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Capacity limits for face processing

Bindemann, Markus, Burton, A. Mike, Jenkins, Rob (2005) Capacity limits for face processing. Cognition, 98 . pp. 177-197. (The full text of this publication is not currently available from this repository. You may be able to access a copy if URLs are provided) (KAR id:26195)

The full text of this publication is not currently available from this repository. You may be able to access a copy if URLs are provided.

Abstract

We present three experiments in which subjects were asked to make speeded sex judgements (Experiment 1) or semantic judgements (Experiments 2 and 3) to face targets and nonface items, while ignoring a solitary flanking distractor face or a nonface stimulus. Distractors could be either congruent (same response category) or incongruent (different response category) with the target. Distractor congruency effects were consistently observed in all combinations of target–distractor stimulus pairs, except when a distractor face flanked a target face. The failure to find congruency effects in this condition was explored further in a fourth experiment, in which four task-irrelevant flankers were simultaneously presented. Once again, no face–face congruency effects were found, even though comparison distractors interfered with face and nonface targets alike. However, four simultaneously presented distractor faces did not interfere with nonface targets either. We suggest that these experiments demonstrate a capacity limit for visual processing in these conditions, such that no more than one face is processed at a time.

Item Type: Article
Subjects: B Philosophy. Psychology. Religion > BF Psychology
Divisions: Divisions > Division of Human and Social Sciences > School of Psychology
Depositing User: Markus Bindemann
Date Deposited: 05 Jan 2011 17:18 UTC
Last Modified: 16 Nov 2021 10:04 UTC
Resource URI: https://kar.kent.ac.uk/id/eprint/26195 (The current URI for this page, for reference purposes)

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