A behavioral study comparing the effects of 2D and 3D on holistic and featural processing of faces

• Main Author: Eng, Derrick Zeng Hong
• Other Authors: Chen Shen-Hsing, Annabel
• Format: Final Year Project
• Language: English
• Published: 2015
• Subjects: DRNTU::Social sciences::Psychology
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10356/63427
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

Face recognition is crucial to our daily social interactions and it is widely regarded as a unique process marked by holistic processing, although featural processing has been widely reported for inverted faces. The current study examined how 3-dimensional (3D) imagery influences both holistic and featural processing of faces. Twenty-five participants completed a match-to-sample face recognition test consisting of upright and inverted faces that were presented in both 2-dimensional (2D) and 3D formats. Based on the premise that 3D provides greater detail to an image than does 2D, we expected that 3D would improve face recognition performance of both upright and inverted faces, reflecting an enhancement in holistic and featural processing respectively. It was found that 3D upright faces were recognised with significantly greater accuracy than 2D upright faces. This indicates an enhancement in the precision of face recognition mechanisms facilitated by the additional information provided by 3D. We also found no significant difference in accuracy or reaction times between 2D and 3D inverted faces. This suggests that the advantages of 3D do not manifest when the first-order information of faces is disrupted, where the positions of individual features do not match our cognitive face template. Taken together, these results provide evidence that 3D enhances holistic processing but not featural processing of faces. Thus, this study adds new knowledge to a research area that has yet to be explored comprehensively and serves as a platform for future studies examining the role of 3D in face recognition processes.