Twofold advantages of face processing with or without visual awareness.

The advantages of face processing over processing items in other object categories have been found in conditions both with and without visual awareness. This study examined the possible mechanisms underlying the advantages of processing visible and invisible faces. Specifically, contributions from face-like configurations and face-specific local attributes were evaluated by comparing perceptual processes of three image types: genuine faces, face-like objects, and non-face-like objects. Illusory face perception induced from face-like objects largely depended on information from a global configuration level, with a high tolerance for variations in local features. Comparable processing advantages for real faces and face-like objects were observed in invisible conditions using interocular rivalry and crowding paradigms. However, the visible face advantage seemed to be exclusive to genuine faces. These results suggest that the face processing privilege is twofold: It is strongly triggered by global configuration without visual awareness, but with awareness, it relies on facial local attributes. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).