TY - JOUR
T1 - Beyond Faces and Expertise
T2 - Facelike Holistic Processing of Nonface Objects in the Absence of Expertise
AU - Zhao, Mintao
AU - Bülthoff, Heinrich H.
AU - Bülthoff, Isabelle
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2015, © The Author(s) 2015.
PY - 2016/2/1
Y1 - 2016/2/1
N2 - Holistic processing—the tendency to perceive objects as indecomposable wholes—has long been viewed as a process specific to faces or objects of expertise. Although current theories differ in what causes holistic processing, they share a fundamental constraint for its generalization: Nonface objects cannot elicit facelike holistic processing in the absence of expertise. Contrary to this prevailing view, here we show that line patterns with salient Gestalt information (i.e., connectedness, closure, and continuity between parts) can be processed as holistically as faces without any training. Moreover, weakening the saliency of Gestalt information in these patterns reduced holistic processing of them, which indicates that Gestalt information plays a crucial role in holistic processing. Therefore, holistic processing can be achieved not only via a top-down route based on expertise, but also via a bottom-up route relying merely on object-based information. The finding that facelike holistic processing can extend beyond the domains of faces and objects of expertise poses a challenge to current dominant theories.
AB - Holistic processing—the tendency to perceive objects as indecomposable wholes—has long been viewed as a process specific to faces or objects of expertise. Although current theories differ in what causes holistic processing, they share a fundamental constraint for its generalization: Nonface objects cannot elicit facelike holistic processing in the absence of expertise. Contrary to this prevailing view, here we show that line patterns with salient Gestalt information (i.e., connectedness, closure, and continuity between parts) can be processed as holistically as faces without any training. Moreover, weakening the saliency of Gestalt information in these patterns reduced holistic processing of them, which indicates that Gestalt information plays a crucial role in holistic processing. Therefore, holistic processing can be achieved not only via a top-down route based on expertise, but also via a bottom-up route relying merely on object-based information. The finding that facelike holistic processing can extend beyond the domains of faces and objects of expertise poses a challenge to current dominant theories.
KW - Gestalt
KW - composite-face effect
KW - expertise
KW - face perception
KW - holistic processing
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84958040307&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1177/0956797615617779
DO - 10.1177/0956797615617779
M3 - Article
C2 - 26674129
AN - SCOPUS:84958040307
VL - 27
SP - 213
EP - 222
JO - Psychological Science
JF - Psychological Science
SN - 0956-7976
IS - 2
ER -