Features are also important: Contributions of featural and configural processing to face recognition

It has been suggested that face recognition is primarily based on configura l information, with featural information playing little or no role. We inve stigated this idea by comparing the prototype effect for face prototypes th at emphasized either featural or configural processing. In Experiment 1, pa rticipants showed a tendency to commit false alarms in response to nonstudi ed prototypes, and this tendency was equivalent for featural and configural prototypes. Experiment 2 replicated this finding, and provided support for the assumption that the two types of prototypes differed in terms of featu ral and configural processing: Face inversion eliminated the prototype effe ct for configural prototypes but not for featural prototypes. These results suggest that both featural and configural processing make important contri butions to face recognition, and that their effects are dissociable.