The effect of training with inverted faces on the selective use of horizontal structure

A growing body of evidence demonstrates that selective processing of structure conveyed by horizontally oriented spatial frequency components is associated with upright face discrimination accuracy and the magnitude of the face inversion effect. In this study, we examined whether the increase in discrimination accuracy for inverted faces that is known to result from practice would coincide with more selective processing of horizontal structure in inverted faces. To assess this hypothesis, our observers practiced discrimination of inverted faces for three training sessions and we measured accuracy, efficiency relative to an ideal observer, and horizontal selectivity before and after training. As hypothesized, we observed more efficient discrimination and more selective processing of horizontal structure after training. However, the effects of training did not generalize reliably to novel face exemplars.