Recent studies indicate that expertise with objects can interfere with face processing. Although competition occurs between faces and objects of expertise, it remains unclear whether this reflects an expertise-specific bottleneck or the fact that objects of expertise grab attention and thereby consume more central resources. We investigated the…

Faces and objects of expertise compete for early perceptual processes and holistic processing resources (Gauthier, Curran, Curby, & Collins, 2003). Here, we examined the nature of interference on holistic face processing in working memory by comparing how various types of loads affect selective attention to parts of face composites. In dual…

One hallmark of holistic face processing is an inability to selectively attend to 1 face part while ignoring information in another part. In 3 sequential matching experiments, the authors tested perceptual and decisional accounts of holistic processing by measuring congruency effects between cued and uncued composite face halves shown in spatially…

Researchers have used several composite face paradigms to assess holistic processing of faces. In the selective attention paradigm, participants decide whether one face part (e.g., top) is the same as a previously seen face part. Their judgment is affected by whether the irrelevant part of the test face is the same as or different than the…

On the basis of a review of the literature and the results of three experiments with dog experts, Robbins and McKone [Robbins, R. A., & McKone, E. (2006). No face-like processing for objects-of-expertise in three behavioural tasks, "Cognition"] argue that there is little or no evidence supporting an expertise account of the differences in…