WHAT IS SPECIAL ABOUT FACE PERCEPTION

There is growing evidence that face recognition is ''special'' but les s certainty concerning the way in which it is special. The authors rev iew and compare previous proposals and their own more recent hypothesi s, that faces are recognized ''holistically'' (i.e., using relatively less part decomposition than other types of objects). This hypothesis, which can account for a variety of data from experiments on face memo ry, was tested with 4 new experiments on face perception. A selective attention paradigm and a masking paradigm were used to compare the per ception of faces with the perception of inverted faces, words, and hou ses. Evidence was found of relatively less part-based shape representa tion for faces. The literatures on machine vision and single unit reco rding in monkey temporal cortex are also reviewed for converging evide nce on face representation. The neuropsychological literature is revie wed for evidence on the question of whether face representation differ s in degree or kind from the representation of other types of objects.