Configural face processing develops more slowly than featural face processing

Area of Science:

• Cognitive Psychology
• Developmental Psychology
• Neuroscience

Background:

• Face processing expertise develops over many years.
• Different skills contribute to face processing, including featural, configural, and contour processing.
• Understanding the developmental trajectory of these skills is crucial.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the developmental contribution of featural, configural, and contour face processing skills.
• To determine which specific face processing skill develops most slowly in children.
• To compare developmental differences between adults and children (ages 6, 8, 10) in face perception.

Main Methods:

• Created sets of faces varying in featural (eyes/mouth shape), configural (spacing), and contour (external shape).
• Presented adult and child participants with pairs of upright and inverted faces.
• Participants judged whether face pairs were identical or different.

Main Results:

• Adults showed a larger inversion effect for configural (spacing) sets, confirming its role in configural processing.
• Children made more errors than adults on the configural processing task.
• Children performed similarly to adults on featural and contour processing tasks, with significant development by age 6 (contour) and 10 (featural).

Conclusions:

• Adult expertise in configural face processing develops significantly later than featural or contour processing.
• Configural processing, reliant on spatial relationships, is a key area for slow developmental gains in face perception.
• These findings highlight the protracted development of sophisticated face perception skills in humans.