The Effects of Disrupting Holistic Processing on the Ability to Draw a Face

Abstract

Previous research has demonstrated that those more skilled in drawing tend to exhibit stronger local perceptual processing biases than those less skilled in drawing. However, due to the correlational nature of this research, it is unclear whether drawing performance is facilitated by biasing perception towards local visual information. In order to investigate this, we conducted an experiment where participants drew an aligned face or a horizontally-misaligned face. Previous perceptual research has demonstrated that aligned faces are processed holistically, whereas misaligned faces are processed locally. Thus, drawings of aligned faces are assumed to be guided by holistic processing, whereas drawings of misaligned faces are assumed to be guided by local processing. Drawings were objectively measured according to the relative spatial positioning of facial features. Relative to drawings of aligned faces, the accuracy of misaligned face drawings was either impaired (for drawings of the distance between the eyes and mouth) or was not affected (for drawings of the interocular distance, the distance between the nose and mouth, and the distance between the eyes and eyebrows). This pattern of drawing errors mirrored the effects of face inversion that has previously been reported, another manipulation that is thought to disrupt holistic processing. At least with respect to drawing the relative spatial positioning of facial features, we did not observe any evidence that supports the notion that biasing perceptual processing towards local visual information directly facilitates drawing performance.