Hits and false positives in face matching: A familiarity-based dissociation

Abstract

In recognition memory for unfamiliar faces, performance for target-present items (hits) does not correlate with performance for target-absent items (false positives), a result which runs counter to the more usual mirror effect. In this paper we examinesubjects' performance on fac e matching, a nd demonstrate no relationship-between performance on matching items and performance on nonmatching items. This absence of a mirror effect occurs for multidistractor, 1-in-10 matching tasks (Experiment 1) and for simple paired-item tasks (Experiment 2). In Experiment 3 we demonstrate that matching familiar faces produces a strong mirror effect. However, inverting the familiar faces causes the association to disappear once more (Experiment 4). We argue thatfamiliar and unfamiliar faces are represented in qualitatively different ways.

Matching Face Images Taken on the Same Day or Months Apart: the Limitations of Photo ID

“…Indeed, Jenkins et al (2011) found that the familiarity with faces involved in the card sorting task made it trivial. This further supports the dissociation between familiar and unfamiliar face processing (e.g., see Megreya & Burton, 2006b;2007).…”

“…However, the level of performance was very low, with error rates of roughly 30% in both target-present and target-absent line-ups. Poor performance on this 1-in-10 face-matching task has now been replicated many times using a range of stimuli (Bindemann, Sandford, Gillatt, Avetisyan, & Megreya, 2012;Davies & Thasen, 2000;Konar, Bennett, & Sekuler, 2010;Megreya & Bindemann, in press;Megreya & Burton, 2006a&b;2007;Megreya, White, & Burton, 2011).…”

Stable face representations

“…Familiarity does not merely improve performance-it completely transforms the task. This stark contrast in performance accords with neuropsychological and behavioural evidence for qualitative differences between unfamiliar and familiar face perception, including evidence from skin conductance studies [34][35][36][37], neuropsychological double dissociations [38 -40], visual short-term memory capacity [41], analysis of information use [42] and individual differences [24,43].…”

Face Recognition Difficulties in Children: Hits and/or Correct Rejections?

“…This contrast supports the independence of hits and correct rejections that was frequently reported in several face processing studies [6][7][8]. In addition, it has been attributed to a key difference between face recognition and eyewitness identification tasks [4].…”