Work

A Mechanistic Explanation for the Inverted Face Effect

Year: 2026

Type: article

Abstract: The Inverted Face Effect has been the subject of a great deal of research and controversy in vision science. The nature of the effect, whether it involves holistic processing or not, where in the visual system it resides in the cortex, and whether it is a result of expertise and can apply to other phenomena, has been debated for decades. However, no mechanistic explanation for the effect has been put forward. Here we show that a model that includes multiple fixations on the face driven by a simple salience operator, a foveated retina, and the log-polar mapping from the visual field to V1 can explain this effect. We also simulate Yin’s 1969 recognition experiment and show good agreement with our model.

Source: eScholarship (California Digital Library)