Integrative processing of invariant face properties is consistent with three other lines of empirical observation. First, brain imaging studies have showed that judgments of face identity, gender, and race activate largely overlapping brain areas (e.g., the fusiform gyrus; Cloutier et al.,
2008; Freeman et al.,
2010; Golby et al.,
2001; Ng et al.,
2006; Rotshtein et al.,
2005). Second, people have difficulty in selectively processing one invariant face property without influence from processing of another (Baudouin & Tiberghien,
2002; Bruyer et al.,
2004,
2007; Ganel & Goshen-Gottstein,
2002; Goshen-Gottstein & Ganel,
2000; O'Toole, Peterson, & Deffenbacher,
1996; Rossion,
2002). As shown in the present study, identifying a face, even one's own face, is not immune from the influence of gender and race processing. Similarly, judgments about the gender of a face are affected by both identity analysis (Rossion,
2002) and race categorization (O'Toole et al.,
1996). Finally, event-related potential (ERP) studies have shown that invariant face attributes seem to be processed automatically (e.g., Ito & Urland,
2003,
2005; Kubota & Ito,
2007; Mouchetant-Rostaing & Giard,
2003; Mouchetant-Rostaing, Giard, Bentin, Aguera, & Pernier,
2000). For instance, variation of face gender during a race categorization task produced different ERPs from those observed when gender was fixed, and a similar difference was found when race was varied or held constant in a gender categorization task (Ito & Urland,
2003,
2005). This result suggests that both gender and race are automatically processed when participants attend to only one of these properties.