Processing of Internal and External Features in Face Perception

ISBN-13: 9783838106649 / Angielski / Miękka / 2009 / 140 str.

Bozana Meinhardt-Injac

Opis

Faces are extraordinarily rich sources of information, revealing a personsidentity, emotions, or intentions. Apart from biological and social relevance,empirical data suggest that processing mechanisms involved in face perceptionare different from those mediating other classes of objects. In three studiespresented here mechanisms involved in face perception were examinedby identifying processing paths activated by internal (eyes, eyebrows, nose,mouth) and external (hair, head and face outline, ears) facial features. Basedon the evidence gained in the studies it was possible to tap distinct processingpaths for internal and external features, and to draw conclusions abouttheir interaction in producing a facial percept. By identifying temporal intervalsfor global featural information on the one hand, and detailed featuraland configural information on the other, evidence for hypothetical processingstages, separated by temporal order, has been found. The results pointto the existence of distinct modes of face processing, and contribute to thecurrent debate about the role of featural and configural facial information,with weight laid on the time course of perception.