Effects of configural information on the detection of parts of the face

Abstract

We investigated the effect of facial context on the detection of parts of the face to examine whether configural information was used in the early stage of face processing. Participants were presented with several types of stimuli: an intact face; a face in which one or more parts were masked; and only part of a face. They were asked to judge as quickly as possible whether the eyes (or the nose, or the mouth) were contained in the presented stimulus. Experiment 1 showed that the parts of a face were more quickly detected when they were presented in the context of faces than when they were presented alone. This facilitating effect of facial context was consistently and robustly observed for detection of the eyes in the subsequent experiments, but not for detection of the mouth. In Experiments 2, 3 and 4, the facilitating effect was independent of the distinctiveness, familiarity, and orientation of the faces. Experiment 5 showed that the context of houses did not facilitate the detection of windows, suggesting that configural information was used in the early stage of face processing, but not in the detection of other basic-level objects.