Face and object cognition across adult age.

Hildebrandt, Andrea; Wilhelm, Oliver; Herzmann, Grit; Sommer, Werner

doi:10.1037/a0031490

Cited by 40 publications

(40 citation statements)

References 42 publications

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“…Hildebrandt et al (2011) observed no dedifferentiation of individual differences in the latent constructs of face cognition as compared to general cognitive functioning. This finding was further substantiated in a subsequent study comparing object and face processing, in which only a slight dedifferentiation was observed, which was not specific for faces but operated on a more general cognitive level (Hildebrandt et al, 2013). In the present study, the behavioral ORB was equivalent between groups, although overall memory was reduced in low performers.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 61%

Preserved fine-tuning of face perception and memory: evidence from the own-race bias in high- and low-performing older adults

Komes

Schweinberger

Wiese

2014

Front. Aging Neurosci.

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Previous research suggests specific deficits in face perception and memory in older adults, which could reflect a dedifferentiation in the context of a general broadening of cognitive architecture with advanced age. Such dedifferentiation could manifest in a less specialized face processing system. A promising tool to investigate the fine-tuning of face processing in older age is the own-race bias (ORB), a phenomenon reflecting more accurate memory for own-relative to other-race faces, which is related to an expertise-based specialization of early perceptual stages. To investigate whether poor face memory in older age is accompanied by reduced expertise-based specialization of face processing, we assessed event-related brain potential correlates of the ORB in high- vs. low-performing older adults (mean age = 69 years; N = 24 per group). Intriguingly, both older groups demonstrated an equivalent pattern of a behavioral ORB, and a parallel increase in N170 for other-race faces, reflecting less efficient early perceptual processing for this face category. Group differences only emerged independent of face ethnicity: whereas low-performers exhibited a right-lateralized N170, high-performers showed a more bilateral response. This finding may suggest a compensatory mechanism counteracting age-related decline in face perception enabling more efficient encoding into memory in high performers. Overall, our results demonstrate that even a less efficient face processing system in older adults can exhibit preserved expertise-related specialization toward own-race faces.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 61%

Preserved fine-tuning of face perception and memory: evidence from the own-race bias in high- and low-performing older adults

Komes

Schweinberger

Wiese

2014

Front. Aging Neurosci.

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“…One study found a perfect correlation between the speed of face cognition and the speed of processing for emotional expressions, however the speed of face cognition factor correlated only moderately with object cognition speed [80]. More importantly, the other study showed that the speed measures of face cognition reflect the same ability as speed measures for objects [81]. The authors concluded that this ability captures the speed of processing complex visual stimuli.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Can Training Enhance Face Cognition Abilities in Middle-Aged Adults?

et al. 2014

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Face cognition is a crucial skill for social interaction and shows large individual differences in healthy adults, suggesting a possibility for improvement in some. We developed and tested specific training procedures for the accuracy of face memory and the speed of face cognition. Two groups each of 20 healthy middle-aged trainees practiced for 29 daily sessions of 15 minutes duration with different computerized home-based training procedures. In addition, 20 matched and 59 non-matched controls were included. Face cognition speed training enhanced performance during the training and transferred to the latent factor level as measured in a pre-post comparison. Persistence of the training effect was evidenced at the manifest level after three months. However, the training procedure influenced the speed of processing object stimuli to the same extent as face stimuli and therefore seems to have affected a more general ability of processing complex visual stimuli and not only faces. No effects of training on the accuracy of face memory were found. This study demonstrates that face-specific abilities may be hard to improve but also shows the plasticity of the speed of processing complex visual stimuli – for the first time in middle-aged, normal adults.

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“…As mentioned above, in LSEMs weights are used to treat context variables as continuous variables instead of creating artificial categories. The statistical procedures for defining the bandwidth of the kernel function, calculating the weights for every focal point and rescaling of the weights have been described elsewhere (Hildebrandt, Sommer, Herzmann, & Wilhelm, 2010;Hildebrandt, Wilhelm, Herzmann, & Sommer, 2013;Hildebrandt et al, 2009;Hülür et al, 2011). Note that weighted models could not be calculated for focal points at the very edges of the distribution of the context variable because estimation for each focal point requires a sufficient number of cases below and above that focal point (symmetrical weighting).…”

Section: Statistical Analysesmentioning

confidence: 99%