Abstract
The multiple-faces effect (Perception, 2000, 29(11): 1393–1394) was first investigated at the blind spot using familiar faces. We analysed the effect into four categories:: (1) disappearance/darkening/whitening of: eyes, nose, mouth, face, nasal face, temporal face, hair; (2) variation in size of theses face parts; (3) movement perception/change in facial expression of: eyes, mouth, face, eyebrow; (4) perception of different characteristics or of other faces: 3D, face upside down, the subjects own face, younger, older, see tooth, moustache/beard, hair changes, see profile, see other faces. Categories 1 and 2 include most of the initial impressions, but only reports falling into categories three and/or four show the multiple-faces effect. We present additional detailed results on this effect, analysing data from 15 subjects (each using both mother and father faces in all instances). Analysis across both subjects and categories 3&4 yielded 100% occurrence for mother and father faces. In sub-category 3, changes in facial expression were 80% and 47% for mother and father faces, respectively. Subjects reported seeing their own face in 33% (mother) vs 13% (father) of the cases. In sub-category 4, other faces were more frequently observed with the mother's face (40%) than the father's (27%) face. We discuss these results in terms of peripheral processing of form considering a possible tuning for faces that could result from the frequency of viewing the same face during early visual development.