Individual differences in holistic processing predict face recognition ability
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Updated: May 26, 2026

Holistic Facial Composite Creation and Subsequent Video Line-up Eyewitness Identification Paradigm
Published on: December 24, 2015
Ruosi Wang1, Jingguang Li, Huizhen Fang
1State Key Laboratory of Cognitive Neuroscience and Learning, Beijing Normal University, USA.
Abstract:
Why do some people recognize faces easily and others frequently make mistakes in recognizing faces? Classic behavioral work has shown that faces are processed in a distinctive holistic manner that is unlike the processing of objects. In the study reported here, we investigated whether individual differences in holistic face processing have a significant influence on face recognition. We found that the magnitude of face-specific recognition accuracy correlated with the extent to which participants processed faces holistically, as indexed by the composite-face effect and the whole-part effect. This association is due to face-specific processing in particular, not to a more general aspect of cognitive processing, such as general intelligence or global attention. This finding provides constraints on computational models of face recognition and may elucidate mechanisms underlying cognitive disorders, such as prosopagnosia and autism, that are associated with deficits in face recognition.
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