Navon-induced processing biases fail to affect the recognition of whole faces and isolated facial features

ABSTRACT

According to the processing bias account, global Navon-induced processing primes the adoption of a holistic strategy whereas local Navon-induced processing triggers featural processing. As faces are recognised at a holistic level, global Navon-induced processing would increase recognition accuracy of whole faces. In contrast, local Navon-induced processing would enhance the recognition of individual facial features. In two experiments we explored this account using the part/whole task. Observers were asked to recognise facial features presented in isolation or embedded into whole faces, after global or local Navon-induced processing. In both experiments, results showed a whole-over-part advantage whereby facial features were recognised more accurately in the context of the whole face than in isolation. However, Navon-induced processing failed to modulate this effect as well as the magnitude of holistic-featural face processing. These results cast doubts on the reliability of Navon processing to prime the adoption of a particular processing style for face identification.

KEYWORDS:

• Navon stimuli
• face recognition
• holistic processing
• featural processing

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 The data that support the findings of this study are openly available in osf.io at http://doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/7QWGU

2 To confirm the lack of difference between global and local Navon-induced processing, we performed a follow-up test involving only the global and local Navon-induced processing conditions. The ANOVA revealed a main effect of face condition [F (1, 139) = 164.60, p < .001, η²p = .54], with a better recognition of facial features in the whole than in the part condition. However, neither the main effect of Navon-induced processing nor the interaction between both factors reached statistical significance [both Fs < 1].