We report normative data from a large (N=307) sample of young adult participants tested with a computerized version of the long form of the classical Benton Facial Recognition Test (BFRT; Benton & Van Allen, 1968). The BFRT-c requires to match a target face photograph to one or three of 6 face photographs simultaneously presented. Percent accuracy at the BFRT-c (81%-83%) is below ceiling yet well above chance level, with little interindividual variance in this typical population sample, as expected from a sensitive clinical test. While split-half reliability on accuracy rates is relatively low due to the large variability in difficulty across items, correct response times (RTs) measured in this version – completed in 3 minutes on average - provide a reliable and critical complementary measure of performance at individual unfamiliar face matching. In line with previous observations from other measures, females outperform male participants at the BFRT-c, especially for female faces. In general, performance is also lower following lighting changes than head rotations, in line with previous studies emphasizing limited ability at matching pictures of unfamiliar faces with important variations in lighting direction. Overall, this normative data set supports the validity of the BFRT-c as a key component of a battery of tests identifying clinical impairments at individual face recognition such as observed in acquired prosopagnosia. However, beyond global indexes of performance based on accuracy rates only, this analysis strongly recommends full consideration of the time taken to match individual faces as well as the variability in performance across items.
Developmental prosopagnosia and the Benton Facial Recognition Test
