Configural Processing Consortium

The Configural Processing Consortium (CPC) is an annual workshop bringing together specialists in configural/holistic perception and cognition, with an emphasis on perceptual organization. Although typically vision dominates, our interests are global and include all modalities as well as holistic and gestalt cognition and action. Each year, we seek to both define the major problems underlying the field of configural processing and to develop more unified ways of approaching these problems. We incorporate research and models from all areas of human perception (including, but not confined to, face perception). The CPC workshop is an official satellite of the Psychonomic Society and is held on the Wednesday before the​ Psychonomic Society meeting.

The idea for CPC was hatched in Toronto at the 2005 meeting of the Psychonomic Society. We've been meeting every year since with guidance from and efforts by a standing organizing committee and local hosts (see Past Meetings tab). The members of the organizing committee are: James Townsend, James Pomerantz, Mary Peterson, Ruth Kimchi, Ami Eidels, Leslie Blaha, and Joseph Houpt. Karen Schloss joined the organizing committee in 2016.  Cheng-Ta Yang and Mario Fifić joined the organizing committee in 2018. 

In 2008, CPC decided to name one person the President so it was clear where the buck stopped. The presidents and their terms are listed below. Ami Eidels served CPC well as its secretary for 11 years. Karen Schloss assumed the role of secretary from 2017 to 2022.  Mario Fifić has served in that position since 2022. In 2008, Joseph Houpt became the website manager.