experiments 2 and 3). Experiment 4 showed that on a primed naming task, faces preceded by a categorially related prime were responded to more quickly than those preceded by an unrelated prime, and the effect was due to inhibition. Experiment 5 replicated this effect and also showed that when associatively related primes were used, a facilitatory, and not an inhibitory, effect is found. It is argued that the facilitation of associative priming arises at an earlier locus than the inhibition of categorial priming.     

The many faces of configural processing

Adults' expertise in recognizing faces has been attributed to configural processing. We distinguish three types of configural processing: detecting the first-order relations that define faces (i.e. two eyes above a nose and mouth), holistic processing (glueing the features together into a gestalt), and processing second-order relations (i.e. the spacing among features). We provide evidence for their separability based on behavioral marker tasks, their sensitivity to experimental manipulations, and their patterns of development. We note that inversion affects each type of configural processing, not just sensitivity to second-order relations, and we review evidence on whether configural processing is unique to faces.     

Hemisphere-dependent holistic processing of familiar faces

In two behavioral experiments involving lateralized stimulus presentation, we tested whether one of the most commonly used measures of holistic face processing—the composite face effect—would be more pronounced for stimuli presented to the right as compared to the left hemisphere. In experiment 1, we investigated the composite face effect in a verbal identification task, similar to its original report (Young, Hellawell, & Hay, 1987). Aligning top and bottom halves of composite face stimuli led to performance decreases irrespective of hemifield, indicating holistic processing of comparable magnitude for inputs provided separately to either hemisphere. However, when matching of the same top parts was required in experiment 2, an alignment-dependent performance decrease was found for stimuli presented in the left, but not right visual field. These observations suggest that the right hemisphere dominates in early stages of holistic processing, as indexed by the composite face effect, but that later processes such as face identification and naming are based on unified representations that are independent of input lateralization. Moreover, the composite face effect may not rely on the exact same representation(s) when measured in matching and identification tasks.     

Evidence for holistic processing of faces viewed as photographic negatives

Inversion and photographic negation both impair face recognition. Inversion seems to disrupt processing of the spatial relationship between facial features ('relational' processing) which normally occurs with upright faces and which facilitates their recognition. It remains unclear why negation affects recognition. To find out if negation impairs relational processing, we investigated whether negative faces are subject to the 'chimeric-face effect'. Recognition of the top half of a composite face (constructed from top and bottom halves of different faces) is difficult when the face is upright, but not when it is inverted. To perform this task successfully, the bottom half of the face has to be disregarded, but the relational processing which normally occurs with upright faces makes this difficult. Inversion reduces relational processing and thus facilitates performance on this particular task. In our experiments, subjects saw pairs of chimeric faces and had to decide whether or not the top halves were identical. On half the trials the two chimeras had identical tops; on the remaining trials the top halves were different. (The bottom halves were always different.) All permutations of orientation (upright or inverted) and luminance (normal or negative) were used. In experiment 1, each pair of 'identical' top halves were the same in all respects. Experiment 2 used differently oriented views of the same person, to preclude matches being based on incidental features of the images rather than the faces displayed within them. In both experiments, similar chimeric-face effects were obtained with both positive and negative faces, implying that negative faces evoke some form of relational processing. It is argued that there may be more than one kind of relational processing involved in face recognition: the 'chimeric-face effect' may reflect an initial 'holistic' processing which binds facial features into a 'Gestalt', rather than being a demonstration of the configurational processing involved in individual recognition.     

Three-month-olds' visual preference for faces and its underlying visual processing mechanisms

This study was aimed at investigating the face preference phenomenon and its underlying mechanisms at 3 months of age. Using an eye-tracker apparatus, Experiment 1 demonstrated that 3-month-olds prefer natural face images to unnatural ones, replicating and extending previous evidence obtained with schematic facelike stimuli. Experiments 2 and 3 showed that the general mechanisms that induce face preference in newborns could not explain the same phenomenon at 3 months of age, when infants are attracted by perceptual cues more specific to faces. This suggests that signs of a process of cognitive specialization are already present in 3-month-olds' visual behavior toward faces.     

Holistic processing underlies gender judgments of faces

In three experiments, we investigated whether holistic processing underlies gender judgments about faces. Chinese participants were asked to make gender judgments for inverted, scrambled, or composite faces. Results showed that judgments were dramatically impaired by these manipulations (as compared with performance for normal upright faces), demonstrating three hallmark effects of holistic face processing that have been observed in perception of face identity. Whether the test faces were Chinese or Caucasian showed no effect on holistic processing of gender perception, in contrast to studies of identity analysis. These results suggest that holistic processing is a general mechanism for different aspects of face perception and are consistent with the idea that physiognomic properties that determine the gender of a face are universal, rather than race specific.     

Effects of processing speed on cerebral asymmetry for left- and right-oriented faces

A free-vision chimeric facial emotion judgment task and a tachistoscopic face-recognition reaction time task were administered to 20 male right-handed subjects. The tachistoscopic task involved judgments of whether a poser in the centrally presented full-face photograph was the same or different poser than in a profile photograph presented in the left or right visual field (LVF, RVF). The free-vision task was that used by J. Levy, W. Heller, M. Banich, and L. Burton (1983, Brain and Cognition, 2, 404-419) and involved judging which of two chimeric faces appeared happier, in which the two chimeras were mirror images of each other and each chimera consisted of a smiling half-face joined at the midline to a neutral half-face of the same poser. For the tachistoscopic task, subjects were divided into groups of Fast and Slow responders by a median split of the mean reaction times. For the Fast subjects, judgments were faster in the LVF than in the RVF, and there was a significant interaction between visual field and profile direction, such that responses were faster for medially oriented profiles; i.e., LVF responses were faster for right-facing than for left-facing profiles, with the reverse relationship in the RVF. The Slow responders did not show these effects. Only the Fast group showed the bias for choosing the chimera with the smile on the left as happier, and mean response speed and the LVF advantage on the tachistoscopic test correlated with the leftward bias on the free-vision task for all subjects combined. It was suggested that overall response speed on the face-matching task reflected the extent to which specialized and more efficient right hemisphere functions were activated.     

Hemispheric differences in processing emotions and faces.

Visual field differences for the recognition of emotional expression were investigated using a tachistoscopic procedure. Cartoon line drawings of five adult male characters, each with five emotional expressions ranging from extremely positive to extremely negative, were used as stimuli. Single stimuli were presented unilaterally for 85 msec. Subjects (N = 20) were asked to compare this target face to a subsequent centrally presented face and to decide whether the emotional expressions of the two faces, or the character represented by the two faces, were the same or different. Significant left visual field (LVF) superiorities for both character and emotional expression recognition were found. Subsequent analyses demonstrated the independence of these effects. The LVF superiority for emotional judgments was related to the degree of affective expression, but that for character recognition was not. The results of this experiment are consistent with experimental and clinical literature which has indicated a right hemispheric superiority for face recognition and for processing emotional stimuli. The asymmetry for emotion recognition is interpreted as being an expression of the right hemisphere's synthetic and integrative characteristics, its holistic nature, and its use of imagic associations.     

Separable neural components in the processing of black and white faces

In a study of the neural components of automatic and controlled social evaluation, White participants viewed Black and White faces during event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging. When the faces were presented for 30 ms, activation in the amygdala-a brain region associated with emotion-was greater for Black than for White faces. When the faces were presented for 525 ms, this difference was significantly reduced, and regions of frontal cortex associated with control and regulation showed greater activation for Black than White faces. Furthermore, greater race bias on an indirect behavioral measure was correlated with greater difference in amygdala activation between Black and White faces, and frontal activity predicted a reduction in Black-White differences in amygdala activity from the 30-ms to the 525-ms condition. These results provide evidence for neural distinctions between automatic and more controlled processing of social groups, and suggest that controlled processes may modulate automatic evaluation.     

Positive facial affect facilitates the identification of famous faces

Several convergent lines of evidence have suggested that the presence of an emotion signal in a visual stimulus can influence processing of that stimulus. In the current study, we picked up on this idea, and explored the hypothesis that the presence of an emotional facial expression (happiness) would facilitate the identification of familiar faces. We studied two groups of normal participants (overall N=54), and neurological patients with either left (n=8) or right (n=10) temporal lobectomies. Reaction times were measured while participants named familiar famous faces that had happy expressions or neutral expressions. In support of the hypothesis, naming was significantly faster for the happy faces, and this effect obtained in the normal participants and in both patient groups. In the patients with left temporal lobectomies, the effect size for this facilitation was large (d=0.87), suggesting that this manipulation might have practical implications for helping such patients compensate for the types of naming defects that often accompany their brain damage. Consistent with other recent work, our findings indicate that emotion can facilitate visual identification, perhaps via a modulatory influence of the amygdala on extrastriate cortex.     

Holistic processing of faces in preschool children and adults

Contrary to the encoding-switch hypothesis, recent research demonstrates that 6-year-olds do not rely solely on parts-based encoding to recognize upright faces. This research shows better recognition of face parts presented in the whole face than in isolation, indicating use of holistic encoding. The present study examined whether children younger than 6 years also recognize faces holistically. Four-year-olds, 5-year-olds, and adults were administered a part-whole face recognition task. Children below the age of 6 remembered parts from upright faces better when tested in the whole-face context than in isolation. This whole-face advantage did not occur when faces were inverted. Although children showed a smaller inversion decrement than adults and generally performed more poorly than adults, the different age groups showed similar patterns of performance, indicating that young preschoolers, like older children and adults, are able to recognize faces holistically.     

Holistic processing of faces: perceptual and decisional components

Researchers have used several composite face paradigms to assess holistic processing of faces. In the selective attention paradigm, participants decide whether one face part (e.g., top) is the same as a previously seen face part. Their judgment is affected by whether the irrelevant part of the test face is the same as or different than the relevant part of the study face. This failure of selective attention implies holistic processing. However, the authors show that this task alone cannot distinguish between perceptual and decisional sources of holism. The distinction can be addressed by the complete identification paradigm, in which both face parts are judged to be same or different, combined with analyses based on general recognition theory (F. G. Ashby & J. T. Townsend, 1986). The authors used a different paradigm, sequential responses, to relate these 2 paradigms empirically and theoretically. Sequential responses produced the same results as did selective attention and complete identification. Moreover, disruptions of holistic processing by systematic misalignment of the faces corresponded with systematic and significant changes in the decisional components, but not in the perceptual components, that were extracted using general recognition theory measures. This finding suggests a significant decisional component of holistic face processing in the composite face task.     

Configural processing of faces in the left and the right cerebral hemispheres

This study investigates the rules by which the component features of faces are combined when presented in the left or the right visual field, and it examines the validity of the analytic-holistic processing dichotomy, using concepts elaborated by Garner (1978, 1981) to specify stimulus properties and models of similarity relations as performance criteria. Latency measures of dissimilarity, obtained for the two visual fields, among a set of eight faces varying on three dimensions of two levels each, were fitted to the dominance metric model, the feature-matching model, the city-block distance metric model, and the Euclidean distance metric model. In addition to a right-visual-field superiority in different responses, a maximum likelihood estimation procedure showed that, for each subject and each visual field, the Euclidean model provided the best fit of the data, suggesting that the faces were compared in terms of their overall similarity. Moreover, the spatial representations of the results revealed interactions among the component facial features in the processing of faces. Taken together, these two findings indicate that faces initially projected to the right or to the left hemisphere were not processed analytically but in terms of their gestalt.