Access to semantic and episodic information from faces and voices: Does distinctiveness matter?

Abstract

This study was aimed at investigating the role of stimulus distinctiveness on the retrieval of semantic and episodic information from familiar faces and voices. Distinctiveness of famous faces and voices was manipulated in order to assess its role as a potential underlying factor of face superiority. In line with previous findings, more semantic and episodic information was retrieved from faces than from voices. Semantic information was better retrieved from distinctive than from typical stimuli. Nevertheless, distinctiveness seemed to impact less than stimulus domain on the recall of semantic details. Indeed, more semantic information was retrieved from typical faces than from distinctive voices. The consistency of these results with current models of person recognition is discussed.

Keywords:

• Face
• Voice
• Distinctiveness
• Person recognition

Acknowledgments

CB is funded by the Belgian National Fund of Scientific Research (FRS-FNRS) as an FRS-FNRS Research Fellow. The authors would like to thank Timo Mäntylä and two anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments and suggestions on an earlier version of this paper.