scholarly journals Measurement of individual differences in face-identity processing abilities in older adults

2021 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Isabelle Boutet ◽  
Bozana Meinhardt-Injac
Keyword(s):  
Older Adults ◽  
Face Processing ◽  
Cognitive Abilities ◽  
Memory Task ◽  
Matching Task ◽  
Face Memory ◽  
Face Identity ◽  
Face Matching ◽  
Processing Abilities ◽  
Identity Processing

Abstract Background Face-identity processing declines with age. Few studies have examined whether face-identity processing abilities can be measured independently from general cognitive abilities in older adults (OA). This question has practical implications for the assessment of face-identity processing abilities in OA and theoretical implications for the notion of face processing as a specific ability. The present study examined the specificity of face memory and face matching abilities in OA aged 50 + . Methods Performance of younger adults (YA) and OA was measured on face tasks: Cambridge Face Memory Task (CFMT), the Glasgow Face Matching Task (GFMT), holistic processing; and tasks of general cognition: fluid intelligence, selective attention, and mental rotation. Data were analyzed using multiple regression models encompassing (i) the CFMT/GFMT and measures of general cognition; and (ii) all face processing tasks. Results Across the two age groups, models encompassing all face tasks were significant and accounted for more variance in the data than models encompassing the CFMT/GFMT and measures of general cognition. General cognitive abilities accounted for 17% of variance for the GFMT (p < 0.01) and 3% for the CFMT (p > 0.05). Discussion Our results suggest that face memory can be measured independently from general cognition using the CFMT in OA. Implications for the notion of a general face processing factor across the adult lifespan are discussed.

scholarly journals The positive relationship between face identification and facial emotion perception ability extends to super-recognisers

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Linda Ali ◽  
Josh P Davis
Keyword(s):  
Theoretical Perspective ◽  
Emotion Perception ◽  
Common Mechanism ◽  
Face Identification ◽  
Large Individual ◽  
Face Memory ◽  
Face Identity ◽  
Face Matching ◽  
Identity Processing ◽  
Typical Range

Large individual differences in face identification ability and face emotion perception ability correlate in the neurotypical population. The current study recruited a large sample of participants aged 18-70-years (n = 687). The sample included super-recognisers with exceptional face identity processing skills (n = 74) to determine whether the relationship extends to the top of the ability spectrum. Participants completed one short-term face memory test, a simultaneous face matching test, and two face emotion perception tests. Face memory and face matching scores were moderately positively correlated with each other, and with total scores on the two face emotion perception tests. Super-recognisers outperformed typical-range ability controls at the perception of anger, fear, happy, and neutral, but not disgust or sadness. Identity processing and emotion perception accuracy across the whole sample was influenced by gender and age. From a theoretical perspective, these results demonstrate that correlations found between typical-range ability participants also extend to the top end of the face identification spectrum, implying that a common mechanism may drive performance. Practically, super-recognisers possessing superior face identity processing and emotion perception might enhance the performance of organisations such as police forces or security that rely on these attributes in their staff.

Face Processing Changes in Normal Aging Revealed by fMRI Adaptation

2011 ◽  
Vol 23 (11) ◽  
pp. 3433-3447 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yunjo Lee ◽  
Cheryl L. Grady ◽  
Claudine Habak ◽  
Hugh R. Wilson ◽  
Morris Moscovitch
Keyword(s):  
Older Adults ◽  
Young Adults ◽  
Multivariate Analysis ◽  
Face Processing ◽  
Healthy Aging ◽  
Matching Task ◽  
High Performing ◽  
Facial Identity ◽  
The Core ◽  
Face Matching

We investigated the neural correlates of facial processing changes in healthy aging using fMRI and an adaptation paradigm. In the scanner, participants were successively presented with faces that varied in identity, viewpoint, both, or neither and performed a head size detection task independent of identity or viewpoint. In right fusiform face area (FFA), older adults failed to show adaptation to the same face repeatedly presented in the same view, which elicited the most adaptation in young adults. We also performed a multivariate analysis to examine correlations between whole-brain activation patterns and behavioral performance in a face-matching task tested outside the scanner. Despite poor neural adaptation in right FFA, high-performing older adults engaged the same face-processing network as high-performing young adults across conditions, except the one presenting a same facial identity across different viewpoints. Low-performing older adults used this network to a lesser extent. Additionally, high-performing older adults uniquely recruited a set of areas related to better performance across all conditions, indicating age-specific involvement of this added network. This network did not include the core ventral face-processing areas but involved the left inferior occipital gyrus, frontal, and parietal regions. Although our adaptation results show that the neuronal representations of the core face-preferring areas become less selective with age, our multivariate analysis indicates that older adults utilize a distinct network of regions associated with better face matching performance, suggesting that engaging this network may compensate for deficiencies in ventral face processing regions.

scholarly journals The Oxford Face Matching Test: A Non-Biased Test of The Full Range of Individual Differences in Face Perception

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mirta Stantic ◽  
Rebecca Brewer ◽  
Brad Duchaine ◽  
Michael J. Banissy ◽  
Sarah Bate ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Individual Differences ◽  
Face Perception ◽  
Face Processing ◽  
Item Difficulty ◽  
Full Range ◽  
Autism Spectrum ◽  
Face Memory ◽  
Face Matching ◽  
Matching Test ◽  
Processing Abilities

Tests of face processing are typically designed to identify individuals performing outside of the typical range; either prosopagnosic individuals who exhibit poor face processing ability, or super recognisers, who have superior face processing abilities. Here we describe the development of the Oxford Face Matching Test (OFMT), designed to identify individual differences in face processing across the full range of performance, from prosopagnosia, through the range of typical performance, to super recognisers. Such a test requires items of varying difficulty, but establishing difficulty is problematic when particular populations (e.g. prosopagnosics, individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder) may use atypical strategies to process faces. If item difficulty is calibrated on neurotypical individuals, then the test may be poorly calibrated for atypical groups, and vice versa. To obtain items of varying difficulty we used facial recognition algorithms to obtain face pair similarity ratings that are not biased towards specific populations. These face pairs were used as stimuli in the OFMT, and participants required to judge if the face images depicted the same individual or different individuals. Across five studies the OFMT was shown to be sensitive to individual differences in the typical population, and in groups of both prosopagnosic individuals and super recognisers. The test-retest reliability of the task was at least equivalent to the Cambridge Face Memory Test and the Glasgow Face Matching Test. Furthermore, results reveal, at least at the group level, that both face perception and face memory are poor in those with prosopagnosia, and good in super recognisers.

scholarly journals The Oxford Face Matching Test: A non-biased test of the full range of individual differences in face perception

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mirta Stantic ◽  
Rebecca Brewer ◽  
Bradley Duchaine ◽  
Michael J. Banissy ◽  
Sarah Bate ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Individual Differences ◽  
Face Perception ◽  
Face Processing ◽  
Item Difficulty ◽  
Full Range ◽  
Autism Spectrum ◽  
Face Memory ◽  
Face Matching ◽  
Matching Test ◽  
Processing Abilities

AbstractTests of face processing are typically designed to identify individuals performing outside of the typical range; either prosopagnosic individuals who exhibit poor face processing ability, or super recognisers, who have superior face processing abilities. Here we describe the development of the Oxford Face Matching Test (OFMT), designed to identify individual differences in face processing across the full range of performance, from prosopagnosia, through the range of typical performance, to super recognisers. Such a test requires items of varying difficulty, but establishing difficulty is problematic when particular populations (e.g., prosopagnosics, individuals with autism spectrum disorder) may use atypical strategies to process faces. If item difficulty is calibrated on neurotypical individuals, then the test may be poorly calibrated for atypical groups, and vice versa. To obtain items of varying difficulty, we used facial recognition algorithms to obtain face pair similarity ratings that are not biased towards specific populations. These face pairs were used as stimuli in the OFMT, and participants were required to judge whether the face images depicted the same individual or different individuals. Across five studies the OFMT was shown to be sensitive to individual differences in the typical population, and in groups of both prosopagnosic individuals and super recognisers. The test-retest reliability of the task was at least equivalent to the Cambridge Face Memory Test and the Glasgow Face Matching Test. Furthermore, results reveal, at least at the group level, that both face perception and face memory are poor in those with prosopagnosia, and are good in super recognisers.

scholarly journals The worldwide public impact of identifying super-recognisers for police and business

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Josh P Davis
Keyword(s):  
Face Processing ◽  
Wide Spectrum ◽  
Human Face ◽  
Short Term ◽  
Human Face Recognition ◽  
Face Memory ◽  
Face Matching ◽  
Recognition Ability ◽  
Performance Patterns

Super-recognisers occupy the extreme top end of a wide spectrum of human face recognition ability. Although test scores provide evidence of super-recognisers’ quantitative superiority, their abilities may be driven by qualitatively different cognitive or neurological mechanisms. Some super-recognisers scoring exceptionally highly on multiple short-term face memory tests do not achieve superior performances on measures of simultaneous face matching, long term face memory and/or spotting faces in a crowd. Heterogeneous performance patterns have implications for police, security or business aiming to utilise super-recognisers’ superior skills. Drawing on a global participant base (n ≈ 6,000,000), as well as theory and empirical research, this paper describes the background, development, and employment of tests designed to measure four components of superior face processing to assist in recruitment and deployment decisions.

scholarly journals Enhanced Peripheral Face Processing in Deaf Individuals †

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kassandra R. Lee ◽  
Elizabeth Groesbeck ◽  
O. Scott Gwinn ◽  
Michael A. Webster ◽  
Fang Jiang
Keyword(s):  
Visual Field ◽  
American Sign Language ◽  
Face Processing ◽  
Matching Task ◽  
Visual Features ◽  
Central Visual Field ◽  
Subsequent Increase ◽  
Attentional Resources ◽  
Complex Stimuli ◽  
Processing Abilities

Studies of compensatory changes in visual functions in response to auditory loss have shown that enhancements tend to be restricted to the processing of specific visual features, such as motion in the periphery. Previous studies have also shown that deaf individuals can show greater face processing abilities in the central visual field. Enhancements in the processing of peripheral stimuli are thought to arise from a lack of auditory input and subsequent increase in the allocation of attentional resources to peripheral locations, while enhancements in face processing abilities are thought to be driven by experience with American sign language and not necessarily hearing loss. This combined with the fact that face processing abilities typically decline with eccentricity suggests that face processing enhancements may not extend to the periphery for deaf individuals. Using a face matching task, the authors examined whether deaf individuals’ enhanced ability to discriminate between faces extends to the peripheral visual field. Deaf participants were more accurate than hearing participants in discriminating faces presented both centrally and in the periphery. Their results support earlier findings that deaf individuals possess enhanced face discrimination abilities in the central visual field and further extend them by showing that these enhancements also occur in the periphery for more complex stimuli.

scholarly journals Within-person variability promotes learning of internal facial features and facilitates perceptual discrimination and memory

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elliott Robins ◽  
Tirta Susilo ◽  
Kay L. Ritchie ◽  
Christel Devue
Keyword(s):  
Face Processing ◽  
Recognition Performance ◽  
Recognition Task ◽  
High Variability ◽  
Matching Task ◽  
Facial Features ◽  
Perceptual Discrimination ◽  
Robust Learning ◽  
Face Matching ◽  
Large Benefit

Recent research indicates that exposure to within-person variability is essential for developing robust representations of new faces. For example, people perform better on a face matching task after exposure to highly variable photos, compared to less variable photos. However, the specific aspects of face processing that benefit from variability remain unclear. We investigated whether within-person variability improves the ability to match and recognise individual faces, and whether it promotes learning of internal facial features. In one exploratory and one confirmatory experiments, we tested matching and recognition performance of participants after they learned 4 individual faces in a high variability condition and another 4 in a low variability condition. Further, to assess if variability promotes robust learning of invariant facial features (e.g., eyes, nose), we compared performance with and without external facial features (full headshots vs cropped images showing only internal features). We found a large benefit of variability in the recognition task, and a smaller effect on the matching task, but the size of the benefit was comparable with and without the presence of external features. Therefore, within-person variability improves a variety of face recognition skills, and it encourages the encoding of internal facial features.

scholarly journals Dissociable patterns of medial prefrontal and amygdala activity to face identity versus emotion in bipolar disorder

2012 ◽  
Vol 42 (9) ◽  
pp. 1913-1924 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. T. Keener ◽  
J. C. Fournier ◽  
B. C. Mullin ◽  
D. Kronhaus ◽  
S. B. Perlman ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Bipolar Disorder ◽  
Face Processing ◽  
Emotion Processing ◽  
Social Function ◽  
Neural Circuitry ◽  
Happy Face ◽  
Face Identity ◽  
Facial Identity ◽  
Amygdala Activity ◽  
Identity Processing

BackgroundIndividuals with bipolar disorder demonstrate abnormal social function. Neuroimaging studies in bipolar disorder have shown functional abnormalities in neural circuitry supporting face emotion processing, but have not examined face identity processing, a key component of social function. We aimed to elucidate functional abnormalities in neural circuitry supporting face emotion and face identity processing in bipolar disorder.MethodTwenty-seven individuals with bipolar disorder I currently euthymic and 27 healthy controls participated in an implicit face processing, block-design paradigm. Participants labeled color flashes that were superimposed on dynamically changing background faces comprising morphs either from neutral to prototypical emotion (happy, sad, angry and fearful) or from one identity to another identity depicting a neutral face. Whole-brain and amygdala region-of-interest (ROI) activities were compared between groups.ResultsThere was no significant between-group difference looking across both emerging face emotion and identity. During processing of all emerging emotions, euthymic individuals with bipolar disorder showed significantly greater amygdala activity. During facial identity and also happy face processing, euthymic individuals with bipolar disorder showed significantly greater amygdala and medial prefrontal cortical activity compared with controls.ConclusionsThis is the first study to examine neural circuitry supporting face identity and face emotion processing in bipolar disorder. Our findings of abnormally elevated activity in amygdala and medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) during face identity and happy face emotion processing suggest functional abnormalities in key regions previously implicated in social processing. This may be of future importance toward examining the abnormal self-related processing, grandiosity and social dysfunction seen in bipolar disorder.

scholarly journals Face processing in police service: the relationship between laboratory-based assessment of face processing abilities and performance in a real-world identity matching task

2021 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Markus M. Thielgen ◽  
Stefan Schade ◽  
Carolin Bosé
Keyword(s):  
Individual Differences ◽  
Task Performance ◽  
Real World ◽  
Face Processing ◽  
Police Officers ◽  
Theoretical Perspective ◽  
Matching Task ◽  
False Alarms ◽  
Service Experience ◽  
Processing Abilities

AbstractIn the present study, we investigated whether police officers’ performance in searching for unfamiliar faces in a video-based real-world task is predicted by laboratory-based face processing tests that are typically used to assess individual differences in face processing abilities. Specifically, perceptual performance in the field was operationalized via the identification of target individuals in self-made close-circuit television (CCTV) video tapes. Police officers’ abilities in the laboratory were measured by the Cambridge Face Memory Test long form (CFMT+). We hypothesized that the CFMT+ predicts individual differences in the CCTV task performance. A total of N = 186 police officers of the Rhineland-Palatinate State Police participated in the study (i.e., N = 139 novice and advanced cadets with either 3 months, 15 months or 24 months of pre-service experience; N = 47 experienced police officers with three years of pre-service experience and at least two years of full-service experience, who participated in the assessment center of the special police forces, specifically the surveillance and technical unit). Results revealed that the CFMT+ explained variance in the CCTV task. In sample 1, CFMT+ scores predicted hits, but not false alarms. In contrast, in sample 2, CFMT+ scores were correlated with both hits and false alarms. From a theoretical perspective, we discuss factors that might explain CCTV task performance. From a practical perspective, we recommend that personnel selection processes investigating individual differences of police officers’ face processing abilities should comprise of two steps. At first, laboratory-based tests of face processing abilities should be applied. Subsequently, to validate laboratory-based individual differences in face processing abilities, we recommend that work samples such as CCTV tasks from the field should be added.

Exploring Levels of Face Familiarity by Using an Indirect Face-Matching Measure

Perception ◽  
10.1068/p3335 ◽  
2002 ◽  
Vol 31 (8) ◽  
pp. 985-994 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ruth Clutterbuck ◽  
Robert A Johnston
Keyword(s):  
Face Processing ◽  
Matching Task ◽  
Indirect Measure ◽  
Face Matching ◽  
External Feature ◽  
Unfamiliar Face ◽  
Matching Performance ◽  
Unfamiliar Faces

An experiment is reported in which participants matched complete images of unfamiliar, moderately familiar, and highly familiar faces with simultaneously presented images of internal and external features. Participants had to decide if the two images depicted same or different individuals. Matches to internal features were made faster to highly familiar faces than both to moderately familiar and to unfamiliar faces, and matches to moderately familiar faces were made faster than to unfamiliar faces. For external feature matches, this advantage was only found for “different” decision matches to highly familiar faces compared to unfamiliar faces. The results indicate that the differences in familiar and unfamiliar face processing are not the result of all-or-none effects, but seem to have a graded impact on matching performance. These findings extend the earlier work of Young et al (1985 Perception14 737–746), and we discuss the possibility of using the matching task as an indirect measure of face familiarity.

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