title: Perceptual Expertise as a Shift from Strategic Interference to Automatic Holistic Processing.
abstract: Holistic processing was initially characterized a unique hallmark of face perception (e.g., Young et al., 1987) and later argued a domain-general marker of perceptual expertise (e.g., Gauthier et al., 1998). More recently, evidence for holistic processing - measured by interference from task-irrelevant parts - was obtained in novices, raising questions for its usefulness as a test of expertise. Indeed, recent studies use the same task to make opposite claims: Hsiao & Cottrell (2009) found more interference in novices than experts for Chinese characters, while Wong, Palmeri & Gauthier (2009) found more interference in experts than novices with objects. Offering a resolution to this paradox, our work on the perception of musical notation (Wong & Gauthier, in press) suggests that expert and novice interference effects represent two ends of a continuum: interference is initially strategic and contextual, but becomes more automatic as holistic processing develops with the acquisition of perceptual expertise.
authors.affiliation: Vanderbilt University.
authors.forename: Jennifer J
authors.initials: JJ
authors.lastname: Richler
authors.forename: Yetta K
authors.initials: YK
authors.lastname: Wong
authors.forename: Isabel
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Gauthier