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.

Unlike older children and adults, children of less than about 10 years of age remember photographs of faces presented upside down almost as well as those shown upright and are easily fooled by simple disguises. The development at age 10 of the ability to encode orientation-specific configurational aspects of a face may reflect completion of certain maturational changes in the right cerebral hemisphere.

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In these studies we assessed development between ages 6 and 16 of the ability to encode unfamiliar faces. Performance improved markedly between ages 6 and 10 and then remained at a fixed level or actually declined for several years, finally improving again by age 16. Evidence is provided that this distinctive developmental course reflects, in part, acquisition of processes specific to the encoding effaces rather than general pattern encoding or metamemorial skills. The possibility that maturational factors contribute to the developmental course efface recognition is raised, and two sources of data relevant to assessing this possibility are discussed.Normal adults have a prodigious capacity for making new faces familiar. Whether one's high school class contained 90 or 800 people, approximately 90% of those classmates are recognized 35 years after graduation (Bahrick, Bahrick, & Wittlinger, 1975). Less dramatically, laboratory studies have shown that very brief exposure to previously unfamiliar faces permits subjects to distinguish those faces from new ones at a later time. The level of performance remains high across inspection sets that range in size from 20 to 72

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