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Updated: Aug 9, 2026

Magnetically Induced Rotating Rayleigh-Taylor Instability
Published on: March 3, 2017
The lady's not for turning: rotation of the Thatcher illusion
1School of Psychology, Cardiff University, PO Box 901, Cardiff CF10 3YG, UK. LewisMB@Cardiff.ac.uk
Abstract:
Inversion is especially detrimental to the processing of faces. This is clearly demonstrated by the Thatcher illusion. It has been suggested that this detriment is due to a loss of holistic or configural processing for inverted faces (Bartlett and Searcy, 1993 Cognitive Psychology 25 281-316). Stürzel and Spillmann (2000 Perception 29 937-942) suggest that this loss of configural processing occurs suddenly as a face is rotated slowly from upright to inverted. This hypothesis is tested in a study of the reaction times taken to indicate that a face has been Thatcherised at various angles of orientation. The results suggest that there is a gradual loss of configural information rather than a rapid switch from one type of processing to another.
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