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Measuring Sensitivity to Viewpoint Change with and without Stereoscopic Cues
Published on: December 4, 2013
Picture-plane inversion leads to qualitative changes of face perception
1Unite Cognition et Développement and Laboratoire de Neurophysiologie, University of Louvain, Place du Cardinal Mercier, Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium. bruno.rossion@uclouvain.be
Acta Psychologica
|April 9, 2008
Summary
Face inversion disproportionately impairs perception of facial configuration over local features. This study argues methodological factors, not parameter irrelevance, explain differing results, supporting qualitative face inversion accounts.
Area of Science:
- Cognitive Psychology
- Neuroscience
- Visual Perception
Background:
- Face inversion typically causes greater deficits in perceiving metric distances between facial features (configural information) than local feature properties.
- This supports a qualitative account where face inversion differentially affects processing of distinct information types.
- Recent studies challenge this by reporting equal inversion costs for featural and configural discrimination, questioning the qualitative view.
Purpose of the Study:
- To argue that recent studies reporting equal inversion costs for featural and configural face perception did not replicate previous findings due to methodological factors.
- To contend that response classification identifying similar diagnostic features (eyes, eyebrows) at upright and inverted orientations does not invalidate the qualitative view of face inversion.
- To propose that the larger inversion effect on configural processing stems from the disruption of holistic face perception.
Main Methods:
- Review and critique of methodological factors in recent studies on face inversion costs.
- Analysis of behavioral and neuropsychological evidence related to face perception.
- Theoretical argument integrating findings to support a qualitative account of face inversion.
Main Results:
- Methodological variations, not parameter irrelevance, explain discrepancies in reported inversion costs.
- Identifying diagnostic features does not negate the qualitative differences in face inversion effects.
- Configural processing, relying on spatially distributed features, is more susceptible to disruption by holistic perception impairment.
Conclusions:
- The generally larger effect of face inversion on configural cues is a consequence of disrupted holistic face perception.
- Qualitative differences in face inversion effects persist and are supported by converging evidence.
- Understanding face inversion requires considering the interplay between holistic processing and the perception of featural and configural information.
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