Configural coding of facial expressions: The impact of inversion and photographic negative

In previous research we used the composite paradigm (Young, Hellawell, & Hay, ) to demonstrate that configural cues are important for interpreting facial expressions. However, different configural cues in face perception have been identified, including holistic processing (i.e., perception of facial features as a single gestalt) and second‐order spatial relations (i.e., the spatial relationship between individual features). Previous research has suggested that the composite effect for facial identity operates at the level of holistic encoding. Here we show that the composite effect for facial expression has a similar perceptual basis by using different graphic manipulations (stimulus inversion and photographic negative) in conjunction with the composite paradigm. In relation to Bruce and Young's () functional model of face recognition, a suitable level for the composite effect is a stage of front‐end processing referred to as structural encoding, that is common to both facial identity and facial expression perception.     

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.     

Configural processing and face viewpoint

Configural/holistic processing, a key property of face recognition, has previously been examined only for front views of faces. Here, 6 experiments tested front (0 degrees ), three-quarter (45 degrees ), and profile views (90 degrees ), using composite and peripheral inversion tasks. Results showed an overall disadvantage in identifying profiles. This arose entirely from part-based processing: View effects were as strong for disrupted-configuration faces (inverted, misaligned, scrambled) as for normal-configuration faces. In contrast, configural processing (aligned-misaligned difference, upright-inverted difference) was equally strong for all views under both clear and degraded viewing conditions. Findings argue that, although part-based processing is weakened by lower natural frequency of the profile view and/or occlusion of key face features, neither of these variables influences configural processing. This suggests that the functional role of configural processing is to allow reliable face identification despite substantial variance in local information across different natural images. Results also show that only image-plane rotation of faces (upright through inverted) affects configural processing; the contrast with depth rotation has potential implications for understanding the origin of configural processing in terms of innate versus experience-based expertise contributions.     

Holistic but with reduced right-hemisphere involvement: The case of dyslexia in Chinese character recognition

Psychonomic Bulletin & Review - Recent research on visual object recognition has suggested that the right hemisphere can engage either holistic or part-based processing depending on whether the...     

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.     

Faces are "spatial"--holistic face perception is supported by low spatial frequencies

Faces are perceived holistically, a phenomenon best illustrated when the processing of a face feature is affected by the other features. Here, the authors tested the hypothesis that the holistic perception of a face mainly relies on its low spatial frequencies. Holistic face perception was tested in two classical paradigms: the whole-part advantage (Experiment 1) and the composite face effect (Experiments 2-4). Holistic effects were equally large or larger for low-pass filtered faces as compared to full-spectrum faces and significantly larger than for high-pass filtered faces. The disproportionate composite effect found for low-pass filtered faces was not observed when holistic perception was disrupted by inversion (Experiment 3). Experiment 4 showed that the composite face effect was enhanced only for low spatial frequencies, but not for intermediate spatial frequencies known be critical for face recognition. These findings indicate that holistic face perception is largely supported by low spatial frequencies. They also suggest that holistic processing precedes the analysis of local features during face perception.     

Integration of internal and external facial features in 8- to 10-year-old children and adults

Investigation of whole-part and composite effects in 4- to 6-year-old children gave rise to claims that face perception is fully mature within the first decade of life (Crookes & McKone, 2009). However, only internal features were tested, and the role of external features was not addressed, although external features are highly relevant for holistic face perception (Sinha & Poggio, 1996; Axelrod & Yovel, 2010, 2011). In this study, 8- to 10-year-old children and adults performed a same–different matching task with faces and watches. In this task participants attended to either internal or external features. Holistic face perception was tested using a congruency paradigm, in which face and non-face stimuli either agreed or disagreed in both features (congruent contexts) or just in the attended ones (incongruent contexts). In both age groups, pronounced context congruency and inversion effects were found for faces, but not for watches. These findings indicate holistic feature integration for faces. While inversion effects were highly similar in both age groups, context congruency effects were stronger for children. Moreover, children's face matching performance was generally better when attending to external compared to internal features. Adults tended to perform better when attending to internal features. Our results indicate that both adults and 8- to 10-year-old children integrate external and internal facial features into holistic face representations. However, in children's face representations external features are much more relevant. These findings suggest that face perception is holistic but still not adult-like at the end of the first decade of life.     

Isolating the special component of face recognition: peripheral identification and a Mooney face

A previous finding argues that, for faces, configural (holistic) processing can operate even in the complete absence of part-based contributions to recognition. Here, this result is confirmed using 2 methods. In both, recognition of inverted faces (parts only) was removed altogether (chance identification of faces in the periphery; no perception of a particularly hard-to-see Mooney face). Recognition of upright faces (configural plus parts), however, remained good. The simplicity of these new "isolation" techniques makes them ideal for (a) assessing configural processing in specialist populations (e.g., children, object experts) and (b) exploring properties of configural processing for faces in detail. As an example of the latter, orientation tuning was tested. Results argue against models in which faces are rotated to upright prior to identification.     

Mixed emotions: Holistic and analytic perception of facial expressions

In the face literature, it is debated whether the identification of facial expressions requires holistic (i.e., whole face) or analytic (i.e., parts-based) information. In this study, happy and angry composite expressions were created in which the top and bottom face halves formed either an incongruent (e.g., angry top + happy bottom) or congruent composite expression (e.g., happy top + happy bottom). Participants reported the expression in the target top or bottom half of the face. In Experiment 1, the target half in the incongruent condition was identified less accurately and more slowly relative to the baseline isolated expression or neutral face conditions. In contrast, no differences were found between congruent and the baseline conditions. In Experiment 2, the effects of exposure duration were tested by presenting faces for 20, 60, 100 and 120 ms. Interference effects for the incongruent faces appeared at the earliest 20 ms interval and persisted for the 60, 100 and 120 ms intervals. In contrast, no differences were found between the congruent and baseline face conditions at any exposure interval. In Experiment 3, it was found that spatial alignment impaired the recognition of incongruent expressions, but had no effect on congruent expressions. These results are discussed in terms of holistic and analytic processing of facial expressions.     

Mixed emotions: holistic and analytic perception of facial expressions

In the face literature, it is debated whether the identification of facial expressions requires holistic (i.e., whole face) or analytic (i.e., parts-based) information. In this study, happy and angry composite expressions were created in which the top and bottom face halves formed either an incongruent (e.g., angry top + happy bottom) or congruent composite expression (e.g., happy top + happy bottom). Participants reported the expression in the target top or bottom half of the face. In Experiment 1, the target half in the incongruent condition was identified less accurately and more slowly relative to the baseline isolated expression or neutral face conditions. In contrast, no differences were found between congruent and the baseline conditions. In Experiment 2, the effects of exposure duration were tested by presenting faces for 20, 60, 100 and 120 ms. Interference effects for the incongruent faces appeared at the earliest 20 ms interval and persisted for the 60, 100 and 120 ms intervals. In contrast, no differences were found between the congruent and baseline face conditions at any exposure interval. In Experiment 3, it was found that spatial alignment impaired the recognition of incongruent expressions, but had no effect on congruent expressions. These results are discussed in terms of holistic and analytic processing of facial expressions.     

The role of holistic face processing in acquired prosopagnosia: evidence from the composite face effect

Faces are processed more holistically than other objects, and it has been suggested that the loss of holistic face processing causes acquired prosopagnosia. Support for this hypothesis comes from several cases who failed to show holistic face effects as well as the absence of reports of prosopagnosics with unequivocally normal holistic face perception. The current study examines the relationship between holistic face processing and prosopagnosia by testing seven acquired prosopagnosics with the face composite task, a classic measure of holistic face processing. To enhance the robustness of the findings, each prosopagnosic was tested with two versions of the composite task showing upright faces. We also tested an inverted condition to exclude the possibility that more general factors account for composite effects for upright faces. Four of the seven acquired prosopagnosic participants showed consistent upright face composite effects with minimal inverted face composite effects. We conclude that severe face processing deficits can co-occur with intact holistic face processing and that factors other than a loss of holistic processing contribute to the perceptual and recognition deficits in acquired prosopagnosia.     

The role of holistic processing in judgments of facial attractiveness

Previous work has demonstrated that facial identity recognition, expression recognition, gender categorisation, and race categorisation rely on a holistic representation. Here we examine whether a holistic representation is also used for judgments of facial attractiveness. Like past studies, we used the composite paradigm to assess holistic processing (Young et al 1987, Perception 16 747-759). Experiment 1 showed that top halves of upright faces are judged to be more attractive when aligned with an attractive bottom half than when aligned with an unattractive bottom half. To assess whether this effect resulted from holistic processing or more general effects, we examined the impact of the attractive and unattractive bottom halves when upright halves were misaligned and when aligned and misaligned halves were presented upside-down. The bottom halves had no effect in either condition. These results demonstrate that the perceptual processes underlying upright facial-attractiveness judgments represent the face holistically. Our findings with attractiveness judgments and previous demonstrations involving other aspects of face processing suggest that a common holistic representation is used for most types of face processing.     

Features and their configuration in face recognition

Tanaka and Farah (1993) have proposed a holistic approach to face recognition in which information about the features of a face and their configuration are combined together in the face representation. An implication of the holistic hypothesis is that alterations in facial configuration should interfere with retrieval of features. In four experiments, the effect of configuration on feature recognition was investigated by creating two configurations of a face, one with eyes close together and one with eyes far apart. After subjects studied faces presented in one of the two configurations (eyes-close or eyes-far), they were tested for their recognition of features shown in isolation, in a new face configuration, and in the old face configuration. It was found that subjects recognized features best when presented in the old configuration, next best in the new configuration, and poorest in isolation. Moreover, subjects were not sensitive to configural information in inverted faces (Experiment 2) or nonface stimuli (i.e., houses; Experiments 3 and 4). Importantly, for normal faces, altering the spatial location of the eyes not only impaired subjects’ recognition of the eye features but also impaired their recognition of the nose and mouth features—features whose spatial locations were not directly altered. These findings emphasize the interdependency of featural and configural information in a holistic face representation.     

Mutual information, perceptual independence, and holistic face perception

The concept of perceptual independence is ubiquitous in psychology. It addresses the question of whether two (or more) dimensions are perceived independently. Several authors have proposed perceptual independence (or its lack thereof) as a viable measure of holistic face perception (Loftus, Oberg, & Dillon, Psychological Review 111:835–863, 2004; Wenger & Ingvalson, Learning, Memory, and Cognition 28:872–892, 2002). According to this notion, the processing of facial features occurs in an interactive manner. Here, I examine this idea from the perspective of two theories of perceptual independence: the multivariate uncertainty analysis (MUA; Garner & Morton, Definitions, models, and experimental paradigms. Psychological Bulletin 72:233–259, 1969), and the general recognition theory (GRT; Ashby & Townsend, Psychological Review 93:154–179, 1986). The goals of the study were to (1) introduce the MUA, (2) examine various possible relations between MUA and GRT using numerical simulations, and (3) apply the MUA to two consensual markers of holistic face perception^—recognition of facial features (Farah, Wilson, Drain, & Tanaka, Psychological Review 105:482–498, 1998) and the composite face effect (Young, Hellawell, & Hay, Perception 16:747–759, 1987). The results suggest that facial holism is generated by violations of several types of perceptual independence. They highlight the important theoretical role played by converging operations in the study of holistic face perception.     

The effect of face orientation on holistic processing

Holistic processing, a hallmark of face processing, can be measured by the composite face effect: adults have difficulty recognising the top half of a face when it is aligned with a new bottom half, unless holistic processing is disrupted by misaligning the two halves. Like the recognition of facial identity, holistic processing is impaired when faces are inverted. To obtain a more refined measure of the influence of orientation on holistic face processing, we administered the composite face task to adults at each of seven orientations. In both experiment 1 (in which orientations were randomly intermixed) and experiment 2 (in which orientations were blocked), the composite face effect decreased linearly with rotation. We conclude that holistic processing is tuned to upright faces, diminishes as faces deviate from upright, and becomes insignificant once faces reach a sideways orientation. We propose a hierarchical model of face perception in which linear decreases in holistic processing underlie qualitative shifts in other aspects of face perception.     

Sad people are more accurate at face recognition than happy people

Mood has varied effects on cognitive performance including the accuracy of face recognition (Lundh & Ost, 1996). Three experiments are presented here that explored face recognition abilities in mood-induced participants. Experiment 1 demonstrated that happy-induced participants are less accurate and have a more conservative response bias than sad-induced participants in a face recognition task. Using a remember/know/guess procedure, Experiment 2 showed that sad-induced participants had more conscious recollections of faces than happy-induced participants. Additionally, sad-induced participants could recognise all faces accurately, whereas, happy- and neutral-induced participants recognised happy faces more accurately than sad faces. In Experiment 3, these effects were not observed when participants intentionally learnt the faces, rather than incidentally learnt the faces. It is suggested that happy-induced participants do not process faces as elaborately as sad-induced participants.     

The composite face effect in six-year-old children: Evidence of adult-like holistic face processing

Holistic processing (i.e., gluing facial features together into a gestalt) is a hallmark of adults’ expert face recognition. Children make more errors than adults on a variety of face processing tasks even during adolescence. To determine whether this slow development can be attributed to immature holistic processing of unfamiliar faces, we tested 6-year-old children (n=24) with a classic measure of adults’ holistic processing, the composite face effect: They made same/different judgements about the top halves of face pairs when each top half was combined with a different bottom half, with which it was aligned (so that holistic processing creates the impression of a different face) or misaligned (a manipulation that disrupts holistic processing). Six-year-olds showed an adult-like composite face effect: Like adults, they made 26% more errors on aligned trials than on misaligned trials. These results suggest that the improvements after age 6 in the recognition of the facial identity are not caused by the onset or increasing strength of holistic face processing.     

Global precedence effects account for individual differences in both face and object recognition performance

There has been an increase in studies adopting an individual difference approach to examine visual cognition and in particular in studies trying to relate face recognition performance with measures of holistic processing (the face composite effect and the part-whole effect). In the present study we examine whether global precedence effects, measured by means of non-face stimuli in Navon’s paradigm, can also account for individual differences in face recognition and, if so, whether the effect is of similar magnitude for faces and objects. We find evidence that global precedence effects facilitate both face and object recognition, and to a similar extent. Our results suggest that both face and object recognition are characterized by a coarse-to-fine temporal dynamic, where global shape information is derived prior to local shape information, and that the efficiency of face and object recognition is related to the magnitude of the global precedence effect.     

Holistic processing impairment can be restricted to faces in acquired prosopagnosia: Evidence from the global/local Navon effect

Previous studies have shown that acquired prosopagnosia is characterized by impairment at holistic/configural processing. However, this view is essentially supported by studies performed with patients whose face recognition difficulties are part of a more general visual (integrative) agnosia. Here, we tested the patient PS, a case of acquired prosopagnosia whose face‐specific recognition difficulties have been related to the inability to process individual faces holistically (absence of inversion, composite, and whole–part effects with faces). Here, we show that in contrast to this impairment, the patient presents with an entirely normal response profile in a Navon hierarchical letter task: she was as fast as normal controls, faster to identify global than local letters, and her sensitivity to global interference during identification of local letters was at least as large as normal observers. These observations indicate that holistic processing as measured with global/local interference in the Navon paradigm is functionally distinct from the ability to perceive an individual face holistically.