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Development of Face Processing: The Effect of Face Inversion
Author(s) -
Schwarzer Gudrun
Publication year - 2000
Publication title -
child development
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 3.103
H-Index - 257
eISSN - 1467-8624
pISSN - 0009-3920
DOI - 10.1111/1467-8624.00152
Subject(s) - categorization , psychology , inversion (geology) , face (sociological concept) , face perception , cognitive psychology , visual processing , developmental psychology , similarity (geometry) , visual perception , artificial intelligence , perception , computer science , neuroscience , image (mathematics) , paleontology , social science , structural basin , sociology , biology
The present experiment examined the degree to which analytic and holistic modes of processing play a role in the way children and adults categorize upright and inverted faces. Seven‐year‐old children ( n = 38), 10‐year‐old children ( n = 40), and adults ( n = 55) were instructed to classify upright and inverted faces into two categories. The construction of the categories allowed participants to categorize the faces either analytically (by focusing on a single attribute) or holistically (in terms of overall similarity). The results show both a developmental trend from analytic to holistic processing and an effect of face inversion with increasing age. Thus, it appears that 7‐year‐old children process upright and inverted faces in a way comparable to their processing of nonfacial visual stimuli, namely analytically, whereas a growing proportion of 10‐year‐olds and adults process only upright faces holistically by adopting a specific mode of face processing.