Measuring the Contributions of Perceptual and Attentional Processes in the Complete Composite Face Paradigm

Abstract

Theories of holistic face processing vary widely with respect to conceptualizations, paradigms, and stimuli. These divergences have left several theoretical questions unresolved. Namely, the role of attention in face perception is understudied. To rectify this gap in the literature, we combined the complete composite face task (allowing for predictions of multiple theoretical conceptualizations and connecting with a large body of research) with a secondary auditory discrimination task at encoding (to avoid a visual perceptual bottleneck). Participants studied upright, intact faces within a continuous recognition paradigm, which intermixes study and test trials at multiple retention intervals. Within subjects, participants studied faces under full or divided attention. Test faces varied with respect to alignment, congruence, and retention intervals. Overall, we observed the predicted beneficial outcomes of holistic processing (e.g., higher discriminability for Congruent, Aligned faces relative to Congruent, Misaligned faces) that persisted across retention intervals and attention. However, we did not observe the predicted detrimental outcomes of holistic processing (e.g., higher discriminability for Incongruent, Misaligned faces relative to Incongruent, Aligned faces). Because the continuous recognition paradigm exerts particularly strong demands on attention, we interpret these findings through the lens of resource dependency and domain specificity.

Keywords: composite face effect; divided attention; holistic processing; selective attention.

Figure 1

“Complete” design of study and test face combinations across congruent, incongruent, same and different trials. Faces shown are actual stimuli from the current study. All faces in this example are aligned.

Figure 2

Examples of aligned and misaligned test trial faces.

Figure 3

Example flow of stimuli within the continuous recognition paradigm. Test slides feature green font.

Figure 4

Hit rate from each attention condition, face type, and retention interval. Error bars represent mean standard error.

Figure 5

False alarm rates from each attention condition, face type, and retention interval. Error bars represent mean standard error.

Figure 6

Discriminability (d’) calculated from all old and new items (including entirely new trials unconnected to any retention interval) in the task collapsed across retention interval. Error bars represent mean standard error. The congruency x alignment interaction provides evidence of holistic processing without the task.