The Face Inversion Effect: Roles of First- and Second-Order Configural Information

Area of Science:

• Cognitive Psychology
• Neuroscience
• Visual Perception

Background:

• The face inversion effect (FIE) demonstrates impaired recognition of inverted faces.
• Previous theories suggested second-order relational information is crucial for FIE.
• Recent findings indicate FIE can occur even without configural information.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the role of configural information in producing the FIE.
• To determine the relative importance of first-order versus second-order relational information in FIE.

Main Methods:

• Utilized a novel "Thatcherizing" transformation to selectively disrupt second-order and local feature orientation information while preserving first-order properties.
• Conducted three experiments to assess the FIE under these modified conditions.
• Measured recognition performance for upright and inverted faces with altered configurations.

Main Results:

• A significant reduction in the FIE was observed for the "new" Thatcherized faces, indicating a diminished effect.
• However, the FIE did not completely vanish, suggesting other factors contribute.
• Experiment 3 confirmed that both local feature orientation and first-order relational information play a role in the FIE.

Conclusions:

• Configural information, particularly second-order relational information, is not solely responsible for the FIE.
• Local feature orientation and first-order relational information are important contributors to the face inversion effect.
• The FIE is a complex phenomenon influenced by multiple levels of facial information processing.