Ventura, PauloLeite, IsabelFernandes, Tânia2024-03-212024-03-212018Ventura, P., Leite, I., & Fernandes, T. (2018). The development of holistic face processing: an evaluation with the complete design of the composite task. Acta Psychologica, 191, 32-41. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.actpsy.2018.08.0150001-6918http://hdl.handle.net/10451/63625The composite paradigm is widely used to quantify holistic processing (HP) of faces: participants perform a sequential same-different task on one half (e.g., top) of a test-face relative to the corresponding half of a study-face. There is, however, debate regarding the appropriate design in this task. In the partial design, the irrelevant halves (e.g., bottom) of test- and study-faces are always different; an alignment effect indexes HP. In the complete design, besides alignment, congruency between the irrelevant and critical halves of the test-face is manipulated regarding the same/different response status of the study-face. The HP indexed in the complete design does not confound congruency and alignment and has good construct and convergent validities. De Heering, Houthuys, & Rossion (2007) argued that HP is mature as early as 4-year-olds but employed the partial design. Here we revisit this claim, testing four groups of 4- to 9/10 year-old children and two groups of adults. We found evidence of HP only from 6-year-olds on when considering the complete design, whereas significant alignment effects were found in the index adopted in the partial design already in 4-year-olds but which we demonstrate that reflects other factors besides HP, including response bias associated with congruency.engFace processingHolistic processingComposite taskComplete designPartial designDevelopment of holistic processing of facesjournal article2024-02-05cv-prod-214815910.1016/j.actpsy.2018.08.0152-s2.0-85052895943