CAN HOLISTIC PROCESSING GUIDE ANALYTIC PR OCESSING FOR FACE CATEGORIZATION

This paper presents a <<pluralistic>> approach to cognitive functionin g and reports an experiment designed to test it. This approach is call ed <<pluralistic>> because it assumes that, in most of situations, sub jects have at their disposal several processes likely to fill the same function, and that simultaneous or successive activation of these dif ferent processes in the course of problem solving may boost a self-org anizing dynamic. A face categorization task, which can be solved eithe r by an holistic processing mode or by an analytic processing mode, is used to test these assumptions. The specific hypothesis which is test ed is that holistic processing may play a guiding role for subsequent analytic processing. More precisely, it is expected that subjects havi ng used an holistic mode of processing in the category learning phase of the experiment, will discover more rapidly the rule in a subsequent phase of concept discovery. The results do not confirm this hypothesi s. Our interpretation suggests that this kind of experiment has to be conducted again, with other stimuli than faces (for which the holistic mode of processing seems special) and with some modifications in the concept discovery phase.