Search

Two experiments explored the search for pairs of faces in a disjunctive dual-target face search (DDTFS) task for unfamiliar face targets. The distinctiveness of the target was manipulated such that both faces were typical or distinctive or contained one typical and one distinctive target. Targets were searched for in arrays of eight faces. In Experiment 1, participants completed a DDTFS block with targets learnt over the block of trials. In Experiment 2, the dual-target block was preceded by two training blocks of single-target trials. Participants also completed the upright and inverted long-form Cambridge Face Memory Test (CFMT+). The results showed that searching for two typical faces leads to one target being prioritised at the expense of the other. The ability to search for non-prioritised typical faces was associated with scores on the CFMT+. This association disappeared when faces were learnt before completing DDTFS. We interpret the findings in terms of the impact of typicality on face learning, individual differences in the ability to learn faces, and the involvement of capacity-limited working memory in the search for unfamiliar faces. The findings have implications for security-related situations where agents must search for multiple unfamiliar faces having been shown their images. Public Significance Statement: Security officers (e.g. police officers) are often required to be on the lookout for specific individuals or suspects. The present study shows that there is a profound challenge in finding unfamiliar targets when searching for more than one face at the same time. Importantly, the nature of this challenge depends on two factors: first, the relative typicality of the faces that are being sought at the same time, and second, the face processing ability of the searchers. The findings have implications for the design of the job roles and the recruitment of security officers tasked with searching for specific individuals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract Two experiments explored the search for pairs of faces in a disjunctive dual-target face search (DDTFS) task for unfamiliar face targets. The distinctiveness of the target was manipulated such that both faces were typical or distinctive or contained one typical and one distinctive target. Targets were searched for in arrays of eight faces. In Experiment 1, participants completed a DDTFS block with targets learnt over the block of trials. In Experiment 2, the dual-target block was preceded by two training blocks of single-target trials. Participants also completed the upright and inverted long-form Cambridge Face Memory Test (CFMT+). The results showed that searching for two typical faces leads to one target being prioritised at the expense of the other. The ability to search for non-prioritised typical faces was associated with scores on the CFMT+. This association disappeared when faces were learnt before completing DDTFS. We interpret the findings in terms of the impact of typicality on face learning, individual differences in the ability to learn faces, and the involvement of capacity-limited working memory in the search for unfamiliar faces. The findings have implications for security-related situations where agents must search for multiple unfamiliar faces having been shown their images.

Dysmorphic concerns are a core symptom of body dysmorphic disorder (BDD), a mental disorder characterized by a preoccupation with perceived appearance-related flaws. Different cognitive and perceptual biases are associated with dysmorphic concern or BDD, including object-related short-term memory deficits and superior short-term memory performance for facial features. A face-related long-term memory bias might explain the feature of perceiving flaws and why individuals with BDD experience adverse outcomes of cosmetic surgery. The present study aimed at investigating long-term memory (LTM) performance for different facial stimuli. 62 participants completed an online experiment (30 with low and 32 with high dysmorphic concern; 39 without and 23 with self-reported BDD). The experiment consisted of two consecutive old/new recognition tasks, testing memory performance of whole faces and facial features. LTM performance was higher for whole faces than for facial features across groups. Neither significant differences between the low and high dysmorphic concern groups nor an interaction of group x stimulus type were found. Post hoc exploratory analyses revealed lower long-term memory performance in individuals with versus without self-reported BDD. The results indicate that memory performance might be only affected in BDD rather than non-clinical or non–BDD-specific dysmorphic concerns. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• The present study examined the behavioral and neural correlates of unfamiliar face memory deficits in individuals with MCI. • Individuals with MCI showed lower accuracy and reduced ERP responses in both early-stage and later-stage face processing. • Our results provide neurobehavioral evidence for impaired learning and recognition of newly learned faces in individuals with MCI. Face memory impairment significantly affects social interactions and daily functioning in individuals with mild cognitive impairment (MCI). While deficits in recognizing familiar faces among individuals with MCI have been reported, their ability to learn and recognize unfamiliar faces remains unclear. This study examined the behavioral performance and event-related potentials (ERPs) of unfamiliar face memorization and recognition in MCI. Fifteen individuals with MCI and 15 healthy controls learned and recognized 90 unfamiliar neutral faces. Their performance accuracy and cortical ERPs were compared between the two groups across the learning and recognition phases. Individuals with MCI had lower accuracy in identifying newly learned faces than healthy controls. Moreover, individuals with MCI had reduced occipitotemporal N170 and central vertex positive potential responses during both the learning and recognition phases, suggesting impaired initial face processing and attentional resources allocation. Also, individuals with MCI had reduced central N200 and frontal P300 responses during the recognition phase, suggesting impaired later-stage face recognition and attention engagement. These findings provide neurobehavioral evidence for impaired learning and recognition of unfamiliar faces in individuals with MCI. Individuals with MCI may have face memory deficits in both early-stage face processing and later-stage recognition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many contemporary theories of memory assume that everyone automatically stores temporal contextual information about all types of encountered information, yet most studies on this topic have used words and ignored individual differences. Five experiments accumulated evidence that explicit storage of temporal context information does not appear to occur automatically for all people and types of memoranda. We collected judgments of temporal position (memory-for-when) for words (Experiments 1 & 3), faces (Experiments 2A, 3, 4, and 5), and classrooms (Experiments 2B & 3). At the group level, for each of these memoranda memory-for-when was sensitive to the original input position and showed a temporal primacy effect reflecting better memory for position for items near the beginning of the list, indicating some automatic storage of temporal context information. However, memory-for-when was significantly better for words than classrooms, with faces in the middle. Moreover, individuals varied dramatically in their ability to indicate memory-for-when, especially for classrooms where many people performed at or near chance. Taken together, the data suggest that explicit memory-for-when may be dissociable from the more implicit use of temporal contextual information that is theorised to occur during free recall. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Cambridge Face Memory Test (CFMT) is one of the most important measures of individual differences in face recognition and for the diagnosis of prosopagnosia. Having two different CFMT versions using a different set of faces seems to improve the reliability of the evaluation. However, at the present time, there is only one Asian version of the test. In this study, we present the Cambridge Face Memory Test – Chinese Malaysian (CFMT-MY), a novel Asian CFMT using Chinese Malaysian faces. In Experiment 1, Chinese Malaysian participants (N = 134) completed two versions of the Asian CFMT and one object recognition test. The CFMT-MY showed a normal distribution, high internal reliability, high consistency and presented convergent and divergent validity. Additionally, in contrast to the original Asian CFMT, the CFMT-MY showed an increasing level of difficulties across stages. In Experiment 2, Caucasian participants (N = 135) completed the two versions of the Asian CFMT and the original Caucasian CFMT. Results showed that the CFMT-MY exhibited the other-race effect. Overall, the CFMT-MY seems to be suitable for the diagnosis of face recognition difficulties and could be used as a measure of face recognition ability by researchers who wish to examine face-related research questions such as individual differences or the other-race effect. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Familiarity and face inversion not only affect face recognition and memory but also influence attention. Face processing is less attention-demanding for familiar than for unfamiliar faces and for upright than for inverted faces. The automaticity raises the question of how face processing interacts with an increase in attention. Using a dual-task paradigm, we tested the interaction between attention and face familiarity and orientation. Participants encoded a series of faces to memory while simultaneously monitoring a stream of colored squares, pressing the space bar for target-colored squares and making no response to distractor-colored squares. Replicating previous findings of the attentional boost effect (ABE), we found that faces encoded with target squares were better remembered than faces encoded with distractor squares. If the automatic nature of familiar (or upright) face processing makes attention unnecessary, then the attentional boost should be attenuated for familiar relative to unfamiliar faces and for upright relative to inverted faces. Data from three experiments showed, however, that the ABE was the same for all types of faces. These results suggest that target detection did not simply elevate attention in an early encoding phase. Rather, selecting targets and rejecting distractors in the color task may have led to yoked temporal selection of target-concurrent faces for entry into memory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

People remember what they deem important. In line with research suggesting that lower-class (vs. higher class) individuals spontaneously appraise other people as more relevant, we show that social class is associated with the habitual use of face memory. We find that lower-class (vs. higher class) participants exhibit better incidental memory for faces (i.e., spontaneous memory for faces they had not been instructed to memorize; Studies 1 and 2). No social-class differences emerge for faces participants are instructed to learn (Study 2), suggesting that this pattern reflects class-based relevance appraisals rather than memory ability. Study 3 extends our findings to eyewitness identification. Lower-class (vs. higher-class) participants' eyewitness accuracy is less impacted by the explicit relevance of a target (clearly relevant thief vs. incidental bystander). Integrative data analysis shows a robust negative association between social class and spontaneous face memory. Preregistration (Studies 1 and 3) and cross-cultural replication (Study 2) further strengthen the results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Autism traits are common exclusionary criteria in developmental prosopagnosia (DP) studies. We investigated whether autism traits produce qualitatively different face processing in 43 DPs with high vs. low autism quotient (AQ) scores. Compared to controls (n = 27), face memory and perception were similarly deficient in the high- and low-AQ DPs, with the high-AQ DP group additionally showing deficient face emotion recognition. Task-based fMRI revealed reduced occipito-temporal face selectivity in both groups, with high-AQ DPs additionally demonstrating decreased posterior superior temporal sulcus selectivity. Resting-state fMRI showed similar reduced face-selective network connectivity in both DP groups compared with controls. Together, this demonstrates that high- and low-AQ DP groups have very similar face processing deficits, with additional facial emotion deficits in high-AQ DPs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Successful face recognition is important for social interactions and public security. Although some preliminary evidence suggests that anodal and cathodal transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) might modulate own- and other-race face identification, respectively, the findings are largely inconsistent. Hence, we examined the effect of both anodal and cathodal tDCS on the recognition of own- and other-race faces. Ninety participants first completed own- and other-race Cambridge Face Memory Test (CFMT) as baseline measurements. Next, they received either anodal tDCS, cathodal tDCS or sham stimulation and finally they completed alternative versions of the own- and other-race CFMT. No difference in performance, in terms of accuracy and reaction time, for own- and other-race face recognition between anodal tDCS, cathodal tDCS and sham stimulation was found. Our findings cast doubt upon the efficacy of tDCS to modulate performance in face identification tasks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Multiple psychological processes are required in order for a face to be recognised from memory. However, when testing face memory using tasks such as the Cambridge Face Memory Task (CFMT), it is rare for studies to attempt to account for individual differences in face perception and face matching in order to isolate variance in face memory specifically. In Study 1, the Oxford Face Matching Test (OFMT) was used to assess face matching and face perception in a large sample of participants (N = 1,112). Results revealed independent contributions of face perception and matching to CFMT performance, and these results replicated with the Glasgow Face Matching Test. In Study 2, the same procedure was used to test face perception, face matching and face memory in a group of 57 autistic adults and a matched neurotypical control group. Results revealed impaired face perception and memory in the individuals with autism, but intact face matching. Face perception may therefore act as a potential intervention target for individuals with autism who exhibit face recognition impairments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Difficulties in various face processing tasks have been well documented in autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Several meta‐analyses and numerous case–control studies have indicated that this population experiences a moderate degree of impairment, with a small percentage of studies failing to detect any impairment. One possible account of this mixed pattern of findings is heterogeneity in face processing abilities stemming from the presence of a subpopulation of prosopagnosic individuals with ASD alongside those with normal face processing skills. Samples randomly drawn from such a population, especially relatively smaller ones, would vary in the proportion of participants with prosopagnosia, resulting in a wide range of group‐level deficits from mild (or none) to severe across studies. We test this prosopagnosic subpopulation hypothesis by examining three groups of participants: adults with ASD, adults with developmental prosopagnosia (DP), and a comparison group. Our results show that the prosopagnosic subpopulation hypothesis does not account for the face impairments in the broader autism spectrum. ASD observers show a continuous and graded, rather than categorical, heterogeneity that span a range of face processing skills including many with mild to moderate deficits, inconsistent with a prosopagnosic subtype account. We suggest that pathogenic origins of face deficits for at least some with ASD differ from those of DP. Lay Summary: Face recognition challenges are well‐documented in autism spectrum disorder (ASD); however, the origin of such difficulties remains a topic of debate. Recently, it has been suggested that face identification difficulties in ASD may share the same cause as those with developmental prosopagnosia (DP), potentially defining a prosopagnosic subgroup within ASD. We show that although about one third of those on the spectrum experience severity comparable to DP, overall face ability spans from severe to mild continuously with no indication of a distinct sub‐group. These results do not lend support to a prosopagnosic subtype hypothesis of autism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The COVID-19 pandemic has led people to predict facial attractiveness from partially covered faces. Differences in the predicted and observed facial attractiveness (i.e., masked and unmasked faces, respectively) are defined as reward prediction error (RPE) in a social context. Cognitive neuroscience studies have elucidated the neural mechanisms underlying RPE-induced memory improvements in terms of monetary rewards. However, little is known about the mechanisms underlying RPE-induced memory modulation in terms of social rewards. To elucidate this, the present functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study investigated activity and functional connectivity during face encoding. In encoding trials, participants rated the predicted attractiveness of faces covered except for around the eyes (prediction phase) and then rated the observed attractiveness of these faces without any cover (outcome phase). The difference in ratings between these phases was defined as RPE in facial attractiveness, and RPE was categorized into positive RPE (increased RPE from the prediction to outcome phases), negative RPE (decreased RPE from the prediction to outcome phases), and non-RPE (no difference in RPE between the prediction and outcome phases). During retrieval, participants were presented with individual faces that had been seen and unseen in the encoding trials, and were required to judge whether or not each face had been seen in the encoding trials. Univariate activity in the ventral striatum (VS) exhibited a linear increase with increased RPE in facial attractiveness. In the multivariate pattern analysis (MVPA), activity patterns in the VS and surrounding areas (extended VS) significantly discriminated between positive/negative RPE and non-RPE. In the functional connectivity analysis, significant functional connectivity between the extended VS and the hippocampus was observed most frequently in positive RPE. Memory improvements by face-based RPE could be involved in functional networks between the extended VS (representing RPE) and the hippocampus, and the interaction could be modulated by RPE values in a social context.

Children with prosopagnosia, also known as face blindness, struggle to recognize the faces of acquaintances, which can have a negative impact on their social interactions and overall functioning. This paper reviews existing research on interventions for children with prosopagnosia, including compensatory and remedial strategies, and provides a summary and comparison of their effectiveness. However, despite the availability of these interventions, their effectiveness remains limited and constrained by various factors. The lack of a widely accepted treatment for children with prosopagnosia emphasizes the need for further research to improve intervention strategies. Last, three future research directions were proposed to improve interventions for prosopagnosia, including ecological approaches, the social challenges faced by children, and new potential intervention methods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract Background Many Western people enjoy sunshine, and through the sun’s stimulated increase in melanin, the skin tone or skin complexion will darken (and lighten again during winter). Although the initial salience of such a new look is remarkable – especially in the face – we seem to adapt to this new look relatively quickly. Research on face adaptation in general repeatedly showed that the inspection of manipulated versions of faces (so-called adaptor faces) leads to a change of the perception of subsequently presented faces. The present study investigates face adaptation to very natural changes in faces such as changes in complexion. Methods During the adaptation phase in the present study, participants saw faces with either strongly increased or decreased complexion. After a pause of 5 min, participants had to identify the veridical (non-manipulated) face out of two faces (a face slightly manipulated in complexion combined with the non-manipulated face) during a test phase. Results Results show strong adaptation effects to decreased complexion intensities. Discussion It seems that we are updating our facial representations in memory quite quickly (i.e., optimizing our processing through adaptation) and seem to sustain those new representations over a certain timespan (at least 5 min). Our results demonstrate that changes in complexion draw our attention for deeper analysis (at least with decreased complexion). However, it loses its informative quality quickly via fast and relatively sustainable adaptation.

Tip-of-the-tongue states are subjective experiences that unrecalled target words will be remembered. This study investigates if the visual fluency of familiar faces affects the likelihood of tip-of-the-tongue experiences (TOTs) as well as name recall and name recognition. To manipulate visual fluency, three levels of clarity for 396 celebrity faces were set: high, medium, and low clarity. Four hundred and twenty-nine participants were asked to recall the last names of the celebrities for all clarity levels, and, if they did not recall, to indicate if they experienced a TOT. Following the TOT question, they performed a name recognition test. Results showed that higher-clarity faces resulted in higher TOT rates than lower-clarity faces for unrecalled faces. Name recall was also higher for clearer faces. However, clarity level did not affect the correct answer rate on the name recognition test. These results support the view that perceptual cue-based factors influence TOT experiences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the outburst of the COVID‐19 pandemic, disposable surgical face‐masks (DSFMs) have been widely adopted as a preventive measure. DSFMs hide the bottom half of the face, thus making identity and emotion recognition very challenging, both in typical and atypical populations. Individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) are often characterized by face processing deficits; thus, DSFMs could pose even a greater challenge for this population compared to typically development (TD) individuals. In this study, 48 ASDs of level 1 and 110 TDs underwent two tasks: (i) the Old‐new face memory task, which assesses whether DSFMs affect face learning and recognition, and (ii) the Facial affect task, which explores DSFMs' effect on emotion recognition. Results from the former show that, when faces were learned without DSFMs, identity recognition of masked faces decreased for both ASDs and TDs. In contrast, when faces were first learned with DSFMs, TDs but not ASDs benefited from a "context congruence" effect, that is, faces wearing DSFMs were better recognized if learned wearing DSFMs. In addition, results from the Facial affect task show that DSFMs negatively impacted specific emotion recognition in both TDs and ASDs, although differentially between the two groups. DSFMs negatively affected disgust, happiness and sadness recognition in TDs; in contrast, ASDs performance decreased for every emotion except anger. Overall, our study demonstrates a general, although different, disruptive effect on identity and emotion recognition both in ASD and TD population. Lay Summary: "Reading" facial identity and expression of emotions are fundamental aspects for our social interactions. Here, we found that disposable surgical face‐masks (DSFMs) particularly affect both these abilities in autistic adults. These findings help the understanding of how DSFMs strongly impact social life in autistic and non‐autistic individuals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract Virtual faces have been found to be rated less human-like and remembered worse than photographic images of humans. What it is in virtual faces that yields reduced memory has so far remained unclear. The current study investigated face memory in the context of virtual agent faces and human faces, real and manipulated, considering two factors of predicted influence, i.e., corneal reflections and skin contrast. Corneal reflections referred to the bright points in each eye that occur when the ambient light reflects from the surface of the cornea. Skin contrast referred to the degree to which skin surface is rough versus smooth. We conducted two memory experiments, one with high-quality virtual agent faces (Experiment 1) and the other with the photographs of human faces that were manipulated (Experiment 2). Experiment 1 showed better memory for virtual faces with increased corneal reflections and skin contrast (rougher rather than smoother skin). Experiment 2 replicated these findings, showing that removing the corneal reflections and smoothening the skin reduced memory recognition of manipulated faces, with a stronger effect exerted by the eyes than the skin. This study highlights specific features of the eyes and skin that can help explain memory discrepancies between real and virtual faces and in turn elucidates the factors that play a role in the cognitive processing of faces.

Background: Many Western people enjoy sunshine, and through the sun's stimulated increase in melanin, the skin tone or skin complexion will darken (and lighten again during winter). Although the initial salience of such a new look is remarkable – especially in the face – we seem to adapt to this new look relatively quickly. Research on face adaptation in general repeatedly showed that the inspection of manipulated versions of faces (so-called adaptor faces) leads to a change of the perception of subsequently presented faces. The present study investigates face adaptation to very natural changes in faces such as changes in complexion. Methods: During the adaptation phase in the present study, participants saw faces with either strongly increased or decreased complexion. After a pause of 5 min, participants had to identify the veridical (non-manipulated) face out of two faces (a face slightly manipulated in complexion combined with the non-manipulated face) during a test phase. Results: Results show strong adaptation effects to decreased complexion intensities. Discussion: It seems that we are updating our facial representations in memory quite quickly (i.e., optimizing our processing through adaptation) and seem to sustain those new representations over a certain timespan (at least 5 min). Our results demonstrate that changes in complexion draw our attention for deeper analysis (at least with decreased complexion). However, it loses its informative quality quickly via fast and relatively sustainable adaptation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Faces are fundamental stimuli for social interactions since they provide significant information about people's identity and emotional states. With the outburst of the COVID-19 pandemic, global use of preventive measures, such as disposable surgical face masks (DSFMs), has been imposed. The massive use of DSFMs covering a large part of the face could interfere with identity and emotion recognition. Thus, the main aim of the current study was (i) to assess how DSFMs affect identity recognition (Experiment 1), (ii) how DSFMs affect emotion recognition (Experiment 2), and (iii) whether individual empathy levels correlate with emotion recognition with DSFMs. The potential relation between identity and emotion recognition with and without DSFMs was also investigated. Two tasks were administered to 101 healthy participants: (i) the Old-new face memory task aimed to assess whether the learning context (i.e., DSFMs on/off) affects recognition performance, whereas (ii) the Facial affect task explored DSFMs' effect on emotion recognition. Results from the former showed that the stimuli's features in the learning stage affect recognition performances; that is, faces wearing DSFMs were better recognized if wearing DSFMs at first exposure and vice versa. Results from the Facial affect task showed that DSFMs lead to reduced disgust, happiness, and sadness recognition. No significant correlation emerged between identity and emotion recognition. The Interpersonal Reactivity Index (IRI) was administered to assess affective and cognitive empathy; however, IRI scores did not correlate with either face memory recognition or facial affect recognition. Overall, our results demonstrate (a) a "context effect" for face memory with and without DSFMs; (b) a disruptive effect of DSFMs depending on the expressed emotion; and (c) no correlation between empathy and emotion recognition with DSFMs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How people process images is known to affect memory for those images, but these effects have typically been studied using explicit task instructions to vary encoding. Here, we investigate the effects of intrinsic variation in processing on subsequent memory, testing whether recognizing an ambiguous stimulus as meaningful (as a face vs as shape blobs) predicts subsequent visual memory even when matching the perceptual features and the encoding strategy between subsequently remembered and subsequently forgotten items. We show in adult humans of either sex that single trial EEG activity can predict whether participants will subsequently remember an ambiguous Mooney face image (e.g., an image that will sometimes be seen as a face and sometimes not be seen as a face). In addition, we show that a classifier trained only to discriminate between whether participants perceive a face versus non-face can generalize to predict whether an ambiguous image is subsequently remembered. Furthermore, when we examine the N170, an event-related potential index of face processing, we find that images that elicit larger N170s are more likely to be remembered than those that elicit smaller N170s, even when the exact same image elicited larger or smaller N170s across participants. Thus, images processed as meaningful, in this case as a face, during encoding are better remembered than identical images that are not processed as a face. This provides strong evidence that understanding the meaning of a stimulus during encoding plays a critical role in visual memory.SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT Is visual memory inherently visual or does meaning and other conceptual information necessarily play a role even in memory for detailed visual information? Here we show that it is easier to remember an image when it is processed in a meaningful way, as indexed by the amount of category-specific brain activity it elicits. In particular, we use single-trial EEG activity to predict whether an image will be subsequently remembered, and show that the main driver of this prediction ability is whether or not an image is seen as meaningful or non-meaningful. This shows that the extent to which an image is processed as meaningful can be used to predict subsequent memory even when controlling for perceptual factors and encoding strategies that typically differ across images.

The Cambridge Face Memory Test (CFMT) is one of the most used assessments of face recognition abilities in the science of face processing. The original task, using White male faces, has been empirically evaluated for psychometric properties (Duchaine & Nakayama, 2006), while the longer and more difficult version (CFMT+; Russell et al., 2009) has not. Critically, no version exists using female faces. Here, we present the Female Cambridge Face Memory Test – Long Form (F-CFMT+) and evaluate the psychometric properties of this task in comparison to the Male Cambridge Face Memory Test – Long Form (M-CFMT+). We tested typically developing emerging adults (18 to 25 years old) in both Cambridge face recognition tasks, an old-new face recognition task, and a car recognition task. Results indicate that the F-CFMT+ is a valid, internally consistent measure of unfamiliar face recognition that can be used alone or in tandem with the M-CFMT+ to assess recognition abilities for young adult White faces. When used together, performance on the F-CFMT+ and M-CFMT+ can be directly compared, adding to the ability to understand face recognition abilities for different kinds of faces. The two tasks have high convergent validity and relatively good divergent validity with car recognition in the same task paradigm. The F-CFMT+ will be useful to researchers interested in evaluating a broad range of questions about face recognition abilities in both typically developing individuals and those with atypical social information processing abilities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Individuals with developmental prosopagnosia (DP) all exhibit impairments in face memory, but the specificity of these face memory impairments is debated. One problem is that standard behavioural tasks are not able to provide independent measurement of face perception, face memory, and face matching (the decision process required to judge whether two instances of a face are of the same individual or different individuals). The present study utilised a new test of face matching, the Oxford Face Matching Test (OFMT), and a novel analysis strategy to derive these independent indices. Twenty-nine individuals with DP and the same number of matched neurotypical controls completed the OFMT, the Glasgow Face Matching Test, and the Cambridge Face Memory Test. Results revealed individuals with DP exhibit impairments in face perception, face memory and face matching. Collectively, these results suggest that face processing impairments in DP are more comprehensive than has previously been suggested. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Children with prosopagnosia, also known as face blindness, struggle to recognize the faces of acquaintances, which can have a negative impact on their social interactions and overall functioning. This paper reviews existing research on interventions for children with prosopagnosia, including compensatory and remedial strategies, and provides a summary and comparison of their effectiveness. However, despite the availability of these interventions, their effectiveness remains limited and constrained by various factors. The lack of a widely accepted treatment for children with prosopagnosia emphasizes the need for further research to improve intervention strategies. Last, three future research directions were proposed to improve interventions for prosopagnosia, including ecological approaches, the social challenges faced by children, and new potential intervention methods.

Virtual faces have been found to be rated less human-like and remembered worse than photographic images of humans. What it is in virtual faces that yields reduced memory has so far remained unclear. The current study investigated face memory in the context of virtual agent faces and human faces, real and manipulated, considering two factors of predicted influence, i.e., corneal reflections and skin contrast. Corneal reflections referred to the bright points in each eye that occur when the ambient light reflects from the surface of the cornea. Skin contrast referred to the degree to which skin surface is rough versus smooth. We conducted two memory experiments, one with high-quality virtual agent faces (Experiment 1) and the other with the photographs of human faces that were manipulated (Experiment 2). Experiment 1 showed better memory for virtual faces with increased corneal reflections and skin contrast (rougher rather than smoother skin). Experiment 2 replicated these findings, showing that removing the corneal reflections and smoothening the skin reduced memory recognition of manipulated faces, with a stronger effect exerted by the eyes than the skin. This study highlights specific features of the eyes and skin that can help explain memory discrepancies between real and virtual faces and in turn elucidates the factors that play a role in the cognitive processing of faces. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We investigated the relationship between holistic processing and face processing using a latent variables approach. Three versions of the composite paradigm were used to measure holistic processing: Vanderbilt Holistic Face Processing Test, a sequential composite matching task, and a simultaneous composite matching task. Three tasks were used to measure face perception and face memory abilities respectively. We had three pairs of tasks such that within each pair (of memory and perception task), the stimuli involved, the requirement for matching across viewpoints, etc., are the same, such that the only difference is whether perception or memory is taxed. There were no significant correlations between the different versions of the composite task. We discovered no evidence to support a distinction between face perception and face memory, suggesting the existence of a general face processing factor. Finally, there was no evidence that holistic processing (as captured by either of the three composite tasks) is predictive of better face processing per se, casting doubts on the role of holistic processing in differentiating different levels of efficiency in face processing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Tip-of-the-tongue states are subjective experiences that unrecalled target words will be remembered. This study investigates if the visual fluency of familiar faces affects the likelihood of tip-of-the-tongue experiences (TOTs) as well as name recall and name recognition. To manipulate visual fluency, three levels of clarity for 396 celebrity faces were set: high, medium, and low clarity. Four hundred and twenty-nine participants were asked to recall the last names of the celebrities for all clarity levels, and, if they did not recall, to indicate if they experienced a TOT. Following the TOT question, they performed a name recognition test. Results showed that higher-clarity faces resulted in higher TOT rates than lower-clarity faces for unrecalled faces. Name recall was also higher for clearer faces. However, clarity level did not affect the correct answer rate on the name recognition test. These results support the view that perceptual cue-based factors influence TOT experiences.

Previous research has explored how emotional valence (positive or negative) affected face-context associative memory, while little is known about how arousing stimuli that share the same valence but differ in emotionality are bound together and retained in memory. In this study, we manipulated the emotional similarity between the target face and the face associated with the context emotion (i.e., congruent, high similarity, and low similarity), and examined the effect of emotional similarity of negative emotion (i.e., disgust, anger, and fear) on face-context associative memory. Our results showed that the greater the emotional similarity between the faces, the better the face memory and face-context associative memory were. These findings suggest that the processing of facial expression and its associated context may benefit from taking into account the emotional similarity between the faces. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract Background Face-identity processing declines with age. Few studies have examined whether face-identity processing abilities can be measured independently from general cognitive abilities in older adults (OA). This question has practical implications for the assessment of face-identity processing abilities in OA and theoretical implications for the notion of face processing as a specific ability. The present study examined the specificity of face memory and face matching abilities in OA aged 50 + . Methods Performance of younger adults (YA) and OA was measured on face tasks: Cambridge Face Memory Task (CFMT), the Glasgow Face Matching Task (GFMT), holistic processing; and tasks of general cognition: fluid intelligence, selective attention, and mental rotation. Data were analyzed using multiple regression models encompassing (i) the CFMT/GFMT and measures of general cognition; and (ii) all face processing tasks. Results Across the two age groups, models encompassing all face tasks were significant and accounted for more variance in the data than models encompassing the CFMT/GFMT and measures of general cognition. General cognitive abilities accounted for 17% of variance for the GFMT (p 0.05). Discussion Our results suggest that face memory can be measured independently from general cognition using the CFMT in OA. Implications for the notion of a general face processing factor across the adult lifespan are discussed.

Previous research has explored how emotional valence (positive or negative) affected face-context associative memory, while little is known about how arousing stimuli that share the same valence but differ in emotionality are bound together and retained in memory. In this study, we manipulated the emotional similarity between the target face and the face associated with the context emotion (i.e., congruent, high similarity, and low similarity), and examined the effect of emotional similarity of negative emotion (i.e., disgust, anger, and fear) on face-context associative memory. Our results showed that the greater the emotional similarity between the faces, the better the face memory and face-context associative memory were. These findings suggest that the processing of facial expression and its associated context may benefit from taking into account the emotional similarity between the faces.

The effect of uniform lighting on face identity processing is little understood, despite its potential influence on our ability to recognize faces. Here, we investigated how changes in uniform lighting level affected face identification performance during face memory tests. Observers were tasked with learning a series of faces, followed by a memory test where observers judged whether the faces presented were studied before or novel. Face stimuli were presented under uniform bright or dim illuminations, and lighting across the face learning and the memory test sessions could be the same ("congruent") or different ("incongruent"). This led to four experimental conditions: (1) Bright/Dim (learning bright faces, testing on dim faces); (2) Bright/Bright; (3) Dim/Bright; and (4) Dim/Dim. Our results revealed that incongruent lighting levels across sessions (Bright/Dim and Dim/Bright) significantly reduced sensitivity (d') to faces and introduced conservative biases compared to congruent lighting levels (Bright/Bright and Dim/Dim). No significant differences in performance were detected between the congruent lighting conditions (Bright/Bright vs. Dim/Dim) and between the incongruent lighting conditions (Bright/Dim vs. Dim/Bright). Thus, incongruent lighting deteriorated performance in face identification. These findings implied that the level of uniform lighting should be considered in an illumination-specific face representation and potential applications such as eyewitness testimony. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Tests of face processing are typically designed to identify individuals performing outside of the typical range; either prosopagnosic individuals who exhibit poor face processing ability, or super recognisers, who have superior face processing abilities. Here we describe the development of the Oxford Face Matching Test (OFMT), designed to identify individual differences in face processing across the full range of performance, from prosopagnosia, through the range of typical performance, to super recognisers. Such a test requires items of varying difficulty, but establishing difficulty is problematic when particular populations (e.g., prosopagnosics, individuals with autism spectrum disorder) may use atypical strategies to process faces. If item difficulty is calibrated on neurotypical individuals, then the test may be poorly calibrated for atypical groups, and vice versa. To obtain items of varying difficulty, we used facial recognition algorithms to obtain face pair similarity ratings that are not biased towards specific populations. These face pairs were used as stimuli in the OFMT, and participants were required to judge whether the face images depicted the same individual or different individuals. Across five studies the OFMT was shown to be sensitive to individual differences in the typical population, and in groups of both prosopagnosic individuals and super recognisers. The test-retest reliability of the task was at least equivalent to the Cambridge Face Memory Test and the Glasgow Face Matching Test. Furthermore, results reveal, at least at the group level, that both face perception and face memory are poor in those with prosopagnosia, and are good in super recognisers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The effect of uniform lighting on face identity processing is little understood, despite its potential influence on our ability to recognize faces. Here, we investigated how changes in uniform lighting level affected face identification performance during face memory tests. Observers were tasked with learning a series of faces, followed by a memory test where observers judged whether the faces presented were studied before or novel. Face stimuli were presented under uniform bright or dim illuminations, and lighting across the face learning and the memory test sessions could be the same (“congruent”) or different (“incongruent”). This led to four experimental conditions: (1) Bright/Dim (learning bright faces, testing on dim faces); (2) Bright/Bright; (3) Dim/Bright; and (4) Dim/Dim. Our results revealed that incongruent lighting levels across sessions (Bright/Dim and Dim/Bright) significantly reduced sensitivity (d’) to faces and introduced conservative biases compared to congruent lighting levels (Bright/Bright and Dim/Dim). No significant differences in performance were detected between the congruent lighting conditions (Bright/Bright vs. Dim/Dim) and between the incongruent lighting conditions (Bright/Dim vs. Dim/Bright). Thus, incongruent lighting deteriorated performance in face identification. These findings implied that the level of uniform lighting should be considered in an illumination-specific face representation and potential applications such as eyewitness testimony.

It has been argued that autistic individuals have difficulties with face memory but typical face perception. However, only one previous study has examined both face memory and face perception in the same individuals, and this study was conducted with a small group of autistic children. Here, face recognition was examined with a group of autistic adults using two face perception tasks (including one designed to avoid a neurotypical bias) and a standard test of face memory. Self-reported face recognition difficulties in everyday life were also recorded. The group of adults with autism scored lower than a matched neurotypical control group on all face tasks and reported more problems with face recognition in everyday life. On the whole, results suggest difficulties with both face perception and face memory in autistic adults, although it should be noted that a wide range of scores were recorded from the autistic individuals, with some scoring in the neurotypical range. It is well known that some people with autism have difficulties recognizing faces. It is generally thought that this is not because autistic individuals cannot perceive faces, but because autistic individuals have greater problems than people without autism in remembering faces. Here, we worked with a group of autistic adults and a group of non-autistic adults to test their ability to perceive and remember faces. We also asked each person to report any difficulties that they have with recognizing faces in everyday life. We find that, as a group, people with autism have difficulties with both remembering and perceiving faces, and report more problems recognizing faces in everyday life. However, it is worth noting that we observed a wide range of scores in the group of people with autism, with some autistic participants scoring as well as the group of people without autism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recognizing familiar faces requires a comparison of the incoming perceptual information with mental face representations stored in memory. Mounting evidence indicates that these representations adapt quickly to recently perceived facial changes. This becomes apparent in face adaptation studies where exposure to a strongly manipulated face alters the perception of subsequent face stimuli: original, non-manipulated face images then appear to be manipulated, while images similar to the adaptor are perceived as "normal." The face adaptation paradigm serves as a good tool for investigating the information stored in facial memory. So far, most of the face adaptation studies focused on configural (second-order relationship) face information, mainly neglecting non-configural face information (i.e., that does not affect spatial face relations), such as color, although several (non-adaptation) studies were able to demonstrate the importance of color information in face perception and identification. The present study therefore focuses on adaptation effects on saturation color information and compares the results with previous findings on brightness. The study reveals differences in the effect pattern and robustness, indicating that adaptation effects vary considerably even within the same class of non-configural face information. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract Background Face individual identity recognition skill is heritable and independent of intellectual ability. Difficulties in face individual identity recognition are present in autistic individuals and their family members and are possibly linked to oxytocin polymorphisms in families with an autistic child. While it is reported that developmental prosopagnosia (i.e., impaired face identity recognition) occurs in 2–3% of the general population, no prosopagnosia prevalence estimate is available for autism. Furthermore, an autism within-group approach has not been reported towards characterizing impaired face memory and to investigate its possible links to social and communication difficulties. Methods The present study estimated the prevalence of prosopagnosia in 80 autistic adults with no intellectual disability, investigated its cognitive characteristics and links to autism symptoms’ severity, personality traits, and mental state understanding from the eye region by using standardized tests and questionnaires. Results More than one third of autistic participants showed prosopagnosia. Their face memory skill was not associated with their symptom’s severity, empathy, alexithymia, or general intelligence. Face identity recognition was instead linked to mental state recognition from the eye region only in autistic individuals who had prosopagnosia, and this relationship did not depend on participants’ basic face perception skills. Importantly, we found that autistic participants were not aware of their face memory skills. Limitations We did not test an epidemiological sample, and additional work is necessary to establish whether these results generalize to the entire autism spectrum. Conclusions Impaired face individual identity recognition meets the criteria to be a potential endophenotype in autism. In the future, testing for face memory could be used to stratify autistic individuals into genetically meaningful subgroups and be translatable to autism animal models.

The own‐age bias (OAB) has been proposed to be caused by perceptual expertise and/or social‐cognitive mechanisms. Investigations into the role of social cognition have, however, yielded mixed results. One reason for this might be the tendency for research to focus on the OAB in young adults, between young and older adult faces where other‐age individuation experience is low. To explore whether social‐cognitive manipulations may be successful when observers have sufficient other‐age individuation experience, we examined biases involving middle‐aged other‐age faces and the influence of a context manipulation. Across four experiments, young adult participants were presented with middle‐aged faces alongside young or older adult faces to remember. We predicted that in contexts where middle‐aged faces were positioned as other‐age faces (alongside young adult faces), recognition performance would be worse than when they were positioned as relative own‐age faces (alongside older adult faces). However, the context manipulations did not moderate middle age face recognition. This suggests that past findings that context does not change other‐age face recognition holds for other‐age faces for which observers have higher individuation experience. These findings are consistent with a perceptual expertise account of the OAB but more investigation of the generality of these results is required. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Developmental prosopagnosia (DP), also known as face blindness, is a cognitive disorder with a severe deficit in recognizing faces. However, the heterogeneous nature of DP leads to a longstanding debate on which stages the deficit occurs, face perception (e.g., matching two consecutively presented faces) or face memory (e.g., matching a face to memorized faces). Here, we used the individual difference approach with functional magnetic resonance imaging to explore the neural substrates of DPs’ face perception and face memory that may illuminate DPs’ heterogeneity. Specifically, we measured the behavioral performance of face perception and face memory in a large sample of individuals suffering DP (N = 64) and then associated the behavioral performance with their face-selective neural responses in the core face network (CFN) and the extended face network (EFN), respectively. Behaviorally, we found that DP individuals were impaired in both face perception and face memory; however, there was only a weak correlation between the performances of two tasks. Consistent with this observation, the neural correlate of DPs’ performance in face memory task was localized in the bilateral fusiform face area, whereas DPs’ performance in face perception task was correlated with the face selectivity in the right posterior superior temporal sulcus, suggesting that the neural substrates in the CFN for face memory and face perception were separate in DP. In contrast, shared neural substrates of deficits in face perception and face memory tasks were identified in the EFN, including the right precuneus and the right orbitofrontal cortex. In summary, our study provides one of the first empirical evidence that the separate and shared neural substrates of face perception and face memory were identified in the CFN and EFN, respectively, which may help illuminating DP’s heterogeneous nature.

Background: Face-identity processing declines with age. Few studies have examined whether face-identity processing abilities can be measured independently from general cognitive abilities in older adults (OA). This question has practical implications for the assessment of face-identity processing abilities in OA and theoretical implications for the notion of face processing as a specific ability. The present study examined the specificity of face memory and face matching abilities in OA aged 50 +. Methods: Performance of younger adults (YA) and OA was measured on face tasks: Cambridge Face Memory Task (CFMT), the Glasgow Face Matching Task (GFMT), holistic processing; and tasks of general cognition: fluid intelligence, selective attention, and mental rotation. Data were analyzed using multiple regression models encompassing (i) the CFMT/GFMT and measures of general cognition; and (ii) all face processing tasks. Results: Across the two age groups, models encompassing all face tasks were significant and accounted for more variance in the data than models encompassing the CFMT/GFMT and measures of general cognition. General cognitive abilities accounted for 17% of variance for the GFMT (p < 0.01) and 3% for the CFMT (p > 0.05). Discussion: Our results suggest that face memory can be measured independently from general cognition using the CFMT in OA. Implications for the notion of a general face processing factor across the adult lifespan are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Developmental prosopagnosia (DP), also known as face blindness, is a cognitive disorder with a severe deficit in recognizing faces. However, the heterogeneous nature of DP leads to a longstanding debate on which stages the deficit occurs, face perception (e.g., matching two consecutively presented faces) or face memory (e.g., matching a face to memorized faces). Here, we used the individual difference approach with functional magnetic resonance imaging to explore the neural substrates of DPs' face perception and face memory that may illuminate DPs' heterogeneity. Specifically, we measured the behavioral performance of face perception and face memory in a large sample of individuals suffering DP (N = 64) and then associated the behavioral performance with their face-selective neural responses in the core face network (CFN) and the extended face network (EFN), respectively. Behaviorally, we found that DP individuals were impaired in both face perception and face memory; however, there was only a weak correlation between the performances of two tasks. Consistent with this observation, the neural correlate of DPs' performance in face memory task was localized in the bilateral fusiform face area, whereas DPs' performance in face perception task was correlated with the face selectivity in the right posterior superior temporal sulcus, suggesting that the neural substrates in the CFN for face memory and face perception were separate in DP. In contrast, shared neural substrates of deficits in face perception and face memory tasks were identified in the EFN, including the right precuneus and the right orbitofrontal cortex. In summary, our study provides one of the first empirical evidence that the separate and shared neural substrates of face perception and face memory were identified in the CFN and EFN, respectively, which may help illuminating DP's heterogeneous nature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Inspecting new visual information in a face can affect the perception of subsequently seen faces. In experimental settings for example, previously seen manipulated versions of a face can lead to a clear bias of the participant's perception of subsequent images: Original images are then perceived as manipulated in the opposite direction of the adaptor while images that are more similar to the adaptor are perceived as normal or natural. These so-called face adaptation effects can be a useful tool to provide information about which facial information is processed and stored in facial memory. Most experiments so far used variants of the second-order relationship configural information (e.g., spatial relations between facial features) when investigating these effects. However, non-configural face information (e.g., color) was mainly neglected when focusing on face adaptation, although this type of information plays an important role in face processing. Therefore, we investigated adaptation effects of non-configural face information by employing brightness alterations. Our results provide clear evidence for brightness adaptation effects (Experiment 1). These effects are face-specific to some extent (Experiments 2 and 3) and robust over time (Experiments 4 and 5). They support the assumption that non-configural face information is not only relevant in face perception but also in face retention. Brightness information seems to be stored in memory and thus is even involved in face recognition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: The aim of this study was to identify factors associated with acceptability and efficacy of yoga training (YT) for improving cognitive dysfunction in individuals with schizophrenia (SZ). Methods: We analysed data from two published clinical trials of YT for cognitive dysfunction among Indians with SZ: (1) a 21-day randomised controlled trial (RCT, N = 286), 3 and 6 months follow-up and (2) a 21-day open trial (n = 62). Multivariate analyses were conducted to examine the association of baseline characteristics (age, sex, socio-economic status, educational status, duration, and severity of illness) with improvement in cognition (i.e. attention and face memory) following YT. Factors associated with acceptability were identified by comparing baseline demographic variables between screened and enrolled participants as well as completers versus non-completers. Results: Enrolled participants were younger than screened persons who declined participation (t = 2.952, p = 0.003). No other characteristics were associated with study enrollment or completion. Regarding efficacy, schooling duration was nominally associated with greater and sustained cognitive improvement on a measure of facial memory. No other baseline characteristics were associated with efficacy of YT in the open trial, the RCT, or the combined samples (n = 148). Conclusions: YT is acceptable even among younger individuals with SZ. It also enhances specific cognitive functions, regardless of individual differences in selected psychosocial characteristics. Thus, yoga could be incorporated as adjunctive therapy for patients with SZ. Importantly, our results suggest cognitive dysfunction is remediable in persons with SZ across the age spectrum. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The own-group bias (OGB) in face recognition refers to the finding that in-group faces are recognized with greater accuracy than out-group faces. Current literature emphasizes the importance of in-group characteristics for the OGB. Across two experiments we explored the importance of both in-group and out-group characteristics. Using an old/new task, Experiment 1 categorized faces by university membership and found no evidence of the OGB or a relationship between the OGB and attitudes towards the in-group. Experiment 2 used real-world categories of football (soccer) teams, with the out-group representing a high or low threat to the in-group. Here we found an out-group disadvantage (rather than an in-group advantage) only when the out-group was low threat, and a relationship between out-group but not in-group attitudes and the size of the OGB. These findings suggest that the characteristics of the out-group can be more important than the in-group in modulating the OGB. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The ability to recognize an individual face is essential to human social interaction. Even subtle errors in this process can have huge implications for the way we relate to social partners. Because autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is characterized by deficits in social interaction, researchers have theorized about the potential role of atypical face identity processing to the symptom profile of ASD for more than 40 years. We conducted an empirical meta-analysis of this large literature to determine whether and to what extent face identity processing is atypical in ASD compared to typically developing (TD) individuals. We also tested the hypotheses that the deficit is selective to face identity recognition, not perception, and that methodological variation across studies moderates the magnitude of the estimated deficit. We identified 112 studies (5,390 participants) that generated 172 effect sizes from both recognition (k = 119) and discrimination (k = 53) paradigms. We used state-of-the-art approaches for assessing the validity and robustness of the analyses. We found comparable and large deficits in ASD for both face identity recognition (Hedge's g = −0.86) and discrimination (Hedge's g = −0.82). This means that the score of an average ASD individual is nearly 1 SD below the average TD individual on tasks assessing both aspects of face identity processing. These deficits generalize across age groups, sex, IQ scores, and task paradigms. These findings suggest that deficits in face identity processing may represent a core deficit in ASD. Public Significance Statement: We present a data-driven analysis of the face recognition research in autism from the last 40 years. Our findings indicate that people with ASD struggle to process information about the identity of a face. This deficit is large, such that on average 80.5% of ASD individuals perform worse than typical individuals on tests of face identity processing. This impairment likely contributes to ASD-specific difficulties with social interaction, which require the ability to identify social partners as unique individuals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Face memory is critical for social functioning. Our study examined whether children and adolescents with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) have a face memory deficit relative to those with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), another commonly occurring neurodevelopmental condition that is associated with socio-emotional and cognitive deficits. Children and adolescents with ASD and ADHD as well as typically developing (TD) peers were divided into two face-looking time conditions to determine the effect of the duration of looking time on memory for faces. Our goal was to determine whether children and adolescents with ASD would demonstrate poorer face memory skills than their ADHD and TD counterparts, and whether increased face-looking time would improve face memory in children and adolescents in these three diagnostic categories. Results revealed that children and adolescents with ASD exhibit a face memory deficit compared to their ADHD and TD peers that does not improve even after increasing the duration of time spent looking at faces. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Self-relevant stimuli (i.e. meaningful/important to the observer and related to the self) are typically remembered better than other-relevant stimuli. However, whether a self-relevance memory benefit could be conferred to a novel neutral face, remains to be seen. Recent studies have shown that emotional responses to neutral faces can be altered by using a preceding sentence as context that varies in terms of self-relevance (self/other-relevant) and valence (positive/negative; e.g. "S/he thinks your comment is dumb/smart"). We adapted this paradigm to investigate whether the context conferred by the preceding sentence also impacts memorability of the subsequently presented face. Participants saw faces primed with contextual sentences and rated how aroused, and how positive or negative, the faces made them feel. Later incidental recognition accuracy for the faces was greater when these had been preceded by self-relevant compared to other-relevant sentences. Faces preceded by self-relevant contexts were also rated as more arousing. There was no impact of sentence valence on arousal ratings or on recognition memory for faces. Sentence self-relevance and valence interacted to affect participants' ratings of how positive or negative the faces made them feel during encoding, but did not interact to impact later recognition. Our results indicate that initial social encounters can have a lasting effect on one's memory of another person, producing an enhanced memory trace of that individual. We propose that the effect is driven by an arousal-based mechanism, elicited by faces perceived to be self-relevant. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Successful social communication requires accurate perception and maintenance of invariant (face identity) and variant (facial expression) aspects of faces. While numerous studies investigated how face identity and expression information is extracted from faces during perception, less is known about the temporal aspects of the face information during perception and working memory (WM) maintenance. To investigate how face identity and expression information evolve over time, I recorded electroencephalography (EEG) while participants were performing a face WM task where they remembered a face image and reported either the identity or the expression of the face image after a short delay. Using multivariate event-related potential (ERP) decoding analyses, I found that the two types of information exhibited dissociable temporal dynamics: Although face identity was decoded better than facial expression during perception, facial expression was decoded better than face identity during WM maintenance. Follow-up analyses suggested that this temporal dissociation was driven by differential maintenance mechanisms: Face identity information was maintained in a more "activity-silent" manner compared to facial expression information, presumably because invariant face information does not need to be actively tracked in the task. Together, these results provide important insights into the temporal evolution of face information during perception and WM maintenance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The own‐age bias (OAB) is suggested to be caused by perceptual‐expertise and/or social‐cognitive mechanisms. Bryce and Dodson (2013, Psychology and Aging, 28, 87, Exp 2) provided support for the social‐cognitive account, demonstrating an OAB for participants who encountered a mixed‐list of own‐ and other‐age faces, but not for participants who encountered a pure‐list of only own‐ or other‐age faces. They proposed that own‐age/other‐age categorization, and the resulting OAB, only emerge when age is made salient in the mixed‐list condition. Our study aimed to replicate this finding using methods typically used to investigate the OAB to examine their robustness and contribution to our understanding of how the OAB forms. Across three experiments that removed theoretically unimportant components of the original paradigm, varied face sex, and included background scenes, the OAB emerged under both mixed‐list and pure‐list conditions. These results are more consistent with a perceptual‐expertise than social‐cognitive account of the OAB, but may suggest that manipulating age salience using mixed‐list and pure‐list presentations is not sufficient to alter categorization processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]