John W. Shepherd

Identification of Familiar and Unfamiliar Faces from Internal and External Features: Some Implications for Theories of Face Recognition

Three experiments are reported in which recognition of faces from whole faces or internal or external features was compared. In the first experiment, where the faces were of famous people, an advantage was found for identification from internal features. In the second experiment involving unfamiliar faces, however, no difference was found in recognition rates when subjects were given the internal or the external features. In a third experiment famous faces were presented and mixed with other famous faces for a recognition test. As in experiment 1, better recognition occurred from internal as compared with external features. It is argued that the internal representation for familiar faces may be qualitatively different from that for faces seen just once. In particular some advantage in feature saliency may accrue to the internal or ‘expressive’ features of familiar faces. The implications of these results are considered in relation to general theories of face perception and recognition.

Description of White and Black Faces by White and Black Subjects

Abstract A previous experiment by Shepherd, Deregowski and Ellis (1974) showed that white subjects are better at remembering white faces than black faces, and that black subjects are superior at recognizing black compared with white faces. The present experiment was designed to investigate the frequencies with which white and black subjects use different facial features when describing faces. It was found that black and white subjects did differ in their descriptions of faces, which was interpreted as reflecting differences in attention to the various aspects of facial detail. The difference in attention deployment is suggested as a possible basis for the earlier reported differences in recognition memory for white and black faces by white and black subjects.

Recognition of Upright and Inverted Faces Presented in the Left and Right Visual Fields

Pictures of upright and inverted faces were unilaterally presented in either the left or right visual field. Subsequent recognition performance was found to be superior for faces falling in the left visual field regardless of orientation. The results are discussed in relation to Yins (1970) ideas concerning a face-specific recognition system located in the right hemisphere.

The pitch of maternal voice: a comparison of mothers suffering from depressed mood and non-depressed mothers reading books to their infants

BACKGROUND Research suggests that storybook reading promotes language development and that there is a relationship between maternal affective responses in relation to infant affect and language development. The purpose of this study is to relate maternal paralinguistic and verbal behaviour during storybook reading to maternal mood state. METHOD Mothers (n = 32) reporting depressed mood (as measured by the Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale) were matched on age of baby (mean age = 6 months, mean age = 10 months), sex of baby, educational status of mother and parity with 32 non-depressed mothers. They were video- and audio-taped in their homes while reading a picture-book to their infants. Maternal textual and extra-textual utterances were transcribed and analysed in terms of mean length utterance (MLU), fundamental frequency and pitch modulation. RESULTS There was an interaction between psychological well being and age group with regard to MLU for text read. Non-depressed mothers had a smaller MLU for younger babies in comparison with older babies, while depressed mothers showed no difference in their MLU. There was a main effect of psychological well being with depressed mothers speaking with a higher mean pitch and more modulations in their pitch, in comparison with non-depressed mothers. Furthermore, there was a significant interaction of the psychological well being of the mother and the mean fundamental frequency used when reading the text and when speaking to their child during the picture-book session. CONCLUSIONS These differences in maternal speech indicate that mothers who are depressed are less attuned to their infants which might force the infant into self-regulatory patterns that eventually compromise the childs development.

Similarity effects in face recognition.

Three experiments are described which examine the effects of similarity on face recognition using a new application of hierarchical clustering analysis (HCS). Experiments I and II employed a within-groups design where subjects attempted to recognize targets among decoys from the same and different cluster to the target. Common cluster membership accounted for 72% and 84%, respectively, of all false alarms in the two experiments. Absolute error rates were affected by the number of targets actually present in the array and the style of the instructions given to subjects but were not influenced by whether successive or simultaneous test presentation was employed. Experiment III used a between-subject design where targets were embedded in arrays composed from same or different clusters. False alarm rates were significantly higher for the same cluster condition, but hit rates were unaffected by recognition context. The significance of these findings for theories of face identification is discussed.

The Effects of Source Credibility on the Dilution of Stereotype-Based Judgments

The present research investigated the relationship between stereotypical and individuating information in judgmental tasks. In particular, it was hypothesized that, in addition to considering the nature of the individuating information presented to subjects, it is also important to investigate how the credibility of the source of this information can affect stereotype dilution. Extending ideas from the literature on persuasion, the present results supported the prediction that subjects differentiate between high-and low-credibility sources only when they provide stereotype-disconfirming individuating information. They did not, however support the contention that stereotype dilution is invariably mediated by a reliance on the representativeness heuristic. These findings are considered in the wider context of cognitive approaches to stereotyping and stereotype change.

Masking of faces by facial and non-facial stimuli

Abstract A visual masking technique was used as a tool to study the recognition of well-known faces. Famous faces, but unknown masks were used. The visual relation between target and mask was varied; the effect was measured in terms of the thresholds for reports of “familiarity” and the ability to name the target. Three experiments are reported, all of which employed a backward-masking paradigm. The target and mask had equal display times, and there was no interstimulus interval. Significant masking was found with face masks but none from either object or noise masks. Intermediate levels of masking were found from faces that were inverted, jumbled, or had their inner features removed. The third experiment found that face masks that were similar to the targets had an effect equal to dissimilar ones. In all three experiments no interaction was found between the type of mask and the thresholds for the familiarity and naming criteria. The results are discussed in terms of information-processing models of face...

Sex Differences in the Perception of Rape Victims

The present study investigated the effects of victim characteristics on peoples perceptions of a rape incident. Subjects read an account of a rape incident in which the victim was described either as a virgin or as a sexually promiscuous woman. It was predicted that, because of the different attributional perspectives adopted by males and females when explaining a rape incident, the characteristics of the victim would influence the judgments of male subjects but not of female subjects. The results obtained supported this prediction.

Sex Differences in Eyewitness Reports of Criminal Assaults

This study examines the controversy regarding the presence of sex differences in eyewitness behaviour using data derived from 379 statements concerning 135 cases of real-life assaults. Two questions are considered: (1) is the presence of a sex difference dependent on the level of violence witnessed? And (2) is the presence of a sex difference dependent on the specific type of information reported? The results indicate that sex differences in eyewitnessing can be dependent upon both of these factors but that their effects appear to be more subtle than had been anticipated. The findings are discussed in the light of existing research, and recommendations for future research are considered.

Gaze direction and maternal pitch in surprise-eliciting situations

The purpose of this study was to test the hypothesis that not only do babies use emotional signals from adults in order to relate emotions to specific situations (e.g., Campos & Stenberg, 1981) but also that mothers seek out emotional information from their infants (Emde, 1992). Three groups of mothers and their infants, 3, 5 and 9 months old were video- and audio-taped, while playing in their homes with a soft toy and a remote-control Jack-in-the-box. During surprise-eliciting play with the Jack-in-the-box, maternal and infant gaze direction and their emotional expressions of surprise, pleasure, fear and neutral expressions were coded in three regions of the face. In addition, the mean fundamental frequency of maternal surprise-vocalisations was analysed. Maternal exclamations of surprise were compared with similar utterances of these mothers while playing with a soft toy as a baseline. During the surprise event, maternal and infant gaze directions as well as infant age were analysed in relation to maternal pitch. Results are discussed in terms of maternal use of the pitch of her voice to mark surprising situations, depending on the gaze-direction of the infant.