Configural Face Processing Research Articles

Evidence for altered configural body processing in women at risk of disorders characterized by body image disturbance.

Two studies were conducted to assess appearance-related visual processing mechanisms in populations at risk of disorders characterized by body image disturbance. Using inverted stimuli, Experiment 1 assessed visual processing mechanisms associated with body, face, and house viewing in adolescents. Experiment 2 applied the same protocol to assess appearance-related configural processing in high- and low-risk adolescent women, and women recovering from disorders characterized by body image disturbance. Experiment 1 found evidence for typical configural face and body processing, although adolescent women reported higher levels of body image concern (BIC) and self-objectified to a greater extent than adolescent men. In Experiment 2, typical body inversion effects were seen in the low-risk group, whilst there was some evidence to suggest a disruption to the configural processing of body stimuli in high-risk adolescents and in women recovering from body image disorders. Women in recovery were also quicker to respond to all stimuli, whilst high-risk adolescents took longer to respond to bodies than to other stimuli. Configural face processing was intact in all groups, and effects did not directly relate to BIC or self-objectification. These findings have implications for future research looking to inform early interventions and treatment, suggesting that there could be a tendency to visually process individual body parts at the expense of the whole-body form in women at risk of developing body image disorders, as well as those in recovery.

The role of the motion cue in the dynamic gaze-cueing effect: A study of the lateralized ERPs

When face was inverted, dynamic gaze cues could still effectively direct attention despite the disruption of configural face processing, but the static gaze cues could not. The present study investigated the role of the motion cue in the dynamic Gaze-Cueing Effect (GCE). With schematic and real faces, we employed the gaze-cueing paradigm to examine the differences among three kinds of cues (static gaze cue, dynamic gaze cue and motion cue) based on behavioral results and event-related potentials. Behavioral results revealed significant GCE in all conditions. In the schematic face group, the motion cue (two symmetrical dots shifting slightly to the side) induced a significantly smaller GCE than the dynamic gaze cues (two symmetrical dots moving within a rounded circle), while in the real face group, the motion cue (that is, the inverted-face gaze cue) remained a strong GCE compared with other conditions. With regard to the ERP results, we found the early directing attention negativity (EDAN), which was sensitive to voluntary cues (e.g. arrow cue) rather than gaze cue, in the schematic motion cue condition, but not in the inverted-face gaze cue condition. We supposed that the motion cue (real face) could activate the configural face processing even when the face is inverted. This finding supported that EDAN reflected a cue-triggered attention shift.

Feature-location effects in the Thatcher illusion.

Face perception is impaired for inverted images, and a prominent example of this is the Thatcher illusion: "Thatcherized" (i.e., rotated) eyes and mouths make a face look grotesque, but only if the whole face is seen upright rather than inverted. Inversion effects are often interpreted as evidence for configural face processing. However, recent findings have led to the alternative proposal that the Thatcher illusion rests on orientation sensitivity for isolated facial regions. Here, we tested whether the Thatcher effect depends not only on the orientation of facial regions but also on their visual-field location. Using a match-to-sample task with isolated eye and mouth regions we found a significant Feature × Location interaction. Observers were better at discriminating Thatcherized from normal eyes in the upper compared to the lower visual field, and vice versa for mouths. These results show that inversion effects can at least partly be driven by nonconfigural factors and that one of these factors is a match between facial features and their typical visual-field location. This echoes recent results showing feature-location effects in face individuation. We discuss the role of these findings for the hypothesis that spatial and feature tuning in the ventral stream are linked.

Spatial attention modulates the temporal sequence of hemispheric asymmetry in configural and featural face processing

Face recognition requires both configural and featural processing. Configural face processing is more dependent on the right hemisphere, whereas featural face processing is more dependent on the left hemisphere. The ERP components sensitive to configural and featural face processing were found on P1 and P2, respectively. However, whether lateralized processing is independent of or interacts with the temporal sequence of configural and featural face processing is unclear. To prevent potentially confounding physical stimuli differences between configural and featural face processing from affecting the ERP components, a spatial attention paradigm was employed in which the participants were instructed to attend to the face location (the attended face condition) or the house location (the unattended face condition). The interaction effect of attention, face processing type and hemisphere on the P1 and P2 components indicates that the different mechanisms of configural and featural face processing are a function of spatial attention. Specifically, under the attended face condition, the posterior P1 (approximately 100 ms) for configural face processing was larger than that for featural face processing in the right hemisphere, whereas the P2 (approximately 220 ms) for featural face processing was larger than that for configural face processing in the left hemisphere. In contrast, under the unattended face condition, the P1 for featural face processing was larger than that for configural face processing in the left hemisphere, whereas the P2 for configural face processing was larger than that for featural face processing in the right hemisphere. Therefore, configural and featural processing involve different neural mechanisms, and more importantly, the time course of hemispheric asymmetry in configural and featural face processing is differentially modulated by spatial attention.

The role of the head in configural body processing: Behavioural and electrophysiological evidence from the inversion and scrambling effect.

The present study aimed to further explore the role of the head for configural body processing by comparing complete bodies with headless bodies and faceless heads (Experiment 1). A second aim was to further explore the role of the eye region in configural face processing (Experiment 2). Due to that, we conducted a second experiment with complete faces, eyeless faces, and eyes. In addition, we used two effects to manipulate configural processing: the effect of stimulus inversion and scrambling. The current data clearly show an inversion effect for intact bodies presented with head and faces including the eye region. Thus, the head and the eye region seem to be central for configural processes that are manipulated by the effect of stimulus inversion. Furthermore, the behavioural and electrophysiological body inversion effect depends on the intact configuration of bodies and is associated with the N170 as the face inversion effect depends on the intact face configuration. Hence, configural body processing depends not only on the presence of the head but rather on a complete representation of human bodies that includes the body and the head. Furthermore, configural face processing relies on intact and complete face representations that include faces and eyes.

Altered N170 and mood symptoms in bipolar disorder: An electrophysiological study of configural face processing.

Altered social behavior during mood episodes in bipolar disorder often has detrimental and long-lasting interpersonal consequences. Abnormal face processing may play a role in linking brain functions to clinical symptoms and behavior. This study aimed to understand configural face processing in bipolar disorder as a function of basic communicative attributes of the face and mood symptoms using event-related brain potentials (ERPs). Forty-two participants with bipolar I disorder (BP) and 43 healthy controls (HC) viewed face stimuli varying in emotion (neutral or fearful), head orientation (forward or deviated), and gaze direction (direct or averted) while ERPs were recorded. Configural face processing was indexed by the N170 wave. BP participants had comparable overall N170 amplitude and peak latency to HC, although timing was more variable in the BP group. Abnormal N170 modulations by communicative face attributes were observed in BP: exaggerated sensitivity to emotion (fearful > neutral) in the left hemisphere, and reduced sensitivity to gaze-head incongruency (where N170 is normally larger in response to faces with incongruent than congruent gaze and head direction) in the right hemisphere. The former was not associated with mood symptoms, suggesting a heightened trait-like sensitivity to negative emotions. The latter was correlated with greater manic symptoms, indicating that an impaired perceptual sensitivity to faces with features signaling incongruent social attention may underlie social deficits observed during mania. These findings suggest a pathophysiological role of altered configural face processing in the phenomenology of bipolar disorder, and call for further investigations to evaluate its potential as a biomarker and treatment target.

Face working memory deficits in developmental prosopagnosia: Tests of encoding limits and updating processes

Developmental prosopagnosia (DP) is a condition in which individuals experience life-long problems recognising faces. In recent years, unpacking the nature of the impairments of this population has been the focus of numerous studies. One focus has been on the nature of face-based memory impairments for such individuals, with the onus being mainly on long-term memory deficits. Far fewer have considered the nature of face-based working memory (WM) impairments for DP cases, and the current study seeks to address this. One recent WM study (Shah et al., 2015) reported that the maintenance of faces over time in WM was spared among DPs, and argued instead that face encoding was limited in some way. Here we further explore the nature of face-based WM impairments in DP across two experiments designed to probe encoding limits (Experiment 1) and WM updating processes (Experiment 2). In Experiment 1 we manipulated the number of faces (1−4) to encode into WM and presented these simultaneously. We reasoned that if face encoding among DPs was inefficient or imprecise, then increasing encoding demands (WM load) would disproportionately impair WM accuracy compared to controls. However, we found that DP cases were consistently poorer than controls across all face load conditions, suggesting that front-end encoding problems are only part of the deficit. In Experiment 2, to measure updating four faces were shown sequentially for encoding into WM and accuracy was analysed as a function of whether the test face had been presented first, second, third or last in the encoding sequence. DPs had significantly poorer WM than controls for later faces but not the first face encoded in the sequence, and showed an attenuated recency effect. To account for these findings, we discuss the potential role of comparison processes at retrieval, impairments in configural face processing, and the impact of noise in the face identification system of individuals with DP.

Interactions between dorsal location- and ventral face-processing regions during configural face processing: a combined TBS-fMRI study.

Interactions between dorsal location- and ventral face-processing regions during configural face processing: a combined TBS-fMRI study.

Aging Strikes the Self-Face Advantage in Featural Processing

Background/Study Context: The face is the most distinctive physical feature of a person. Previous work has shown that one’s own face (self-face) is advantageous in perception. Here the authors investigate how aging influences the configural and featural processing of self-face.Methods: Older and young adults searched for their own faces and faces of strangers (Experiment 1) or acquaintances (Experiment 2) among distractor faces. The configural and featural processing of faces was assessed with face inversion in Experiment 1 and with changes in point of view in Experiment 2.Results: Experiment 1 revealed a robust self-face advantage for upright faces in both young and older adults. A similar advantage was observed for inverted faces in young but not in older adults. Experiment 2 revealed a self-face advantage in older adults regardless of the point of view; in young adults, however, the self-face advantage only emerged for frontal view faces.Conclusion: The present study shows that older adults have a self-face advantage in configural but not in featural processing. The authors suggest that the impairment in featural processing in older adults is likely the result of age-related changes in perceptual experience.

Configural face processing impacts race disparities in humanization and trust

The dehumanization of Black Americans is an ongoing societal problem. Reducing configural face processing, a well-studied aspect of typical face encoding, decreases the activation of human-related concepts to White faces, suggesting that the extent that faces are configurally processed contributes to dehumanization. Because Black individuals are more dehumanized relative to White individuals, the current work examined how configural processing might contribute to their greater dehumanization. Study 1 showed that inverting faces (which reduces configural processing) reduced the activation of human-related concepts toward Black more than White faces. Studies 2a and 2b showed that reducing configural processing affects dehumanization by decreasing trust and increasing homogeneity among Black versus White faces. Studies 3a–d showed that configural processing effects emerge in racial outgroups for whom untrustworthiness may be a more salient group stereotype (i.e., Black, but not Asian, faces). Study 4 provided evidence that these effects are specific to reduced configural processing versus more general perceptual disfluency. Reduced configural processing may thus contribute to the greater dehumanization of Black relative to White individuals.

Configural and Featural Face Processing Influences on Emotion Recognition in Schizophrenia and Bipolar Disorder.

Emotion recognition impairments have been demonstrated in schizophrenia (Sz), but are less consistent and lesser in magnitude in bipolar disorder (BD). This may be related to the extent to which different face processing strategies are engaged during emotion recognition in each of these disorders. We recently showed that Sz patients had impairments in the use of both featural and configural face processing strategies, whereas BD patients were impaired only in the use of the latter. Here we examine the influence that these impairments have on facial emotion recognition in these cohorts. Twenty-eight individuals with Sz, 28 individuals with BD, and 28 healthy controls completed a facial emotion labeling task with two conditions designed to separate the use of featural and configural face processing strategies; part-based and whole-face emotion recognition. Sz patients performed worse than controls on both conditions, and worse than BD patients on the whole-face condition. BD patients performed worse than controls on the whole-face condition only. Configural processing deficits appear to influence the recognition of facial emotions in BD, whereas both configural and featural processing abnormalities impair emotion recognition in Sz. This may explain discrepancies in the profiles of emotion recognition between the disorders. (JINS, 2017, 23, 287-291).

Configural processing of faces in old adulthood

Configural processing of faces in old adulthood

Of Mannequins and Men

Recent research has demonstrated that ascribing minds to humanlike stimuli is a product of both their perceptual similarity to human faces and whether they engaged configural face processing. We present the findings of two experiments in which we both manipulate the amount of humanlike features in faces (in a doll-to-human morph continuum) and manipulate perceivers’ ability to employ configural face processing (via face inversion) while measuring explicit ratings of mind ascription (Study 1) and the spontaneous activation of humanlike concepts (Study 2). In both studies, we find novel evidence that ascribing minds to entities is an interactive product of both having strong perceptual similarity to human faces and being processed using configural processing mechanisms typical of normal face perception. In short, ascribing mind to others is bounded jointly by the featural cues of the target and by processes employed by the perceiver.

The right FFA is functionally connected to the dorsal visual pathway during configural face processing.

Configural processing, the processing of the spatial relationships among the features of a face, is a vital component of face perception. If configural processing depends on spatial information, might this process involve interactions between the face-processing regions of the ventral stream and visuospatial processing regions of the dorsal stream? We explored this question in healthy adults by examining the pattern of functional connectivity between the right FFA as a seed (individually defined) and the rest of the brain in a same-different face detection task. Detection of configural relative to featural face differences led to significantly stronger functional connectivity between the right FFA and a-priori localized spatial processing regions of the dorsal stream. In contrast, detection of featural relative to configural face differences led to stronger functional connectivity between the right FFA and other face-processing regions of the ventral stream, such as the right OFA and left FFA, as well as with the insula bilaterally. Further, these connectivity patterns correlated positively with reaction time performance: participants that responded slower on configural difference trials showed stronger functional connectivity between the right FFA, the left FFA and OFA and a-priori localized spatial processing regions of the dorsal stream, particularly within the left posterior parietal cortex. Conversely, participants that responded slower on featural difference trials showed stronger functional connectivity between the right FFA and anterior regions of the right inferior temporal gyrus, left insula and bilateral inferior frontal gyrus. Together, the findings suggest that the right FFA interacts with spatial processing regions of the dorsal stream during configural face processing and with ventral stream face-processing regions during featural face processing. Additionally, the extent of these interactions appears to depend on task demands. Meeting abstract presented at VSS 2016

A possible account of impairments in configural face processing following early visual deprivation

A possible account of impairments in configural face processing following early visual deprivation

Spatial Mechanisms within the Dorsal Visual Pathway Contribute to the Configural Processing of Faces.

Human face recognition is often attributed to configural processing; namely, processing the spatial relationships among the features of a face. If configural processing depends on fine-grained spatial information, do visuospatial mechanisms within the dorsal visual pathway contribute to this process? We explored this question in human adults using functional magnetic resonance imaging and transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) in a same-different face detection task. Within localized, spatial-processing regions of the posterior parietal cortex, configural face differences led to significantly stronger activation compared to featural face differences, and the magnitude of this activation correlated with behavioral performance. In addition, detection of configural relative to featural face differences led to significantly stronger functional connectivity between the right FFA and the spatial processing regions of the dorsal stream, whereas detection of featural relative to configural face differences led to stronger functional connectivity between the right FFA and left FFA. Critically, TMS centered on these parietal regions impaired performance on configural but not featural face difference detections. We conclude that spatial mechanisms within the dorsal visual pathway contribute to the configural processing of facial features and, more broadly, that the dorsal stream may contribute to the veridical perception of faces.

Intact attentional orienting towards inverted faces revealed by both manual responses and eye-movement measurement in individuals with Williams syndrome.

Individuals with Williams syndrome (WS) exhibit atypical attentional characteristics when viewing faces. Although atypical configural processing of faces has been reported in WS, the relative strengths of configural and local feature information to capture visual attention in WS remains unclear. We previously demonstrated that attentional capture by target-unrelated upright faces differs depending on what response is measured. Whereas eye movements reflected subtle atypical attentional properties at the late stage of visual search, manual responses could not capture the atypical attentional profiles towards target-unrelated upright faces in individuals with WS. Here we used the same experimental paradigm to assess whether sensitivity to configural facial information is necessary for capturing attention in WS. We measured both eye movements and manual responses from 17 individuals with WS and 34 typically developing children and adults while they were actively involved in a visual search task with an inverted face distractor. Task measures (reaction time and performance accuracy) and gaze behaviour (initial direction of attention and fixation duration) were analysed for each stimulus. When the target and the inverted face were displayed in the same search array, reaction times and accuracies in individuals with WS showed similar tendencies as typical controls. Analysis of task and gaze measures revealed that attentional orienting towards inverted faces was not atypical. Although individuals with WS exhibited atypical gaze behaviour towards upright faces in our previous study, this unusual behaviour disappears if the faces are upside down. These findings suggest that local feature information alone (e.g. eyes) does not contribute to the heightened attention to faces, but configural information appears necessary for drawing attention to faces in individuals with WS, at least in the current experimental paradigm.

Double dissociation of configural and featural face processing on P1 and P2 components as a function of spatial attention.

Face recognition relies on both configural and featural processing. Previous research has shown that P1 is sensitive to configural face processing, but it is unclear whether any component is sensitive to featural face processing; moreover, if there is such a component, its temporal sequence relative to P1 is unknown. Thus, to avoid confounding physical stimuli differences between configural and featural face processing on ERP components, a spatial attention paradigm was employed by instructing participants to attend an image stream (faces and houses) or an alphanumeric character stream. The interaction between attention and face processing type on P1 and P2 components indicates different mechanisms of configural and featural face processing as a function of spatial attention. The steady-state visual evoked potential (SSVEP) results clearly demonstrated that participants could selectively attend to different streams of information. Importantly, configural face processing elicited a larger posterior P1 (approximately 128 ms) than featural face processing, whereas P2 (approximately 248 ms) was greater for featural than for configural face processing under attended condition. The interaction between attention and face processing type (configural vs. featural) on P1 and P2 components indicates that there are different mechanisms of configural and featural face processing operating as functions of spatial attention. While the P1 result confirms previous findings separating configural and featural face processing, the newly observed P2 finding in the present study extends this separation to a double dissociation. Therefore, configural and featural face processing are modulated differently by spatial attention, and configural face processing precedes featural face processing.

Relationship Between Maternal Sensitivity During Early Interaction and Maternal Ability in Perceiving Infants' Body and Face

Maternal sensitivity has been considered an indicator of mother-infant quality interaction, however little is known about the perception processes associated to this parental behavior style. Here we aimed to explore the relationship between maternal sensitivity during a face-to-face interaction with their infants and maternal ability in perceiving infants' body and face. Thirty-six 6 month-old infants and their mothers were videotaped during a mother-infant interaction to identify those with high and low sensitivity. Then, mothers were tested using an inversion effect paradigm requiring the visual discrimination of upright and inverted pictures of whole bodies and faces of their own and unfamiliar infants; this allowed estimation of their configural perceptual processing abilities. Results showed that high-sensitivity mothers showed reduced body configural processing for others' infants as compared to configural processing of their own infant, whereas low-sensitivity mothers were engaged in comparable body configural processing independently from infant identity. Infants' face configural processing did not distinguish between high- and low-sensitivity mothers. Our findings suggest that high-sensitivity mothers have refined their use of configural processing of body postures to be selective for their own infants, suggesting that this visuo-perceptual strategy makes much more efficient the mothers' ability in detecting, discriminating and recognizing own infant's cues.

The Face of Humanity

Across three studies, we test the hypothesis that the perceived “humanness” of a human face can have its roots, in part, in low-level, feature-integration processes typical of normal face perception—configural face processing. We provide novel evidence that perceptions of humanness/dehumanization can have perceptual roots. Relying on the well-established face inversion paradigm, we demonstrate that disruptions of configural face processing also disrupt the ability of human faces to activate concepts related to humanness (Experiment 1), disrupt categorization of human faces as human (but not animal faces as animals; Experiment 2), and reduce the levels of humanlike traits and characteristics ascribed to faces (Experiment 3). Taken together, the current findings provide a novel demonstration that dehumanized responses can arise from bottom-up perceptual cues, which suggests novel causes and consequences of dehumanizing responses.