Development of face processing: the effect of face inversion.
The present experiment examined the degree to which analytic and holistic modes of processing play a role in the way children and adults categorize upright and inverted faces. Seven-year-old children (n = 38), 10-year-old children (n = 40), and adults (n = 55) were instructed to classify upright and inverted faces into two categories. The construction of the categories allowed participants to categorize the faces either analytically (by focusing on a single attribute) or holistically (in terms of overall similarity). The results show both a developmental trend from analytic to holistic processing and an effect of face inversion with increasing age. Thus, it appears that 7-year-old children process upright and inverted faces in a way comparable to their processing of nonfacial visual stimuli, namely analytically, whereas a growing proportion of 10-year-olds and adults process only upright faces holistically by adopting a specific mode of face processing.
Schwarzer
G
G
Department of Psychology, University of Tübingen, Germany. gudrun.schwarzer@uni-tuebingen.de
D000328:Adult; D002648:Child; D003071:Cognition / Q000502:physiology*; D005145:Face; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D014796:Visual Perception / Q000502:physiology*