When faces are heads: View-dependent recognition of faces altered relationally or componentially

When faces are viewed from different angles the appearance of facial features undergoes dramatic changes. We investigated two types of 3D-head models in frontal and three-quarter views, varying either in componential information such as different eyes, mouths and noses, or in relational information. Variations of the latter can only be investigated using 3D-head versions. Experiment I revealed high costs of transfer in recognition performance when views change, that were similar for both componentially and relationally altered faces. In Experiment 2, whole-to-part superiority was investigated by presenting isolated parts of critical features in addition to the whole face. Recognition of the whole face was only superior when views were identical. The results support the hypothesis of picture-based and view-dependent processing. Thus, there seems to be no efficient view-independent representation, at least for relatively unfamiliar faces.