Configural Face Processing: A Meta-Analytic Survey

Abstract

In the field of face processing, the configural hypothesis is defended by many researchers. It is often claimed that this thesis is robustly supported by a large number of experiments exploring the face-inversion effect, the composite face effect, the face superiority effect, and the negative face effect. However, this claim is generally based on a rudimentary and approximate vote-counting approach. In this paper, I use meta-analyses to examine the relevant literature in more depth. The analysis supports the vote-counting argument.