A multinomial modelling approach to face identity recognition during instructed threat

ABSTRACT

To organise future behaviour, it is important to remember both the central and contextual aspects of a situation. We examined the impact of contextual threat or safety, learned through verbal instructions, on face identity recognition. In two studies (N = 140), 72 face–context compounds were presented each once within an encoding session, and an unexpected item/source recognition task was performed afterwards (including 24 new faces). Hierarchical multinomial processing tree modelling served to estimate individual parameters of item (face identity) and source memory (threat or safety context) as well as guessing behaviour. Results show that language was highly effective in establishing threatening and safe context conditions. In Study 1, a fleeting picture stream (1 s per picture) led to poor item and source recognition. Prolonged presentation times (Study 2 with 6 s per picture) improved face memory but no contextual modulation was observed. Thus, incidental face learning was surprisingly poor and rapidly changing contextual settings might have interfered with the accurate encoding of face identity information and item–source binding.

KEYWORDS:

• Face identity recognition
• threat-of-shock
• incidental learning
• item–source memory
• multinomial processing tree model (MPT)

Acknowledgements

We are grateful to Franziska Metzger and Max Frank for their help with data collection. This research was supported by the German Research Foundation (DFG) grants to Florian Bublatzky (BU 3255/1-1 and BU 3255/1-2).

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 While the category “threat context” is distinct, there are eight possible ways to recode the data. We recoded the data using alternative coding schemes and compared their results with the primary coding scheme. There were no apparent discrepancies when comparing the results of the alternate coding schemes to the primary coding scheme.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft [Grant Number BU 3255/1-1,BU 3255/1-2].