James C. Bartlett

INVERSION AND PROCESSING OF COMPONENT AND SPATIAL-RELATIONAL INFORMATION IN FACES

: This study compared effects of inversion on perceptual processing of faces with distorted components (eyes and mouths) and faces distorted by altering spatial relations between components. In a rating task, participants inversion reduced the rated grotesqueness of spatially distorted faces but not that of faces with altered components. In a comparison task, pairs of faces were shown side by side; participants judged whether they were identical or different. Inversion greatly reduced the rate at which participants responded within 3 s to pairs that differed spatially, but not pairs that differed componentially. Also, latencies for detecting spatial differences were lengthened by inversion more than latencies for detecting componential differences. Results support the hypothesis that inversion impairs encoding of spatial-relational information more than, or instead of, componential information, depending on the task.

Recognition of transposed melodies: A key-distance effect in developmental perspective

Four experiments examined the possibility of a key-distance effect in a transposition detection task. Subjects heard standard melodies followed by comparison melodies presented in the same key, a musically near key or a musically far key. The task was to recognize comparisons that were exact transpositions of the standards, rejecting nontranspositions. Results suggested a largely invariant key-distance effect with nontransposition comparisons (lures); same- and near-key lures evoked more false alarms than far-key lures. The variables of musical experience, age of subject, and familiarity of melody affected the level of transposition-recognition performance but did not consistently affect the size of the key-distance effect. The results support the psychological reality of key distance and are consistent with both musical and nonmusical-auditory theories of its effects. The key-distance effect was not found with transposition comparisons (targets), a result with implications for the separability of key and interval information in short-term memory for melodies.

Aging and memory for faces versus single views of faces

Differences in the ability of young adults and elderly to recognize faces were examined under two conditions. In a standard single-view condition, in which each input face was shown as one photograph, we confirmed prior findings that young adults perform better than the elderly at distinguishing photographs seen before from photographs of new faces. We also found that the elderly had more trouble distinguishing photographs seen before from photographs of(l) old faces changed in facial expression and (2) old faces changed in expression and pose. Yet there were no reliable age differences in distinguishing old-but-changed faces from entirely new faces. In a more naturalistic multi-view condition, in which each input face was shown in four poses and with two expressions, no age differences were found. A second experiment ruled out the possibility that varied repetition, by itself, removes age differences in recognizing faces. These data supported age differences in remembering facial expressions and possibly other details of photographs of faces, but not in remembering faces perse.

Age differences in accuracy and choosing in eyewitness identification and face recognition

Studies of aging and face recognition show age-related increases in false recognitions of new faces. To explore implications of this false alarm effect, we had young and senior adults perform (1) three eyewitness identification tasks, using both target present and target absent lineups, and (2) an old/new recognition task in which a study list of faces was followed by a test including old and new faces, along with conjunctions of old faces. Compared with the young, seniors had lower accuracy and higher choosing rates on the lineups, and they also falsely recognized more new faces on the recognition test. However, after screening for perceptual processing deficits, there was no age difference in false recognition of conjunctions, or in discriminating old faces from conjunctions. We conclude that the false alarm effect generalizes to lineup identification, but does not extend to conjunction faces. The findings are consistent with age-related deficits in recollection of context and relative age invariance in perceptual integrative processes underlying the experience of familiarity.

Typicality and familiarity of faces

We examined context-free familiarity information as a source of the effects of face typicality upon face recognition. Experiment 1 tested memory for typical and unusual faces by (1) subjects who received an input list followed immediately by a recognition test (standard condition), (2) subjects who viewed all test faces (targets and lures) prior to the input list (prefamiliarization condition), and (3) subjects who viewed all test faces after the input list but prior to recognition (postfamiliarization condition). Although false-alarm errors in the standard condition were lower for unusual than for typical faces, this effect was reduced by postfamiliarization and was eliminated entirely by prefamiliarization. The prefamiliarization and typicality effects were replicated in Experiment 2, which showed that patterns of old judgments were compatible with the hypothesis that, although familiarity of new faces is greater if these faces are typical, the increment in familiarity that results from presentation is greater if these faces are unusual.

Familiarity and recognition of faces in old age

Elderly persons exceed young adults in false recognitions of new faces. One account claims there are age-related deficits in memory for context of encounter with faces. Because of these deficits, elderly persons frequently recognize faces on the basis of perceived familiarity (i.e., resemblance to face representations in memory), which is high for some new faces. To test this context-recollection hypothesis, we had young adult and elderly subjects judge whether faces: (1) had been seen previously in a test (though no face was repeated), and (2) were subjectively familiar (though no face was famous). The elderly exceeded the young subjects inseen-before judgments (false recognitions), and only the elderly showed a positive correlation between false recognitions and subjective familiarity. In Experiment 2, this finding was extended from false recognitions to correct recognitions, supporting the view that elderly persons, compared to young adults, rely more on resemblance in recognizing faces.

False recency and false fame of faces in young adulthood and old age.

Studies of age differences in face recognition have shown age-related increases in false-alarm errors: elderly persons exceed young adults in judging new faces to be old. To distinguish among theoretical accounts of this finding, we compared young and elderly subjects in two recognition tasks: (1) that of judging whether faces were recent or nonrecent, and (2) that of judging whether faces were famous or nonfamous. The major independent variable was prior presentation of faces—including nonrecent and nonfamous foils—1 week before the test. Falserecent judgments in response to nonrecent faces and falsefamous judgments in response to nonfamous faces were higher among the elderly. Moreover, these age-related differences in false-alarm rates were larger for faces viewed 1 week previously than for entirely new faces. The findings suggest that, compared to young adults, older individuals rely relatively more on perceived familiarity, and relatively less on recollection of context, in making recognition decisions.

Aging and memory for pictures of faces.

The hypothesis that pictorial aspects of face-recognition memory are lower in old age was tested in 2 studies. Young and elderly Ss viewed 48 face pictures, and then took a test containing identical copies of input faces, pictorially changed versions of input faces, and entirely new faces. Replicating prior findings, Experiment 1 showed that false recognitions of entirely new faces were higher among elderly Ss. However, there were no age differences in distinguishing identical from pictorially changed faces. Using a modified test, Experiment 2 showed that although the elderly Ss had good knowledge that changed faces were changed, they had relatively poor knowledge of how they were changed. There appears to be age differences in analytical matching of pictorial information against information in memory.

Lifespan Memory for Popular Songs

Middle-aged and elderly subjects heard melodyand title-cues for popular songs dating from 1921 to 1974. Subjects made familiarity and time-ofpopularity judgments, and, when a cue was recognized, they attempted lyric recall and estimated when the song was last heard. Two findings indicate that performance was based on very long term memory: Middle-aged subjects made relatively few recognition responses to songs from the twenties and thirties (when they were unborn or very young) while older subjects did not show this trend, and the last-heard judgments of all subjects were highly correlated with actual year-of-popularity. The major findings were that (a) cued recall of lyrics was higher in response to melodies than in response to titles, while temporal judgments showed no effect of cue and (b) temporal placement of a song was more accurate when recognized than when not recognized, even when lyrics were not recalled. The results suggest that accurate lifespan memory for popular songs exists, and that temporal judgments are based on episodic memory for information at least partially independent of lyric representations.

Simulating the ‘Other-race Effect’ as a Problem in Perceptual Learning

We report a series of simulations on the well-known ‘other-race effect’. We trained an autoassociative network on a majority and a minority race of faces, and tested the models ability to process ...