Holistic processing and face space coding are widely considered primary perceptual mechanisms behind good face recognition. Here, however, we present the case of S.P., a developmental prosopagnosic who demonstrated severe impairments in face memory and face perception, yet showed normal holistic processing and face space coding. Across three composite experiments, S.P. showed normal-strength ho...

Holistic processing has been identified as an expertise marker of face and object recognition. In contrast, the expertise marker of recognizing Chinese characters is reduced holistic processing (Hsiao & Cottrell, 2009), which is driven by Chinese writing experiences rather than reading ability (Tso, Au, & Hsiao, 2011). Here we investigate the developmental trend of holistic processing in Chines...

Few concepts are more central to the study of face recognition than holistic processing. Progress toward understanding holistic processing is challenging because the term "holistic" has many meanings, with different researchers addressing different mechanisms and favoring different measures. While in principle the use of different measures should provide converging evidence for a common theoret...

Recent evidence suggests stronger holistic processing for own-race faces may underlie the own-race advantage in face memory. In previous studies Caucasian participants have demonstrated larger holistic processing effects for Caucasian over Asian faces. However, Asian participants have consistently shown similar sized effects for both Asian and Caucasian faces. We investigated two proposed expla...

Holistic processing has long been considered as a property of right hemisphere (RH) processing. Nevertheless, recent studies showed reduced holistic processing and increased RH lateralization in Chinese character recognition expertise, suggesting that these two effects may separate. Through computational modeling, in which we implement a theory of hemispheric asymmetry in perception that posits...

Although infants demonstrate sensitivity to some kinds of perceptual information in faces, many face capacities continue to develop throughout childhood. One debate is the degree to which children perceive faces analytically versus holistically and how these processes undergo developmental change. In the present study, school-aged children and adults performed a perceptual matching task with up...

Most studies examine holistic processing with respect to facial identity, but at least one study has also looked at holistic processing of facial expressions (Calder, Young, Keane, & Dean, 2000). However, this work used the partial composite paradigm, which is known to exhibit bias effects (Richler, Cheung, & Gauthier, 2011). The complete composite paradigm (Gauthier & Bukach, 2007) provides a ...

The Vanderbilt Holistic Face Processing Test (VHPT-F) is a new measure of holistic face processing with better psychometric properties relative to prior measures developed for group studies (Richler et al., 2014). In fields where psychologists study individual differences, validation studies are commonplace and the concurrent validity of a new measure is established by comparing it to an older ...

Attention helps us focus on what is most relevant to our goals, and prior work shows that aspects of attention can be learned. Learned inattention to parts can abolish holistic processing of faces, but it is unknown whether learned attention to parts is sufficient to cause a change from part-based to holistic processing with objects. Here, we trained subjects to individuate non-face objects (Gr...