In the field of face processing, the configural hypothesis is defended by many researchers. It is often claimed that this thesis is robustly supported by a large number of experiments exploring the face-inversion effect, the composite face effect, the face superiority effect, and the negative face effect. However, this claim is generally based on a rudimentary and approximate vote-counting approach. In this paper, I use meta-analyses to examine the relevant literature in more depth. The analysis supports the vote-counting argument.
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A rhombus indicates that the paper has been quoted in this article. The black dots indicate papers entered in the meta-analysis. A second black dots identifies papers with additional control experiment(s) on objects.
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