Your eyes only? A test of interactive influence in the processing of facial features.
The holistic hypothesis in face processing was tested in 3 experiments. Holistic processing was conceptualized as interactive influence of facial features on the perceptual representation of faces. In Experiment 1, 3 facial features (eye distance, width of nose, size of mouth) were varied on 3 values per feature. Photographs and blurred versions were used. Participants assigned each stimulus face to 1 of 2 target faces according to similarity. The data were evaluated by the logit model that provides a direct test of interactive influence of the features on participants' performance. The interactive-processing hypothesis was not confirmed. The results were replicated in Experiment 2, in which 2 features with 5 values each were used and data of individual participants were evaluated, and in Experiment 3, in which a reduced presentation time of 250 ms was used. It is concluded that facial features are processed and represented independently.
Department of Psychology, University of Fribourg, Switzerland. siegfried.macho@unifr.ch
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D000328:Adult; D003463:Cues; D005145:Face; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007600:Judgment / Q000502:physiology; D008297:Male; D008960:Models, Psychological; D010364:Pattern Recognition, Visual / Q000502:physiology*; D013223:Statistics as Topic; D013997:Time Factors