Back to Search
Start Over
The role of configurality in the Thatcher illusion: an ERP study
- Source :
- Psychonomic Bulletin & Review
- Publication Year :
- 2015
-
Abstract
- The Thatcher illusion (Thompson in Perception, 9, 483–484, 1980) is often explained as resulting from recognising a distortion of configural information when ‘Thatcherised’ faces are upright but not when inverted. However, recent behavioural studies suggest that there is an absence of perceptual configurality in upright Thatcherised faces (Donnelly et al. in Attention, Perception & Psychophysics, 74, 1475–1487, 2012) and both perceptual and decisional sources of configurality in behavioural tasks with Thatcherised stimuli (Mestry, Menneer et al. in Frontiers in Psychology, 3, 456, 2012). To examine sources linked to the behavioural experience of the illusion, we studied inversion and Thatcherisation of faces (comparing across conditions in which no features, the eyes, the mouth, or both features were Thatcherised) on a set of event-related potential (ERP) components. Effects of inversion were found at the N170, P2 and P3b. Effects of eye condition were restricted to the N170 generated in the right hemisphere. Critically, an interaction of orientation and eye Thatcherisation was found for the P3b amplitude. Results from an individual with acquired prosopagnosia who can discriminate Thatcherised from typical faces but cannot categorise them or perceive the illusion (Mestry, Donnelly et al. in Neuropsychologia, 50, 3410-3418, 2012) only differed from typical participants at the P3b component. Findings suggest the P3b links most directly to the experience of the illusion. Overall, the study showed evidence consistent with both perceptual and decisional sources and the need to consider both in relation to configurality. Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (doi:10.3758/s13423-014-0705-3) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.
- Subjects :
- Male
media_common.quotation_subject
Illusion
Experimental and Cognitive Psychology
Thatcher illusion
Configural processing
Young Adult
Discrimination, Psychological
Arts and Humanities (miscellaneous)
Orientation
Perception
Neuropsychologia
P3b
Face processing
Psychophysics
Developmental and Educational Psychology
Humans
Attention
Perceptual Distortion
Dominance, Cerebral
Set (psychology)
media_common
Cerebral Cortex
Optical Illusions
Optical illusion
Brief Report
Electroencephalography
Prosopagnosia
Pattern Recognition, Visual
Evoked Potentials, Visual
Female
Psychology
Facial Recognition
ERP
Cognitive psychology
Subjects
Details
- Language :
- English
- ISSN :
- 10699384
- Database :
- OpenAIRE
- Journal :
- Psychonomic Bulletin & Review
- Accession number :
- edsair.doi.dedup.....5647c499b8b30e8ad3eb54d9c3fccd38