Rhea Diamond

Why Faces Are and Are Not Special: An Effect of Expertise

Recognition memory for faces is hampered much more by inverted presentation than is memory for any other material so far examined. The present study demonstrates that faces are not unique with regard to this vulnerability to inversion. The experiments also attempt to isolate the source of the inversion effect. In one experiment, use of stimuli (landscapes) in which spatial relations among elements are potentially important distinguishing features is shown not to guarantee a large inversion effect. Two additional experiments show that for dog experts sufficiently knowledgeable to individuate dogs of the same breed, memory for photographs of dogs of that breed is as disrupted by inversion as is face recognition. A final experiment indicates that the effect of orientation on memory for faces does not depend on inability to identify single features of these stimuli upside down. These experiments are consistent with the view that experts represent items in memory in terms of distinguishing features of a different kind than do novices. Speculations as to the type of feature used and neuropsychological and developmental implications of this accomplishment are offered.

Are faces perceived as configurations more by adults than by children

Abstract Adult face recognition is severely hampered by stimulus inversion. Several investigators have attributed this vulnerability to the effect of orientation on encoding relational aspects of faces. Previous work has also demonstrated that children are less sensitive to orientation of faces than are adults. This has been interpreted as reflecting an increasing reliance on configural aspects of faces with increasing age and expertise. Young, Hellawell, and Hay (1987) demonstrated that for adults the encoding of relations among facial parts is, indeed, sensitive to orientation. When chimeric faces are upright, the top half of one face fuses with the bottom half of the other, making the person depicted in the top half difficult to recognize. This effect (the composite effect) is not seen when the faces are inverted. The present study obtained the composite effect for 6-year-old and 10-year-old children, just as for adults. The composite effect was found to an equal degree at all ages tested and was seen ...

Developmental changes in the representation of faces

Abstract Children from age 6 to 16 judged which of two photographs of unfamiliar faces showed the same person as an inspection photograph. Recognition accuracy improved markedly between ages 6 and 10 with little change thereafter. Six- and eight-year-old children were especially susceptible to error when certain disguises were provided, in both memory and simultaneous presentation conditions. In contrast, when the stimuli depicted familiar faces, six-year-old children made few errors and showed no susceptibility to confounding paraphernalia. We concluded that young children encode new faces in terms of striking, relatively isolated, features. By age 10 or 12 the adult capacity has emerged, enabling configurational representation of a face from very little exposure to it.

Upright and Inverted Faces: The Right Hemisphere Knows the Difference

The existence of a right hemisphere capacity, specific to upright faces was investigated. Upright and inverted faces, equally complex as patterns, were presented under lateralized tachistoscopic conditions to two groups of normal adult subjects. A significant orientation by visual field advantage was found. While there was a highly significant left visual field advantage for upright faces, the visual field difference for inverted faces failed to reach significane. This pattern of results supports the hypothesis that the right hemisphere is specialized for the perception of faces in particular, in addition to its specialization for the perception of visuospatial patterns in general.

Genetic influences on the development of spatial skills during early adolescence.

Abstract The course of development of skill at face encoding is disrupted in early adolescence. Evidence is provided that the timing of this disruption is under genetic control. Regardless of their age, girls in the midst of pubertal change encode faces less efficiently than prepubescent or postpubescent controls. This maturational influence on face encoding is contrasted with a different effect of pubertal development on another visuo-spatial ability, performance on the Embedded Figures Test (EFT). Regardless of their pubertal status at time of testing, girls who mature earlier are disadvantaged on EFT compared to those who mature later. The results for EFT replicate earlier findings on the relation between individual differences in the age at which adolescence begins and certain spatial skills. Several possible explanations for each of these effects—that of maturational status on face encoding and that of maturation rate on EFT—are discussed. Consideration of the relation between physical and mental growth is advocated as a source of constraints on explanations of cognitive development.

Development of voice recognition: Parallels with face recognition☆

Abstract Encoding and subsequent recognition of unfamiliar voices was examined in children, aged 6 to 16, and in adults. Performance changed markedly with age, improving sharply between ages 6 and 10, with 10-year-olds approaching adult levels. After age 10 accuracy declined significantly but returned to the adult level by age 14. The course of development closely matches that recently documented for the ability to encode and recognize unfamiliar faces. Several parallels between voice recognition and face recognition are discussed.

Contribution of Eye Movement to the Representation of Space

In a series of studies with kittens we have explored the way in which movements of the body come to be guided by visual information, a process that has been described as requiring the formation of a representation of visual space. These studies have indicated that the information incorporated in this representation is derived from visual feedback from self-produced movements. Visually coordinated behavior has been segregated into several components, each of which may be acquired separately, according to the opportunities for motor-visual feedback that are provided. However, the sequence of these acquisitions is constrained, in that information must be extracted from certain feedback loops before that available in others can be utilized.

Localization of targets by strabismic subjects: contrasting patterns in constant and alternating suppressors.

Strabismic subjects in whom vision in one eye is constantly suppressed localized targets at different points in space when using each eye. Whether they were esotropes or exotropes determined the relation between the two locations and the angle of their vergence error correlated with the magnitude of the interocular discrepancy. These relationships suggest that constant suppressors utilize information about posture of the dominant eye in reaching toward targets presented to the normally suppressed eye. Neither orthotropes nor strabismics in whom vision in each eye is alternately suppressed showed this anomaly. These results were attributed to differences in the way in which visual space is represented, an outcome of the pattern of use of the eyes during early development.

On the acquisition of pattern encoding skills

Abstract These experiments evaluated two potential sources of developmental changes in pattern encoding: advances at a perceptual level enabling better representation of the spatial relations among elements, and acquisition of metaperceptual knowledge supporting a deliberate search for distinguishing features. Children 6, 10, and 12 years old, as well as adults encoded high level distortions of random dot configurations. These materials were originally used by Posner and Keele (1968) . In the first experiment, subjects matched exemplars to their prototypes. In two other experiments, subjects learned to categorize distortions under two different training conditions—one designed to focus attention on individual exemplars, the other designed to facilitate comparison of exemplars within and across categories. Following training, subjects classified new instances into the learned categories. The same pattern of developmental change was found in the matching task and in the classification task: major gains between ages 6 and 12 and continued gains to adulthood. Several aspects of the results identify change at a perceptual level after age 10 as a source of this development, independent of possible contributions from metaperceptual advances.

Patterns of interocular transfer of visuomotor coordination reveal differences in the representation of visual space

Acquisition and interocular transfer of adaptation to optical transformations of input were examined in strabismic and orthotropic subjects. Distinct patterns of behavior were displayed by three groups: strabismic alternating suppressors, strabismic and orthotropic constant suppressors, and orthotropes with normal binocularity of vision. It is suggested that these behaviors result from the way in which visual space is represented in each group, an outcome of the pattern of use of the eyes during early development. The conditions for modification of the representation of visual space appear to parallel those for initial acquisition.