A whole face is more than the sum of its halves: Interactive processing in face perception

Yovel, Galit; Paller, Ken A.; Levy, Jerre

doi:10.1080/13506280444000210

Cited by 25 publications

(12 citation statements)

References 26 publications

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“…These findings are in line with our finding that spacing and parts are processed interactively. Furthermore, the finding that spacing and parts are associated for only upright faces is consistent with findings that show that holistic mechanisms do not operate on inverted faces (Young, Hellawell, & Hay, 1987; Yovel, Paller, & Levy, 2005) or on nonface objects (e.g., Robbins & Mc-Kone, 2007). Finally, our findings also may be consistent with those of neuroimaging studies, which have reported similar responses to spacing and part faces in the fusiform face area, which generate holistic representation for upright faces (Schiltz & Rossion, 2006), but dissociated responses to spacing and parts outside face-selective regions (Maurer et al, 2007).…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 87%

The representations of spacing and part-based information are associated for upright faces but dissociated for objects: Evidence from individual differences

Yovel

Kanwisher

2008

Psychonomic Bulletin & Review

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 87%

The representations of spacing and part-based information are associated for upright faces but dissociated for objects: Evidence from individual differences

Yovel

Kanwisher

2008

Psychonomic Bulletin & Review

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“…two noses) appeared in a previously shown face when they are tested in the context of the whole face than when they are tested in isolation, and the 'composite effect' (Young et al 1987), in which subjects are slower to identify one-half of a chimeric face, if it is aligned with an inconsistent other half-face than if the two half-faces are misaligned. Consistent with the holistic hypothesis, Yovel et al (2005a) have found that the probability of correctly identifying a whole face is greater than the sum of the probabilities of matching each of its component face halves. Taken together, these effects suggest that upright faces are processed in a distinctive 'holistic' manner (McKone et al 2001;Tanaka & Farah 2003), i.e.…”

Section: Specialized Mechanisms For Face Perception: Evidence From Nementioning

confidence: 57%

The fusiform face area: a cortical region specialized for the perception of faces

Kanwisher

Yovel

2006

Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B

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Faces are among the most important visual stimuli we perceive, informing us not only about a person's identity, but also about their mood, sex, age and direction of gaze. The ability to extract this information within a fraction of a second of viewing a face is important for normal social interactions and has probably played a critical role in the survival of our primate ancestors. Considerable evidence from behavioural, neuropsychological and neurophysiological investigations supports the hypothesis that humans have specialized cognitive and neural mechanisms dedicated to the perception of faces (the face-specificity hypothesis). Here, we review the literature on a region of the human brain that appears to play a key role in face perception, known as the fusiform face area (FFA).Section 1 outlines the theoretical background for much of this work. The face-specificity hypothesis falls squarely on one side of a longstanding debate in the fields of cognitive science and cognitive neuroscience concerning the extent to which the mind/brain is composed of: (i) special-purpose ('domain-specific') mechanisms, each dedicated to processing a specific kind of information (e.g. faces, according to the face-specificity hypothesis), versus (ii) general-purpose ('domain-general') mechanisms, each capable of operating on any kind of information. Face perception has long served both as one of the prime candidates of a domain-specific process and as a key target for attack by proponents of domain-general theories of brain and mind. Section 2 briefly reviews the prior literature on face perception from behaviour and neurophysiology. This work supports the face-specificity hypothesis and argues against its domain-general alternatives (the individuation hypothesis, the expertise hypothesis and others).Section 3 outlines the more recent evidence on this debate from brain imaging, focusing particularly on the FFA. We review the evidence that the FFA is selectively engaged in face perception, by addressing (and rebutting) five of the most widely discussed alternatives to this hypothesis. In §4, we consider recent findings that are beginning to provide clues into the computations conducted in the FFA and the nature of the representations the FFA extracts from faces. We argue that the FFA is engaged both in detecting faces and in extracting the necessary perceptual information to recognize them, and that the properties of the FFA mirror previously identified behavioural signatures of face-specific processing (e.g. the face-inversion effect).Section 5 asks how the computations and representations in the FFA differ from those occurring in other nearby regions of cortex that respond strongly to faces and objects. The evidence indicates clear functional dissociations between these regions, demonstrating that the FFA shows not only functional specificity but also area specificity. We end by speculating in §6 on some of the broader questions raised by current research on the FFA, including the developmental origins of this region and the ques...

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“…Several studies have tended to show that the holistic perception of a face is more than the total perceptions of its parts. For example, Rakover and Teucher (1997) found that prediction of face recognition in the upright position on the basis of recognition of five facial features separately (hair and forehead, eyes, nose, mouth, and chin) was lower than recognition of the face as a whole; Yovel, Paller, and Levy (2005) found that recognition of the face as a whole in the upright position was better than recognition of the right half or of the left half of the face separately. However, Gold, Mundy, and Tjan (2012), who used the "optimal Bayesian integrator" mathematical model, found that the perception of a face is no more than the sum of the perceptions of its isolated features.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Explaining the face-inversion effect: the face–scheme incompatibility (FSI) model

Rakover

2013

Psychon Bull Rev

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The face-inversion effect (FIE) can be viewed as being based on two kinds of findings. According to the face (UI) effect, perception and recognition are better for faces presented upright (U) than for faces presented inverted (I). According to the face/object(UI) effect, inversion impairs the processing of faces more than the processing of nonfacial objects (e.g., buildings or cars). Part I of this article focuses on the face(UI) effect and the configural-processing hypothesis, which is considered the most popular explanatory hypothesis of the FIE. In this hypothesis, it is proposed that inversion impairs the processing of configural information (the spatial relations between features) but hardly (if at all) impairs the processing of featural information (e.g., eyes, nose, and mouth). Part II of the article starts from the conclusion reached in part I, that the configural-processing hypothesis has not succeeded in explaining a substantial number of the findings and in resolving certain theoretical problems. The part then goes on to outline a new alternative model, the face-scheme incompatibility (FSI) model, which contends with these theoretical problems, accounts for the configural-processing hypothesis, succeeds in explaining a considerable portion of the empirical findings related to the face(UI) effect, and proposes a relatively new research program on the concept of the face scheme. The basic assumption of the FSI model is that schemes and prototypes are involved in processing a visual stimulus of a face and in transforming it to a "meaning-bearing" face, and that different schemes are involved if the face is presented upright or inverted.

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A whole face is more than the sum of its halves: Interactive processing in face perception

Cited by 25 publications

References 26 publications

The representations of spacing and part-based information are associated for upright faces but dissociated for objects: Evidence from individual differences

The representations of spacing and part-based information are associated for upright faces but dissociated for objects: Evidence from individual differences

The fusiform face area: a cortical region specialized for the perception of faces

Explaining the face-inversion effect: the face–scheme incompatibility (FSI) model

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