When Feature Information Comes First! Early Processing of Inverted Faces

We investigated the early stages of face recognition and the role of featural and holistic face information. We exploited the fact that, on inversion, the alienating disorientation of the eyes and mouth in thatcherised faces is hardly detectable. This effect allows featural and holistic information to be dissociated and was used to test specific face-processing hypotheses. In inverted thatcherised faces, the cardinal features are already correctly oriented, whereas in undistorted faces, the whole Gestalt is coherent but all information is disoriented. Experiment 1 and experiment 3 revealed that, for inverted faces, featural information processing precedes holistic information. Moreover, the processing of contextual information is necessary to process local featural information within a short presentation time (26 ms). Furthermore, for upright faces, holistic information seems to be available faster than for inverted faces (experiment 2). These differences in processing inverted and upright faces presumably cause the differential importance of featural and holistic information for inverted and upright faces.

Recognizing expression from familiar and unfamiliar faces

The aim of this study was to clarify the relationship between accessing the identity of a face and making decisions about its expression. Three experiments are reported in which undergraduate subjects made expression decisions about familiar and unfamiliar faces. The decision was slowed either by concealing the mouth region with a black rectangle (experiment 1) or by using a short presentation time (experiments 2 and 3). Results of experiment 1 showed that subjects recognized the displayed expression of celebrities better than those of unknown persons when information from the mouth was not available. Results of experiment 2 showed that they recognized the expression displayed by celebrities more easily when the presentation time was short. Experiment 3, using familiarized faces, replicated the results of experiments 1 and 2 and ruled out a possible explanation of these results by the use of some identity specific representations that are expressive. Implications for face recognition models are discussed.

Texture Segmentation and the Familiarity Effect

Texture segmentation performance is usually defined as being data-driven and bottom - up: visual features of the stimulus—like orientation differences between target and background texture elements—are then evaluated automatically. The question investigated in the experiments reported here is: Are there some hints that not only ‘pure visual features’ determine segmentation performance, but other factors like the familiarity of the stimulus material already exert an influence at these early stages of information processing? The familiarity effect is revealed by better performance when detecting an unfamiliar element embedded in familiar elements (eg an inverted letter ‘N’ among correct ‘N's) compared with the familiar element embedded in unfamiliar elements (see, eg, Frith, 1974 Perception & Psychophysics16 113 – 116). In a series of experiments, spatial and temporal factors of the stimulus conditions (eg density, jitter, display size, presentation time) have been varied, so as to determine the constraints under which the familiarity effect influences texture-segmentation performance. Results showed that the familiarity of texture elements had a rather strong influence on early visual processes. This influence disappeared only under very restricted display conditions (very short presentation time, very high density). This provides further information on which framing conditions are typical for data-driven early vision processes.