It is widely acknowledged that holistic processing is a key characteristic of face perception. Although holistic processing implies the automatic integration of face parts, it is unclear whether such processing requires the awareness of face parts. Here, we investigated the interactions between visible face parts and face parts rendered invisible using continuous flash suppression (CFS). In the first experiment with the upper half-face visible and the lower half-face invisible, the results showed that perceived face identity was influenced by the invisible lower half-face, suggesting that integration occurs between the visible and invisible face parts, a variant of the “composite face effect”. In the second experiment, we investigated the influence of visible face parts on the processing of invisible face parts, as measured by the time it took for the invisible parts to break out from CFS. The results showed a visible-to-invisible facilitation effect, that the aligned invisible face parts broke through CFS faster than when the visible and invisible face parts were misaligned. Visible eyes had a stronger influence on the invisible nose/mouth than the other way around. Such facilitation of processing from visible to invisible parts was also found when Chinese characters were used as stimuli. These results show that information integration occurs across the consciousness boundary.

众所周知，整体处理是人脸感知的一个关键特征。虽然整体处理意味着面部部件的自动整合，但尚不清楚这种处理是否需要面部部件的感知。在这里，我们研究了可见面部部件和使用连续闪光抑制 (CFS) 渲染不可见的面部部件之间的相互作用。在上半脸可见和下半脸不可见的第一个实验中，结果表明感知的面部身份受到不可见的下半脸的影响，这表明可见和不可见的面部部分之间发生了整合，一种变体“复合面效应”。在第二个实验中，我们研究了可见面部件对不可见面部件加工的影响，以看不见的部分从 CFS 中分离出来的时间来衡量。结果显示了可见到不可见的促进效应，对齐的不可见面部部分比可见和不可见面部部分未对齐时更快地突破 CFS。可见的眼睛对不可见的鼻子/嘴巴的影响比其他方式更大。当使用汉字作为刺激时，也发现了这种从可见部分到不可见部分的处理的促进作用。这些结果表明，信息整合发生在意识边界上。可见的眼睛对不可见的鼻子/嘴巴的影响比其他方式更大。当使用汉字作为刺激时，也发现了这种从可见部分到不可见部分的处理的促进作用。这些结果表明，信息整合发生在意识边界上。可见的眼睛对不可见的鼻子/嘴巴的影响比其他方式更大。当使用汉字作为刺激时，也发现了这种从可见部分到不可见部分的处理的促进作用。这些结果表明，信息整合发生在意识边界上。