Social presence and the composite face effect.
A robust finding in social psychology research is that performance is modulated by the social nature of a given context, promoting social inhibition or facilitation effects. In the present experiment, we examined if and how social presence impacts holistic face perception processes by asking participants, in the presence of others and alone, to perform the composite face task. Results suggest that completing the task in the presence of others (i.e., mere co-action) is associated with better performance in face recognition (less bias and higher discrimination between presented and non-presented targets) and with a reduction in the composite face effect. These results make clear that social presence impact on the composite face effect does not occur because presence increases reliance on holistic processing as a "dominant" well-learned response, but instead, because it increases monitoring of the interference produced by automatic response.
ISPA - Instituto Universitário, Rua Jardim do Tabaco, 34, 1100 Lisboa, Portugal. Electronic address: gmarques@ispa.pt.
Teresa
T
Garcia-Marques
ISPA - Instituto Universitário, Rua Jardim do Tabaco, 34, 1100 Lisboa, Portugal. Electronic address: alexandre_fernandes@live.com.pt.
Alexandre
A
Fernandes
ISPA - Instituto Universitário, Rua Jardim do Tabaco, 34, 1100 Lisboa, Portugal. Electronic address: rrdafonseca@gmail.com.
Ricardo
R
Fonseca
ISCTE- Instituto Universitário de Lisboa, CIS - IUL, Avª das Forças Armadas, 1649-026 Lisboa, Portugal. Electronic address: marilia_prada@iscte.pt.
Marilia
M
Prada
D005145:Face; D005149:Facial Expression; D005197:Famous Persons; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007858:Learning / Q000502:physiology; D008297:Male; D010775:Photic Stimulation; D011597:Psychomotor Performance / Q000502:physiology; D011930:Reaction Time / Q000502:physiology; D021641:Recognition, Psychology; D012938:Social Perception; D055815:Young Adult
co-action; composite face effect; contextual effects; facial perception; holistic processing; social facilitation