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TY - JOUR AU - Purcell, Dean G. AU - Stewart, Alan L. PY - 1988 DA - 1988/07/01 TI - The face-detection effect: Configuration enhances detection JO - Perception & Psychophysics SP - 355 EP - 366 VL - 43 IS - 4 AB - We have found that a picture of a face is more easily detected than is a pattern of arbitrarily rearranged facial features. An upright face is also more detectable than an inverted face. Using two-alternative forced-choice visual masking paradigms, we have found that this face-detection effect (FDE) can be produced with line drawings and with photocopies of a picture of a face. Our results suggest that a face, as an organized, meaningful pattern, is a more potent stimulus than an arbitrary assemblage of the same visual features. It may be that the FDE is a visual configuration effect. Previous visual configuration effects have been documented only with recognition responses. The FDE, by contrast, documents a configuration effect that affects the detectability of a stimulus. SN - 1532-5962 UR - https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03208806 DO - 10.3758/BF03208806 ID - Purcell1988 ER -