An online replication of the association between face perception abilities and the amount of visual information required to identify a face

The role of holistic vs. featural information in face processing and the importance of replication are recurrent topics in the field. While some support the importance of holistic processing for individual differences in face identification, others reveal the central role of face parts. Royer and colleagues (2015) found a strong negative correlation between the amount of information required for identification and individual abilities. They conclude that the main mechanism underlying individual differences in face processing ability does not rely on the whole face. Since the original study involved a small, homogeneous sample (35 French Canadians), and considering that this result may seem surprising, an online replication was attempted using Pack&Go, an online platform enabling real-time modifications to stimuli. Online replication allowed for a more diverse sample in terms of socioeconomic level and country of origin. Participants (N=115) completed the same paradigm in which they had to match a target face (front-view or side-view) with one of two front-view faces partially revealed with randomly positioned small Gaussian apertures (Bubbles; Gosselin & Schyns, 2002). The number of bubbles was controlled using QUEST so that each participant achieved a target performance of 75%. Participants also completed a face matching task (GFMT2), which represented a measure of their processing abilities with whole faces. We observed two significant negative correlations between face processing ability and the last number of bubbles in each condition (rhoside = -0.52, pside < 0.001, rhofront = -0.48, pfront < 0.001), indicating that individuals with superior face processing skills require less facial information for accurate task performance. These correlations are of a similar magnitude to the one reported in the original article. These results not only provide further evidence for the pivotal role of part-based processing during face identification, challenging conventional theories, but also showcase the flexibility of online testing.