The Lady's not for turning: Rotation of the Thatcher illusion

Inversion is especially detrimental to the processing of Faces. This is cle arly demonstrated by the Thatcher illusion. It has been suggested that this detriment is due to a loss of holistic or configural processing for invert ed faces (Bartlett and Searcy, 1993 Cognitive Psychology 25 281 - 316). Stu rzel and Spillmann (2000 Perception 29 937-942) suggest that this loss of c onfigural processing occurs suddenly as a face is rotated slowly from uprig ht to inverted. This hypothesis is tested in a study of the reaction times taken to indicate that a face has been Thatcherised at various angles of or ientation. The results suggest that there is a gradual loss of configural i nformation rather than a rapid switch From one type of processing to anothe r.