Face inversion effect

rdf:langString Face inversion effect

rdf:langString The face inversion effect is a phenomenon where identifying inverted (upside-down) faces compared to upright faces is much more difficult than doing the same for non-facial objects. A typical study examining the face inversion effect would have images of the inverted and upright object presented to participants and time how long it takes them to recognise that object as what it actually is (i.e. a picture of a face as a face). The face inversion effect occurs when, compared to other objects, it takes a disproportionately longer time to recognise faces when they are inverted as opposed to upright. Faces are normally processed in the special face-selective regions of the brain, such as the fusiform face area. However, processing inverted faces involves both face-selective regions and additional visual areas such as mid-level visual areas and high-level scene-sensitive and object-sensitive regions of the parahippocampal place area and lateral occipital cortex. There seems to be something different about inverted faces that requires them to also involve these mid-level and high-level scene and object processing mechanisms. The most supported explanation for why faces take longer to recognise when they are inverted is the configural information hypothesis. The configural information hypothesis states that faces are processed with the use of configural information to form a holistic (whole) representation of a face. Objects, however, are not processed in this configural way. Instead, they are processed featurally (in parts). Inverting a face disrupts configural processing, forcing it to instead be processed featurally like other objects. This causes a delay since it takes longer to form a representation of a face with only local information.