Inversion is especially detrimental to the processing of faces. This is clearly demonstrated by the Thatcher illusion. It has been suggested that this detriment is due to a loss of holistic or configural processing for inverted faces (Bartlett and Searcy, 1993 Cognitive Psychology 25 281–316). Stürzel and Spillmann (2000 Perception 29 937–942) suggest that this loss of configural processing occurs suddenly as a face is rotated slowly from upright to inverted. This hypothesis is tested in a study of the reaction times taken to indicate that a face has been Thatcherised at various angles of orientation. The results suggest that there is a gradual loss of configural information rather than a rapid switch from one type of processing to another.
