The early development of face processing——What makes faces special?

In the present article we review behavioral and neurophysiological studies on face processing in adults and in early development. From the existing empirical and theoretical literature we derive three aspects that distinguish face processing from the processing of other visual object categories. Each of these aspects is discussed from a developmental perspective. First, faces are recognized and represented at the individual level rather than at the basic level. Second, humans typically acquire extensive expertise in individuating faces from early on in development. And third, more than other objects, faces are processed holistically. There is a quantitative difference in the amount of visual experience for faces and other object categories in that the amount of expertise typically acquired for faces is greater than that for other object categories. In addition, we discuss possible qualitative differences in experience for faces and objects. For instance, there is evidence for a sensitive period in infancy for building up a holistic face representation and for perceptual narrowing for faces of one＇s own species and race. We conclude our literature review with questions for future research, for instance, regarding the exact relationship between behavioral and neuronal markers of face processing across development.

Interaction Between Conscious and Unconscious Information-Processing of Faces and Words

It is widely acknowledged that holistic processing is a key characteristic of face perception.Although holistic processing implies the automatic integration of face parts,it is unclear whether such processing requires the awareness of face parts.Here,we investigated the interactions between visible face parts and face parts rendered invisible using continuous flash suppression(CFS).In the first experiment with the upper half-face visible and the lower half-face invisible,the results showed that perceived face identity was influenced by the invisible lower half-face,suggesting that integration occurs between the visible and invisible face parts,a variant of the“composite face effect”.In the second experiment,we investigated the influence of visible face parts on the processing of invisible face parts,as measured by the time it took for the invisible parts to break out from CFS.The results showed a visible-to-invisible facilitation effect,that the aligned invisible face parts broke through CFS faster than when the visible and invisible face parts were misaligned.Visible eyes had a stronger influence on the invisible nose/mouth than the other way around.Such facilitation of processing from visible to invisible parts was also found when Chinese characters were used as stimuli.These results show that information integration occurs across the consciousness boundary.