Konfigural

Konfigural is an adjective meaning related to configuration or to a configuration-based approach. The term appears in psychology and cognitive science to describe processing that emphasizes the relations among components within a whole rather than the components in isolation. In English usage, the form configural is more common; konfigural is a variant spelling found in some German-language and European sources.

Definition and usage: Konfigural or configural processing refers to encoding and perception that rely on the spatial or relational arrangement of features. For example, in face recognition, people rely on configural information such as the distance between the eyes, the position of the nose, and the mouth. Disrupting the configuration, for instance by inverting the face, can impair recognition performance—a pattern associated with the configural or inversion effect.

Applications and scope: Beyond faces, konfigural processing has been discussed in memory, object recognition, and perception where relationships among parts matter. It contrasts with featural processing, which focuses on individual elements independently.

Etymology and usage: The form konfigural reflects Germanic spelling conventions using k; in many English texts the variant configural is preferred, but konfigural appears in multilingual or cross-linguistic discussions of cognition.

See also: configural processing, holistic processing, face recognition, gestalt psychology.