Work

Category specificity in holistic processing: Reciprocal face–word interference does not extend to body stimuli

Year: 2026

Type: article

Abstract: This study examined the category specificity of a previously reported reciprocal interference between holistic face and word processing by incorporating body stimuli as a control. Prior work has demonstrated that superimposed faces and words disrupt each other's holistic processing: faces are processed less holistically when paired with aligned words, and vice versa. Here, we asked whether a similar pattern of interference extends to body stimuli. In Experiment 1, we assessed whether face alignment would influence holistic body processing. We found no difference in holistic body processing between face-aligned and face-misaligned conditions, suggesting that faces do not interfere with holistic body processing. In Experiment 2, we examined whether word alignment affected body processing and again found no evidence of interference. Together, these findings indicate that body processing is unaffected by the alignment of overlaid words or faces, highlighting both the specificity and the limits of shared holistic processing mechanisms across high-level visual categories.

Source: Attention Perception & Psychophysics

DOI: 10.3758/s13414-026-03270-3

Authors: Paulo Ventura, Alexandre Pereira, Tina T. Liu