When less is more: Impact of face processing ability on recognition of visually degraded faces

It is generally thought that faces are perceived as indissociable wholes. As a result, many assume that hiding large portions of the face by the addition of noise or by masking limits or qualitatively alters natural "expert" face processing by forcing observers to use atypical processing mechanisms. We addressed this question by measuring face processing abilities with whole faces and with Bubbles (Gosselin & Schyns, 2001), an extreme masking method thought by some to bias the observers toward the use of atypical processing mechanisms by limiting the use of whole-face strategies. We obtained a strong and negative correlation between individual face processing ability and the number of bubbles (r = -.79), and this correlation remained strong even after controlling for general visual/cognitive processing ability (rpartial = -.72). In other words, the better someone is at processing faces, the fewer facial parts they need to accurately carry out this task. Thus, contrary to what many researchers assume, face processing mechanisms appear to be quite insensitive to the visual impoverishment of the face stimulus.