Regional-selectivity In Holistic Processing And Its Relationship With Face Recognition Ability

Humans are good at recognizing faces.They can judge the identity of faces quickly.They are experts in face recognition.However there are huge individual differences in face recognition abilities.Researchers think that the reason for the difference is holistic processing.The stronger people’s holistic processing ability,the better the ability to identify faces.However existing research results are inconsistent when directly investigating the relationship between holistic processing and face recognition ability.Holistic processing is regional-specific.Holistic processing in eye region is stronger than holistic processing in other regions.Does the region affect the relationship between holistic processing and face recognition ability? Using part-whole effect as the indicator of holistic processing,our research attempts to explore whether holistic processing is regional-specific and more importantly whether the relationship between holistic processing and face recognition ability is regional-specific.The article included two studies.Study one was used to explore whether holistic processing was regional-selective.Study two was used to explore whether the relationship between holistic processing and face recognition ability was regional-specific.Specifically,study one included two experiments.Experiment 1 used the standard part-whole paradigm to measure the part-whole effect in eye region,nose region and mouth region.Experiment 2 used a variant of the part-whole paradigm to measure the part-whole effect in eye region,nose region and mouth region when change region was instructed.The results showed that:(1)participants performed better in eye region than nose region and mouth region;(2)participants performed better when showing upright faces than inverted faces;(3)part-whole effect in eye region existed,part-whole effect in nose region did not exist,part-whole effect in mouth region did not exist;(4)attentional strategy did not affect part-whole effect.Study two included three experiments.Experiment 3 explored the relationship between part-whole effect and individual’s ability to perceive faces.That is,whether the part-whole effect in three regions significantly predicted performance of delay matching task.Experiment 4 explored whether the prediction of holistic processing on face recognition ability was affected by task requirements.That is,the part-whole effect in three regions significantly predicted performance of side-view face matching task.Experiment 5 explored the relationship between part-whole effect and the individual’s ability to remember faces.That is,whether the part-whole effect in three regions significantly predicted performance of old new task.The results showed that:(1)part-whole effect significantly predicted the performance of old new task;(2)the performance of featural processing significantly predicted the performance of delay match task;(3)part-whole effect in eye region significantly predicted the performance of old new task,part-whole effect in other regions could not predict the performance of old new task.In summary,our research found that:(1)holistic processing was regional-specific,holistic processing in eye region is stronger than other regions;(2)the relationship between holistic processing and face recognition ability was regional-specific,holistic processing in eye region predicted face recognition while holistic processing in other regions could not predict face recognition;(3)in different cognitive stages different components worked,in perception regions(features)processing helped to recognize faces,in memory holistic processing helped to recognize faces.Our research supports the “perceptual field” hypothesis and the “expertise area” hypothesis,the“region-selective hypothesis”,which helps to understand the relationship between holistic processing and face recognition ability.