Left-Side Bias Is Observed in Sequential Matching Paradigm for Face Processing

The left-side bias refers to how a chimeric face is created from the left side of a face (from the viewer’s perspective) and its mirror image are considered more similar to the original face than a chimeric face created from the right side of the same face and its mirror image. Previous studies investigated the left-side bias by using the chimeric stimuli task, where the original face and chimeric face were presented simultaneously. However, it remains unclear whether left-side bias effect is observed when the original face and chimeric face are presented sequentially. We completed two experiments using the sequential matching paradigm to investigate this issue. The results from both Experiment 1 and 2 showed that participants judged the identical proportion of the left chimeric face and original face was significantly higher than that of the right chimeric face and original face, which implies that the left-side bias effect can be observed in the sequential matching paradigm for face processing.