High familiar faces have both eyes recognition and holistic processing advantages

However, it remains elusive whether this familiarity advantage is supported by part-based and/or holistic processing. Wang and colleagues (2015, 2019) found both enhanced part-based and holistic processing in eye relative to mouth regions (i.e., in a region-selective manner) for own-race and own-species faces, i.e., faces with more experience.

In this study, we examined the roles of eyes (part-based, region-selective) and holistic processing in the face familiarity effect. Face familiarity was tested at three levels: high-familiar (faces of students from the same department and the same grade who almost always attended all courses together), low-familiar (faces of students from the same department but different grades who attended some courses together), and unfamiliar (faces of schoolmates from different departments who seldom attended the same courses).