Inversion and configuration of faces
- PMID: 8354050
- DOI: 10.1006/cogp.1993.1007
Inversion and configuration of faces
Abstract
If the mouth and eyes of a face are inverted, the altered construction appears grotesque when upright, but not when upside-down. Three studies of this "Thatcher illusion" employed faces that were grotesque when upright because: (a) their eyes and mouths had been inverted ("Thatcherized" faces), (b) their eyes and mouths had been moved (spatially distorted faces), or (c) they had grotesque posed expressions. Inversion reduced the apparent grotesqueness of both Thatcherized and spatially distorted faces, but not grotesque-expression faces. Moreover, Thatcherized and distorted faces, although not grotesque-expression faces, were judged as more similar to normal, smiling faces when face-pairs were inverted than when they were upright. Similarity ratings to inverted face-pairs were correlated with latencies of response to these pairs in a task that encouraged attention to components (e.g., mouths, eyes) rather than wholistic properties. Similarity ratings to upright face-pairs showed no such correlation, and this and other findings suggested that although similarity ratings to upright faces are based on wholistic information, similarity ratings to inverted faces are based largely on components. The Thatcher illusion reflects a disruption of encoding of wholistic information when faces are inverted.
Similar articles
-
The effect of inversion on the encoding of normal and "thatcherized" faces.Q J Exp Psychol A. 2003 Aug;56(6):955-75. doi: 10.1080/02724980244000774. Q J Exp Psychol A. 2003. PMID: 12881166
-
The Thatcher illusion seen by the brain: an event-related brain potentials study.Brain Res Cogn Brain Res. 2005 Aug;24(3):544-55. doi: 10.1016/j.cogbrainres.2005.03.008. Epub 2005 Apr 26. Brain Res Cogn Brain Res. 2005. PMID: 16099365 Clinical Trial.
-
Inversion improves the recognition of facial expression in thatcherized images.Perception. 2014;43(8):715-30. doi: 10.1068/p7755. Perception. 2014. PMID: 25549504
-
[A review of face illusions].Brain Nerve. 2012 Jul;64(7):779-91. Brain Nerve. 2012. PMID: 22764350 Review. Japanese.
-
What's lost in inverted faces?Cognition. 1993 Apr;47(1):25-57. doi: 10.1016/0010-0277(93)90061-y. Cognition. 1993. PMID: 8482070 Review.
Cited by
-
Developmental emergence of holistic processing in word recognition.Dev Sci. 2023 Jul;26(4):e13372. doi: 10.1111/desc.13372. Epub 2023 Feb 10. Dev Sci. 2023. PMID: 36715650 Free PMC article.
-
Spotting lesions in thorax X-rays at a glance: holistic processing in radiology.Cogn Res Princ Implic. 2022 Nov 22;7(1):99. doi: 10.1186/s41235-022-00449-8. Cogn Res Princ Implic. 2022. PMID: 36417030 Free PMC article.
-
Intact face detection in young patients with major depressive disorder revealed by the face-specific N170 component.Sci Rep. 2022 Aug 18;12(1):14099. doi: 10.1038/s41598-022-18491-3. Sci Rep. 2022. PMID: 35982109 Free PMC article.
-
The effect of age on the early stage of face perception in depressed patients: An ERP study.Front Psychiatry. 2022 Jul 28;13:710614. doi: 10.3389/fpsyt.2022.710614. eCollection 2022. Front Psychiatry. 2022. PMID: 35966461 Free PMC article.
-
Oxytocin administration versus emotion training in healthy males: considerations for future research.Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci. 2022 Aug 29;377(1858):20210056. doi: 10.1098/rstb.2021.0056. Epub 2022 Jul 11. Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci. 2022. PMID: 35858104 Free PMC article.
MeSH terms
LinkOut - more resources
Full Text Sources
