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Importance of the Inverted Control in Measuring Holistic Face Processing with the Composite Effect and Part-Whole Effect

Holistic coding for faces is shown in several illusions that demonstrate integration of the percept across the entire face. The illusions occur upright but, crucially, not inverted. Converting the illusions into experimental tasks that measure their strength – and thus index degree of holistic codin...

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Autores principales: McKone, Elinor, Davies, Anne Aimola, Darke, Hayley, Crookes, Kate, Wickramariyaratne, Tushara, Zappia, Stephanie, Fiorentini, Chiara, Favelle, Simone, Broughton, Mary, Fernando, Dinusha
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Frontiers Media S.A. 2013
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3562992/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23382725
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2013.00033
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author McKone, Elinor
Davies, Anne Aimola
Darke, Hayley
Crookes, Kate
Wickramariyaratne, Tushara
Zappia, Stephanie
Fiorentini, Chiara
Favelle, Simone
Broughton, Mary
Fernando, Dinusha
author_facet McKone, Elinor
Davies, Anne Aimola
Darke, Hayley
Crookes, Kate
Wickramariyaratne, Tushara
Zappia, Stephanie
Fiorentini, Chiara
Favelle, Simone
Broughton, Mary
Fernando, Dinusha
author_sort McKone, Elinor
collection PubMed
description Holistic coding for faces is shown in several illusions that demonstrate integration of the percept across the entire face. The illusions occur upright but, crucially, not inverted. Converting the illusions into experimental tasks that measure their strength – and thus index degree of holistic coding – is often considered straightforward yet in fact relies on a hidden assumption, namely that there is no contribution to the experimental measure from secondary cognitive factors. For the composite effect, a relevant secondary factor is size of the “spotlight” of visuospatial attention. The composite task assumes this spotlight can be easily restricted to the target half (e.g., top-half) of the compound face stimulus. Yet, if this assumption were not true then a large spotlight, in the absence of holistic perception, could produce a false composite effect, present even for inverted faces and contributing partially to the score for upright faces. We review evidence that various factors can influence spotlight size: race/culture (Asians often prefer a more global distribution of attention than Caucasians); sex (females can be more global); appearance of the join or gap between face halves; and location of the eyes, which typically attract attention. Results from five experiments then show inverted faces can sometimes produce large false composite effects, and imply that whether this happens or not depends on complex interactions between causal factors. We also report, for both identity and expression, that only top-half face targets (containing eyes) produce valid composite measures. A sixth experiment demonstrates an example of a false inverted part-whole effect, where encoding-specificity is the secondary cognitive factor. We conclude the inverted face control should be tested in all composite and part-whole studies, and an effect for upright faces should be interpreted as a pure measure of holistic processing only when the experimental design produces no effect inverted.
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spelling pubmed-35629922013-02-04 Importance of the Inverted Control in Measuring Holistic Face Processing with the Composite Effect and Part-Whole Effect McKone, Elinor Davies, Anne Aimola Darke, Hayley Crookes, Kate Wickramariyaratne, Tushara Zappia, Stephanie Fiorentini, Chiara Favelle, Simone Broughton, Mary Fernando, Dinusha Front Psychol Psychology Holistic coding for faces is shown in several illusions that demonstrate integration of the percept across the entire face. The illusions occur upright but, crucially, not inverted. Converting the illusions into experimental tasks that measure their strength – and thus index degree of holistic coding – is often considered straightforward yet in fact relies on a hidden assumption, namely that there is no contribution to the experimental measure from secondary cognitive factors. For the composite effect, a relevant secondary factor is size of the “spotlight” of visuospatial attention. The composite task assumes this spotlight can be easily restricted to the target half (e.g., top-half) of the compound face stimulus. Yet, if this assumption were not true then a large spotlight, in the absence of holistic perception, could produce a false composite effect, present even for inverted faces and contributing partially to the score for upright faces. We review evidence that various factors can influence spotlight size: race/culture (Asians often prefer a more global distribution of attention than Caucasians); sex (females can be more global); appearance of the join or gap between face halves; and location of the eyes, which typically attract attention. Results from five experiments then show inverted faces can sometimes produce large false composite effects, and imply that whether this happens or not depends on complex interactions between causal factors. We also report, for both identity and expression, that only top-half face targets (containing eyes) produce valid composite measures. A sixth experiment demonstrates an example of a false inverted part-whole effect, where encoding-specificity is the secondary cognitive factor. We conclude the inverted face control should be tested in all composite and part-whole studies, and an effect for upright faces should be interpreted as a pure measure of holistic processing only when the experimental design produces no effect inverted. Frontiers Media S.A. 2013-02-04 /pmc/articles/PMC3562992/ /pubmed/23382725 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2013.00033 Text en Copyright © 2013 McKone, Davies, Darke, Crookes, Wickramariyaratne, Zappia, Fiorentini, Favelle, Broughton and Fernando. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in other forums, provided the original authors and source are credited and subject to any copyright notices concerning any third-party graphics etc.
spellingShingle Psychology
McKone, Elinor
Davies, Anne Aimola
Darke, Hayley
Crookes, Kate
Wickramariyaratne, Tushara
Zappia, Stephanie
Fiorentini, Chiara
Favelle, Simone
Broughton, Mary
Fernando, Dinusha
Importance of the Inverted Control in Measuring Holistic Face Processing with the Composite Effect and Part-Whole Effect
title Importance of the Inverted Control in Measuring Holistic Face Processing with the Composite Effect and Part-Whole Effect
title_full Importance of the Inverted Control in Measuring Holistic Face Processing with the Composite Effect and Part-Whole Effect
title_fullStr Importance of the Inverted Control in Measuring Holistic Face Processing with the Composite Effect and Part-Whole Effect
title_full_unstemmed Importance of the Inverted Control in Measuring Holistic Face Processing with the Composite Effect and Part-Whole Effect
title_short Importance of the Inverted Control in Measuring Holistic Face Processing with the Composite Effect and Part-Whole Effect
title_sort importance of the inverted control in measuring holistic face processing with the composite effect and part-whole effect
topic Psychology
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3562992/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23382725
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2013.00033
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