The effects of precedence on Navon-induced processing bias in face recognition

Abstract

Macrae and Lewis (2002) showed that repeated reporting of the global dimension of Navon stimuli improved performance in a subsequent face identification task, whilst reporting the features of the Navon stimuli impaired performance. Using a face composite task, which is assumed to require featural processing, Weston and Perfect (2005) showed the complementary pattern: Featural responding to Navon letters speeded performance. However, both studies used Navon stimuli with global precedence, in which the overall configuration is easier to report than the features. Here we replicate the two studies above, whilst manipulating the precedence (global or featural) of the letter stimuli in the orientation task. Both studies replicated the previously reported findings with global precedence stimuli, but showed the reverse pattern with local precedence stimuli. These data raise important questions as to what is transferred between the Navon orientation task and the face-processing tasks that follow.

Keywords:

• Face recognition
• Processing orientation
• Global processing
• Featural processing

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank Kinga Morsanyi and Andrew-Douglas Dunbar for their help with the data collection and the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) for funding the PhD studentship to the second author during which some of the data collection occurred.

Notes

¹ The full set of Navon materials used in this study is available from the first author.