Fitousi Daniel
Department of Behavioral Sciences, Ariel University, Ariel, Israel,
Atten Percept Psychophys. 2015 Aug;77(6):2037-60. doi: 10.3758/s13414-015-0887-4.
Composite faces fuse the top half of one face with the bottom half of another. These stimuli inflict a strong illusion of a novel face on their viewers, and are often considered to be processed holistically. The current study challenges this holistic view. Here I present provocative evidence from various classic attention paradigms such as the Garner (1974) and the redundant target (Miller, Cognitive Psychology, 14, 247-279, 1982; Townsend & Nozawa, Journal of Mathematical Psychology, 39, 321-359, 1995) tasks showing that face parts are perceived and processed in an analytic rather than holistic fashion. In Experiment 1, composite faces failed to exhibit Garner interference, indicating perfect selective attention to the constituent parts. In Experiments 2 and 3, composite faces failed to exhibit super-capacity with same-identity composites, demonstrating limited or unlimited capacity. This pattern is consistent with analytic perception. Taken together, the results cast serious doubts on the validity of the holistic processing approach. In many respects, the study proposes disillusionment from the composite face illusion. In addition, the study highlights the importance of converging operations, model testability, and individual differences in the study of faces.
合成脸将一张脸的上半部分与另一张脸的下半部分融合在一起。这些刺激会给观看者造成一种强烈的新面孔错觉，并且通常被认为是整体加工的。当前的研究对这种整体观提出了挑战。在此，我展示了来自各种经典注意范式的引人深思的证据，比如加纳（1974年）范式以及冗余目标范式（米勒，《认知心理学》，第14卷，第247 - 279页，1982年；汤森德与野泽，《数学心理学杂志》，第39卷，第321 - 359页，1995年）任务，这些证据表明面部部分是以分析而非整体的方式被感知和加工的。在实验1中，合成脸未表现出加纳干扰，这表明对组成部分有完美的选择性注意。在实验2和实验3中，合成脸在相同身份合成脸的情况下未表现出超容量，显示出有限或无限容量。这种模式与分析性感知一致。综合来看，这些结果对整体加工方法的有效性提出了严重质疑。在许多方面，该研究对合成脸错觉提出了质疑。此外，该研究强调了在面部研究中聚合操作、模型可测试性以及个体差异的重要性。
