Limited evidence of individual differences in holistic processing in different versions of the part-whole paradigm

Abstract

The part-whole paradigm was one of the first measures of holistic processing and it has been used to address several topics in face recognition, including its development, other-race effects, and more recently, whether holistic processing is correlated with face recognition ability. However the task was not designed to measure individual differences and it has produced measurements with low reliability. We created a new holistic processing test designed to measure individual differences based on the part-whole paradigm, the Vanderbilt Part Whole Test (VPWT). Measurements in the part and whole conditions were reliable, but, surprisingly, there was no evidence for reliable individual differences in the partwhole index (how well a person can take advantage of a face part presented within a whole face context compared to the part presented without a whole face) because part and whole conditions were strongly correlated. The same result was obtained in a version of the original part-whole task that was modified to increase its reliability. Controlling for object recognition ability, we found that variance in the whole condition does not predict any additional variance in face recognition over what is already predicted by performance in the part condition.

Early identity recognition of familiar faces is not dependent on holistic processing

“…Together, these studies suggest that holistic processing is not necessary to activate perceptual memories of the facial identity of familiar faces, which is consistent with behavioral work suggesting that holistic processing is not strongly correlated with face recognition abilities (Konar et al , 2009 ; Wang et al , 2012 ; DeGutis et al , 2013 ; Richler et al , 2015 , but see Rezlescu et al , 2017 ; Sunday et al , 2017 ).…”

Early identity recognition of familiar faces is not dependent on holistic processing

“…Together, these studies suggest that holistic processing is not necessary to activate perceptual memories of facial identity of familiar faces, which is consistent with behavioral work suggesting that holistic processing is not strongly correlated with face recognition abilities (Konar, Bennett, & Sekuler, 2009;Rezlescu, Susilo, Wilmer, & Caramazza, 2017;Richler, Floyd, & Gauthier, 2015;Sunday, Richler, & Gauthier, 2017, but see DeGutis, Wilmer, Mercado, & Cohan, 2013Wang, Li, Fang, Tian, & Liu, 2012).…”

Global precedence effects account for individual differences in both face and object recognition performance

“…Findings have, however, been rather inconsistent. Whether this is due to poor reliability of the measures used (DeGutis et al, 2013;Ross et al, 2015;Sunday et al, 2017;Wang et al, 2012), inefficient control of the variables that may have driven observed effects (Richler et al, 2015), uncertainty regarding whether the measures employed tap the same construct (Rezlescu et al, 2017;Wang et al, 2012), or a combination is unclear. Still, an individual difference approach to visual cognition seems to be a valuable and also necessary complement to studies examining dissociations (Wilmer, 2008) as it can reveal domain-general operations.…”

“…Unfortunately, the results from these studies have been rather inconsistent. Some studies have reported positive findings (DeGutis, Wilmer, Mercado, & Cohan, 2013;Richler, Cheung, & Gauthier, 2011;Wang, Li, Fang, Tian, & Liu, 2012), whereas others have not (Konar, Bennett, & Sekuler, 2010;Richler, Floyd, & Gauthier, 2015;Sunday, Richler, & Gauthier, 2017). Although some studies suggest that these measures of holistic processing tap the same process (DeGutis et al, 2013), other studies have failed to find a correlation between them (Rezlescu, Susilo, Wilmer, & Caramazza, 2017;Wang et al, 2012).…”