The development of configural and featural face processing and its relation to the own-race bias in typical development and autism

Age-related improvements in the sensitivity to configural information in faces (i.e., the spatial relations between features) could either reflect changes in general information-processing capabilities or a developing experientially-driven expertise for faces. If the former hypothesis is correct, sensitivity to configural information should improve with age to the same degree for both faces and appropriately matched control stimuli. In contrast, the latter hypothesis predicts that configural processing should only improve for well-experienced faces. The current study addresses this debate by measuring the development of configural processing in both same race and less familiar, other race faces. A comparison of age-related changes on both same and other race faces can determine whether experience is a tenable mechanism for developmental improvements in configural face processing skill, and also affords a perspective on the processing strategies that may contribute to age-related changes in the Own-Race Bias (ORB; i.e., a memory advantage for same versus other race faces). Seventy-two 7-year-olds, 10-year-olds, and adults were assessed on both an ORB task and a Configural/Featural face-processing task. An exploratory sample of 15 children and adults with High-Functioning Autism (HFA) were also tested. Results demonstrate that the ORB exists in 7-year-olds and increases into adulthood, but disappears when faces are inverted. On the Configural/Featural task, a three-way interaction emerged between age, orientation and dimension, supporting the claim that age-related improvements are limited to the configural processing of upright faces. Performance did not differ between same and other race faces, suggesting that differential levels of facial experience over the course of middle and late childhood may not significantly contribute to the development of configural face processing. Implications of these findings, as well as a preliminary examination of how these processes may operate in HFA, are discussed.