Gender differences in face recognition: The role of holistic processing

ABSTRACT

Previous studies have found a female advantage in face recognition ability. The present study sought to replicate this finding in a large sample of 343 Danish psychology students using the Cambridge Face Memory Test (CFMT) and the Cambridge Face Perception Test (CFPT). Furthermore, we examined whether a potential female advantage could be explained by more efficient holistic processing indexed by the face inversion effect: a disproportionately larger effect of inversion on face than object processing (dFIE). Here we used the Cambridge Car Memory Test (CCMT) as the control task with cars as the object category. In accordance with previous studies, the results showed a female advantage in face processing both on the CFMT and the CFPT. No gender difference in the dFIE was found, however, indicating that more efficient holistic processing does not underlie the female advantage in face recognition.

KEYWORDS:

• Face recognition
• gender differences
• holistic processing
• CFMT
• CFPT

Acknowledgements

We want to thank Carina Louise Kristensen and Oliver Henriks for their input to the discussions that led up to this paper.

Disclosure statement

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

Data availability statement

The authors confirm that the data supporting the findings of this study are available within the article and its supplementary materials.