Holistic Face Processing Research Articles

Gaze-Contingent Display Changes as New Window on Analytical and Holistic Face Perception in Children With Autism Spectrum Disorder.

The strength of holistic face perception in children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) was evaluated by applying the gaze-contingent mask and window technique to a face matching and discrimination task in 6- to 14-year-old children with (n=36) and without ASD (n=47), and by examining fixation patterns. Behavioral results suggested a slower and less efficient face processing in the ASD sample compared with the matched control group. Comparing the moving mask and window conditions revealed a reduced holistic face processing bias in the younger age group but not in the older sample. Preferential viewing patterns revealed both similarities and differences between both participant groups.

Sluggishness of Early-Stage Face Processing (N170) Is Correlated with Negative and General Psychiatric Symptoms in Schizophrenia.

Patients with schizophrenia consistently exhibit abnormalities in the N170 event-related potential (ERP) component evoked by images of faces. However, the relationship between these face-specific N170 abnormalities in patients with schizophrenia and the clinical characteristics of this disorder has not been elucidated. Here, ERP recordings were conducted for patients with schizophrenia and healthy controls. The amplitude and latency of the N170 component were recorded while participants passively viewed face and non-face (table) images to explore the correlation between face-specific processing and clinical characteristics in schizophrenia. The results provided evidence for a face-specific N170 latency delay in patients with schizophrenia. The N170 latency in patients with schizophrenia was significantly longer than that in healthy controls when images of faces were presented in both upright and inverted orientations. Importantly, the face-related N170 latencies of the left temporo-occipital electrodes (P7 and PO7) were positively correlated with both negative and general psychiatric symptoms in these patients. The N170 amplitudes were weaker in patients than in controls for inverted images of both faces and non-faces (tables), with a left-hemisphere dominance. The face inversion effect (FIE), meaning the difference in N170 amplitude between upright and inverted faces, was absent in patients with schizophrenia, suggesting an abnormality of holistic face processing. Together, these results revealed a marked symptom-relevant neural delay associated with face-specific processing in patients with schizophrenia, providing additional evidence to support the demyelination hypothesis of schizophrenia.

Validation of the Vanderbilt Holistic Face Processing Test.

The Vanderbilt Holistic Face Processing Test (VHPT-F) is a new measure of holistic face processing with better psychometric properties relative to prior measures developed for group studies (Richler et al., 2014). In fields where psychologists study individual differences, validation studies are commonplace and the concurrent validity of a new measure is established by comparing it to an older measure with established validity. We follow this approach and test whether the VHPT-F measures the same construct as the composite task, which is group-based measure at the center of the large literature on holistic face processing. In Experiment 1, we found a significant correlation between holistic processing measured in the VHPT-F and the composite task. Although this correlation was small, it was comparable to the correlation between holistic processing measured in the composite task with the same faces, but different target parts (top or bottom), which represents a reasonable upper limit for correlations between the composite task and another measure of holistic processing. These results confirm the validity of the VHPT-F by demonstrating shared variance with another measure of holistic processing based on the same operational definition. These results were replicated in Experiment 2, but only when the demographic profile of our sample matched that of Experiment 1.

Social perception in synaesthesia for colour

ABSTRACTSynaesthesia is a rare phenomenon in which stimulation in one modality (e.g., audition) evokes a secondary percept not associated with the first (e.g., colour). Prior work has suggested links between synaesthesia and other neurodevelopmental conditions that are linked to altered social perception abilities. With this in mind, here we sought to examine social perception abilities in grapheme–colour synaesthesia (where achromatic graphemes evoke colour experiences) by examining facial identity and facial emotion perception in synaesthetes and controls. Our results indicate that individuals who experience grapheme–colour synaesthesia outperformed controls on tasks involving fine visual discrimination of facial identity and emotion, but not on tasks involving holistic face processing. These findings are discussed in the context of broader perceptual and cognitive traits previously associated with synaesthesia for colour, with the suggestion that performance benefits shown by grapheme–colour synaesthetes may be related to domain-general visual discrimination biases observed in this group.

From development to aging: Holistic face perception in children, younger and older adults

Few published reports examine the development of holistic face processing across the lifespan such that face-specific processes are adequately differentiated from general developmental effects. To address this gap in the literature, we used the complete design of the composite paradigm (Richler & Gauthier, 2014) with faces and non-face control objects (watches) to investigate holistic processing in children (8–10years), young adults (20–32years) and older adults (65–78years). Several modifications to past research designs were introduced to improve the ability to draw conclusions about the development of holistic processing in terms of face-specificity, response bias, and age-related differences in attention. Attentional focus (narrow vs. wide focus at study) influenced the magnitude of the composite effect without eliminating holistic face processing in all age groups. Young adults showed large composite effects for faces, but none for watches. In contrast, older adults and children showed composite effects for both faces and watches, although the effects for faces were larger. Our findings suggest that holistic processing, as measured by the composite effect, might be moderated by less efficient attentional control in children and older adults. The study also underscores the importance of including comparable complex objects when investigating face processing across the lifespan.

Testing Differential Holistic Processing Within a Face: No Evidence of Asymmetry from the Complete Composite Task.

The composite face task is one of the most popular research paradigms for measuring holistic processing of upright faces. The exact mechanism underlying holistic processing remains elusive and controversial, and some studies have suggested that holistic processing may not be evenly distributed, in that the top-half of a face might induce stronger holistic processing than its bottom-half counterpart. In two experiments, we further examined the possibility of asymmetric holistic processing. Prior to Experiment 1, we confirmed that perceptual discriminability was equated between top and bottom face halves; we found no differences in performance between top and bottom face halves when they were presented individually. Then, in Experiment 1, using the composite face task with the complete design to reduce response bias, we failed to obtain evidence that would support the notion of asymmetric holistic processing between top and bottom face halves. To further reduce performance variability and to remove lingering holistic effects observed in the misaligned condition in Experiment 1, we doubled the number of trials and increased misalignment between top and bottom face halves to make misalignment more salient in Experiment 2. Even with these additional manipulations, we were unable to find evidence indicative of asymmetric holistic processing. Taken together, these findings suggest that holistic processing is distributed homogenously within an upright face.

The "parts and wholes" of face recognition: A review of the literature.

It has been claimed that faces are recognized as a "whole" rather than by the recognition of individual parts. In a paper published in the Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology in 1993, Martha Farah and I attempted to operationalize the holistic claim using the part/whole task. In this task, participants studied a face and then their memory presented in isolation and in the whole face. Consistent with the holistic view, recognition of the part was superior when tested in the whole-face condition compared to when it was tested in isolation. The "whole face" or holistic advantage was not found for faces that were inverted, or scrambled, nor for non-face objects, suggesting that holistic encoding was specific to normal, intact faces. In this paper, we reflect on the part/whole paradigm and how it has contributed to our understanding of what it means to recognize a face as a "whole" stimulus. We describe the value of part/whole task for developing theories of holistic and non-holistic recognition of faces and objects. We discuss the research that has probed the neural substrates of holistic processing in healthy adults and people with prosopagnosia and autism. Finally, we examine how experience shapes holistic face recognition in children and recognition of own- and other-race faces in adults. The goal of this article is to summarize the research on the part/whole task and speculate on how it has informed our understanding of holistic face processing.

The holistic processing of emotional faces in a single and multiple faces

The holistic processing of emotional faces in a single and multiple faces

Intact holistic processing of faces and pseudo-words in Developmental Prosopagnosia

Intact holistic processing of faces and pseudo-words in Developmental Prosopagnosia

The Composite Effect Is Face-Specific in Young but Not Older Adults.

In studying holistic face processing across the life-span there are only few attempts to separate face-specific from general aging effects. Here we used the complete design of the composite paradigm (Cheung et al., 2008) with faces and novel non-face control objects (watches) to investigate composite effects in young (18–32 years) and older adults (63–78 years). We included cueing conditions to alert using a narrow or a wide attentional focus when comparing the composite objects, and used brief and relaxed exposure durations for stimulus presentation. Young adults showed large composite effects for faces, but none for watches. In contrast, older adults showed strong composite effects for faces and watches, albeit the effects were larger for faces. Moreover, composite effects for faces were larger for the wide attentional focus in both age groups, while the composite effects for watches of older adults were alike for both cueing conditions. Older adults showed low accuracy at the same levels for both types of stimuli when attended and non-attended halves were incongruent. Increasing presentation times improved performance strongly for congruent but not for incongruent composite objects. These findings suggest that the composite effects of older adults reflect substantial decline in the ability to control irrelevant stimuli, which takes effect both in non-face objects and in faces. In young adults, highly efficient attentional control mostly precludes interference of irrelevant features in novel objects, thus their composite effects reflect holistic integration specific for faces or objects of expertise.

The composite face illusion.

Few findings in cognitive science have proved as influential as the composite face effect. When the top half of one face is aligned with the bottom half of another, and presented upright, the resulting composite arrangement induces a compelling percept of a novel facial configuration. Findings obtained using composite face procedures have contributed significantly to our understanding of holistic face processing, the detrimental effects of face inversion, the development of face perception, and aberrant face perception in clinical populations. Composite paradigms continue to advance our knowledge of face perception, as exemplified by their recent use for investigating the perceptual mechanisms underlying dynamic face processing. However, the paradigm has been the subject of intense scrutiny, particularly over the last decade, and there is a growing sense that the composite face illusion, whilst easy to illustrate, is deceptively difficult to measure and interpret. In this review, we provide a focussed overview of the existing composite face literature, and identify six priorities for future research. Addressing these gaps in our knowledge will aid the evaluation and refinement of theoretical accounts of the illusion.

Right: Left:: East: West. Evidence that individuals from East Asian and South Asian cultures emphasize right hemisphere functions in comparison to Euro-American cultures

We present evidence that individuals from East or South Asian cultures (Japanese college students in Japan and East or South Asian born and raised college students in the USA) tend to exhibit default thinking that corresponds to right hemisphere holistic functions, as compared to Caucasian individuals from a Western culture (born and raised in the USA). In two lateralized tasks (locating the nose in a scrambled face, and global-local letter task), both Asian groups showed a greater right hemisphere bias than the Western group. In a third lateralized task, judging similarity in terms of visual form versus functional/semantic categorizations, there was not a reliable difference between the groups. On a classic, ambiguous face composed of vegetables, both Eastern groups displayed a greater right hemisphere (holistic face processing) bias than the Western group. These results support an “East - Right Hemisphere, West - Left Hemisphere” hypothesis, as originally proposed by Ornstein (1972). This hypothesis is open as to the degree to which social-cultural forces were involved in hemispheric specialization, or the opposite, or both. Our aim is to encourage a more thorough analysis of this hypothesis, suggesting both lateralization studies corresponding to documented East-West differences, and East-West studies corresponding to lateralization differences.

The role of holistic face processing in acquired prosopagnosia: evidence from the composite face effect

ABSTRACTFaces are processed more holistically than other objects, and it has been suggested that the loss of holistic face processing causes acquired prosopagnosia. Support for this hypothesis comes from several cases who failed to show holistic face effects as well as the absence of reports of prosopagnosics with unequivocally normal holistic face perception. The current study examines the relationship between holistic face processing and prosopagnosia by testing seven acquired prosopagnosics with the face composite task, a classic measure of holistic face processing. To enhance the robustness of the findings, each prosopagnosic was tested with two versions of the composite task showing upright faces. We also tested an inverted condition to exclude the possibility that more general factors account for composite effects for upright faces. Four of the seven acquired prosopagnosic participants showed consistent upright face composite effects with minimal inverted face composite effects. We conclude that severe face processing deficits can co-occur with intact holistic face processing and that factors other than a loss of holistic processing contribute to the perceptual and recognition deficits in acquired prosopagnosia.

A global attentional scope setting prioritizes faces for conscious detection.

The scope of visual attention is known to affect conscious object perception, with recent studies showing that a global attentional scope boosts holistic face processing, relative to a local scope. Here we show that attentional scope settings can also modulate the availability of information for conscious visual awareness. In an initial experiment, we show that adopting a global attentional scope accelerates conscious detection of initially invisible faces, presented under continuous flash suppression (CFS). Furthermore, face detection time was not modulated by attentional scope in a nonrivalrous control condition, which emulated the experience of CFS without inducing binocular rivalry. In a follow-up experiment, we report an exact replication of the original effect, as well as data suggesting that this effect is specific to upright faces, and is abolished when using both inverted faces and images of houses in an otherwise identical task. Thus, attentional scope settings can modulate the availability of information to conscious awareness, fundamentally altering the contents of our subjective visual experience.

Holistic face processing can inhibit recognition of forensic facial composites.

Facial composite systems help eyewitnesses to show the appearance of criminals. However, likenesses created by unfamiliar witnesses will not be completely accurate, and people familiar with the target can find them difficult to identify. Faces are processed holistically; we explore whether this impairs identification of inaccurate composite images and whether recognition can be improved. In Experiment 1 (n = 64) an imaging technique was used to make composites of celebrity faces more accurate and identification was contrasted with the original composite images. Corrected composites were better recognized, confirming that errors in production of the likenesses impair identification. The influence of holistic face processing was explored by misaligning the top and bottom parts of the composites (cf. Young, Hellawell, & Hay, 1987). Misalignment impaired recognition of corrected composites but identification of the original, inaccurate composites significantly improved. This effect was replicated with facial composites of noncelebrities in Experiment 2 (n = 57). We conclude that, like real faces, facial composites are processed holistically: recognition is impaired because unlike real faces, composites contain inaccuracies and holistic face processing makes it difficult to perceive identifiable features. This effect was consistent across composites of celebrities and composites of people who are personally familiar. Our findings suggest that identification of forensic facial composites can be enhanced by presenting composites in a misaligned format.

Neural Tuning Size in a Model of Primate Visual Processing Accounts for Three Key Markers of Holistic Face Processing.

Faces are an important and unique class of visual stimuli, and have been of interest to neuroscientists for many years. Faces are known to elicit certain characteristic behavioral markers, collectively labeled “holistic processing”, while non-face objects are not processed holistically. However, little is known about the underlying neural mechanisms. The main aim of this computational simulation work is to investigate the neural mechanisms that make face processing holistic. Using a model of primate visual processing, we show that a single key factor, “neural tuning size”, is able to account for three important markers of holistic face processing: the Composite Face Effect (CFE), Face Inversion Effect (FIE) and Whole-Part Effect (WPE). Our proof-of-principle specifies the precise neurophysiological property that corresponds to the poorly-understood notion of holism, and shows that this one neural property controls three classic behavioral markers of holism. Our work is consistent with neurophysiological evidence, and makes further testable predictions. Overall, we provide a parsimonious account of holistic face processing, connecting computation, behavior and neurophysiology.

Intact perception but abnormal orientation towards face-like objects in young children with ASD

There is ample behavioral evidence of diminished orientation towards faces as well as the presence of face perception impairments in autism spectrum disorder (ASD), but the underlying mechanisms of these deficits are still unclear. We used face-like object stimuli that have been shown to evoke pareidolia in typically developing (TD) individuals to test the effect of a global face-like configuration on orientation and perceptual processes in young children with ASD and age-matched TD controls. We show that TD children were more likely to look first towards upright face-like objects than children with ASD, showing that a global face-like configuration elicit a stronger orientation bias in TD children as compared to children with ASD. However, once they were looking at the stimuli, both groups spent more time exploring the upright face-like object, suggesting that they both perceived it as a face. Our results are in agreement with abnormal social orienting in ASD, possibly due to an abnormal tuning of the subcortical pathway, leading to poor orienting and attention towards faces. Our results also indicate that young children with ASD can perceive a generic face holistically, such as face-like objects, further demonstrating holistic processing of faces in ASD.

Face Perception and Test Reliabilities in Congenital Prosopagnosia in Seven Tests.

Congenital prosopagnosia, the innate impairment in recognizing faces, is a very heterogeneous disorder with different phenotypical manifestations. To investigate the nature of prosopagnosia in more detail, we tested 16 prosopagnosics and 21 controls with an extended test battery addressing various aspects of face recognition. Our results show that prosopagnosics exhibited significant impairments in several face recognition tasks: impaired holistic processing (they were tested amongst others with the Cambridge Face Memory Test (CFMT)) as well as reduced processing of configural information of faces. This test battery also revealed some new findings. While controls recognized moving faces better than static faces, prosopagnosics did not exhibit this effect. Furthermore, prosopagnosics had significantly impaired gender recognition—which is shown on a groupwise level for the first time in our study. There was no difference between groups in the automatic extraction of face identity information or in object recognition as tested with the Cambridge Car Memory Test. In addition, a methodological analysis of the tests revealed reduced reliability for holistic face processing tests in prosopagnosics. To our knowledge, this is the first study to show that prosopagnosics showed a significantly reduced reliability coefficient (Cronbach’s alpha) in the CFMT compared to the controls. We suggest that compensatory strategies employed by the prosopagnosics might be the cause for the vast variety of response patterns revealed by the reduced test reliability. This finding raises the question whether classical face tests measure the same perceptual processes in controls and prosopagnosics.

The influence of natural contour and face size on the spatial frequency tuning for identifying upright and inverted faces.

It has previously been proposed that holistic face processing is based on low spatial frequencies (SFs) whereas featural processing relies on higher SFs, a hypothesis still widespread in the face processing literature today (e.g. Peters et al. in Eur J Neurosci 37(9):1448-1457, 2013). Since upright faces are supposedly recognized through holistic processing and inverted faces, using features, it is easy to take the leap to suggest a qualitatively different SF tuning for the identification of upright and vs. inverted faces. However, two independent studies (e.g. Gaspar et al. in Vision Res 48(28):2817-2826, 2008; Willenbockel et al. in J Exp Psychol Human 36(1):122-135, 2010a) found the same SF tuning for both stimulus presentations. Since these authors used relatively small faces hiding the natural facial contour, it is possible that differences in the SF tuning for identifying upright and inverted faces were missed. The present study thus revisits the SF tuning for upright and inverted faces face identification using the SF Bubbles technique. Our results still indicate that the same SFs are involved in both upright and inverted face recognition regardless of these additional parameters (contour and size), thus contrasting with previous data obtained using different methods (e.g. Oruc and Barton in J Vis 10(12):20, 1-12, 2010). The possible reasons subtending this divergence are discussed.

A shape-based account for holistic face processing.

Faces are processed holistically, so selective attention to 1 face part without any influence of the others often fails. In this study, 3 experiments investigated what type of facial information (shape or surface) underlies holistic face processing and whether generalization of holistic processing to nonexperienced faces requires extensive discrimination experience. Results show that facial shape information alone is sufficient to elicit the composite face effect (CFE), 1 of the most convincing demonstrations of holistic processing, whereas facial surface information is unnecessary (Experiment 1). The CFE is eliminated when faces differ only in surface but not shape information, suggesting that variation of facial shape information is necessary to observe holistic face processing (Experiment 2). Removing 3-dimensional (3D) facial shape information also eliminates the CFE, indicating the necessity of 3D shape information for holistic face processing (Experiment 3). Moreover, participants show similar holistic processing for faces with and without extensive discrimination experience (i.e., own- and other-race faces), suggesting that generalization of holistic processing to nonexperienced faces requires facial shape information, but does not necessarily require further individuation experience. These results provide compelling evidence that facial shape information underlies holistic face processing. This shape-based account not only offers a consistent explanation for previous studies of holistic face processing, but also suggests a new ground-in addition to expertise-for the generalization of holistic processing to different types of faces and to nonface objects.