Perceptual learning in face processing: Comparison facilitates face recognition

Abstract

Theoretical analyses of perceptual learning suggest that comparison between similar stimuli aids subsequent discrimination between them. The current studies examined whether the opportunity to compare a target face to other similar faces during a preexposure phase facilitated performance on a matching task. Performance was better when the target face had been presented in alternation with similar comparator faces than if that target had not been exposed before test. Exposure to the target face without comparators, or exposure alternating with dissimilar faces, improved performance relative to the nonexposed control but performance was not as good as when target exposure was given in alternation to similar comparison faces. The effects were not influenced by image changes between exposure and test. It is suggested that exposure to a face in comparison to similar stimuli focuses the central representation of a face on its unique features. In practical terms these results suggest that reliable identification of an individual from their photograph would be improved by viewing that photograph in comparison with photographs of similar people.

Keywords:

• Perceptual learning
• Faces
• Adaptation
• Identification
• Applied

Acknowledgments

This work was funded by a grant to D.D. from the British Economic and Social Research Council (RES-000–22–1190).

Notes

¹ Interestingly, the fact that people show deficits in recognition memory when faces from another race are used (for a review of this other-race effect see Meissner & Brigham 2001) has been cited as an example of perceptual learning (e.g., Valentine et al., 1995). While the other-race effect reflects the amount of contact with different race faces it may be mainly the exposure to a particular category or class of faces that is important. The current experiments focus on how exposure to individual faces affects their subsequent identification, and so the mechanisms explored here may not be directly relevant to those underpinning the other-race effect.