title: Limited evidence of individual differences in holistic processing in different versions of the part-whole paradigm.
abstract: The part-whole paradigm was one of the first measures of holistic processing and it has been used to address several topics in face recognition, including its development, other-race effects, and more recently, whether holistic processing is correlated with face recognition ability. However the task was not designed to measure individual differences and it has produced measurements with low reliability. We created a new holistic processing test designed to measure individual differences based on the part-whole paradigm, the Vanderbilt Part Whole Test (VPWT). Measurements in the part and whole conditions were reliable, but, surprisingly, there was no evidence for reliable individual differences in the part-whole index (how well a person can take advantage of a face part presented within a whole face context compared to the part presented without a whole face) because part and whole conditions were strongly correlated. The same result was obtained in a version of the original part-whole task that was modified to increase its reliability. Controlling for object recognition ability, we found that variance in the whole condition does not predict any additional variance in face recognition over what is already predicted by performance in the part condition.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Vanderbilt University, 226 Wilson Hall, Nashville, TN, 37204, USA. mackenzie.a.sunday@vanderbilt.edu.
authors.forename: Mackenzie A
authors.initials: MA
authors.lastname: Sunday
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Vanderbilt University, 226 Wilson Hall, Nashville, TN, 37204, USA.
authors.forename: Jennifer J
authors.initials: JJ
authors.lastname: Richler
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Vanderbilt University, 226 Wilson Hall, Nashville, TN, 37204, USA.
authors.forename: Isabel
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Gauthier
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000066499:Facial Recognition / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007206:Individuality; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D010775:Photic Stimulation / Q000379:methods*; D010865:Pilot Projects; D021641:Recognition, Psychology / Q000502:physiology*; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D014796:Visual Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: Face recognition; Holistic processing; Part-whole paradigm