Related Experiment Video
Updated: Jun 19, 2026

Measuring Attention and Visual Processing Speed by Model-based Analysis of Temporal-order Judgments
Published on: January 23, 2017
A spatial frequency account of the detriment that local processing of Navon letters has on face recognition
Peter J Hills1, Michael B Lewis
1Department of Psychology, Anglia Ruskin University, Cambridge, England. peter.hills@anglia.ac.uk
Abstract:
Five minutes of processing the local features of a Navon letter causes a detriment in subsequent face-recognition performance (Macrae & Lewis, 2002). We hypothesize a perceptual after effect explanation of this effect in which face recognition is less accurate after adapting to high-spatial frequencies at high contrasts. Five experiments were conducted in which face-recognition performance was compared after processing high-contrast Navon stimuli. The standard recognition deficit was observed for processing the local features of Navon stimuli, but not if the stimuli were blurred (Experiment 1) or if they were of lower contrast (Experiment 2). A face-recognition deficit was observed after processing small, high-contrast letters equivalent to local processing of Navon letters (Experiment 3). Experiments 4 and 5 demonstrated that recognition of bandpass-filtered faces interacted with the type of Navon processing, in which the recognition of low-pass filtered faces was better following local rather than global processing. These results suggest that the Navon effect on subsequent face recognition is a perceptual phenomenon.
Related Concept Videos
Association Areas of the Cortex
Prefrontal Association Area: This area is located in the frontal lobe and is involved in planning, decision-making, and moderating social behavior. It connects with primary motor areas,...
Prosopagnosia
Parallel Processing
Depth Perception and Spatial Vision
