Behind the face of holistic perception: Holistic processing of Gestalt stimuli and faces recruit overlapping perceptual mechanisms

Holistic Processing of Faces 1 RUNNING HEAD: Holistic Processing of Faces Holistic Processing of Faces: Bridging Paradigms

Several sequential matching composite face paradigms are used 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. This judgment is affected by whether the irrelevant part is also the same or different. This failure of selective attention implies holistic processing. Howev...

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 select...

Disrupting perceptual grouping of face parts impairs holistic face processing

Face perception is widely believed to involve integration of facial features into a holistic perceptual unit, but the mechanisms underlying this integration are relatively unknown. We examined whether perceptual grouping cues influence a classic marker of holistic face perception, the "composite-face effect." Participants made same-different judgments about a cued part of sequentially presented...

1 Holistic face perception

The Evolution of Holistic Processing of Faces

In this paper we examine the holistic processing of faces from an evolutionary perspective, clarifying what such an approach entails, and evaluating the extent to which the evidence currently available permits any strong conclusions. While it seems clear that the holistic processing of faces depends on mechanisms evolved to perform that task, our review of the comparative literature reveals tha...