Title:
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Individual differences in recognition memory for faces
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Contemporary research on human memory has tended to disregard individual
differences (Eysenck, 1977, 1983; Sternberg & French, 1990). However, there seems to be no
empirical justification for this practice, especially in experimental situations where the stimuli
that are used are 'socially relevant'. Human faces constitute one such category. Although there
is strong evidence which suggests that people differ substantially in their ability to recognise
faces in laboratory experiments (Baddeley & Woodhead, 1983) and in everyday situations
(Schweich, van der Linden, Bredart, Bruyer, Neils & Schills, 1991), the sources of these
differences are not clearly understood at present. In this thesis, individual differences in
recognition memory for faces were examined using standard laboratory experimental
techniques. Part I of this thesis consists of four chapters. Chapter One provides a general
introduction to face recognition research. In Chapter Two, past research on individual
differences in face recognition is described and evaluated. In Chapter Three. the theoretical
implications of research on the effects of orientation, race of face and face distinctiveness are
discussed. Experimental and statistical techniques that are used in the present thesis are
summarised in Chapter Four. In Part II, three experiments which investigated the effect of
individual differences in spatial ability on recognition of pictures, faces and words are reported.
Among other things, these experiments showed that while individual differences in spatial
ability did not significantly affect subjects' recognition of high-imagery words, high spatial
ability subjects recognised faces and pictures more accurately and more quickly than did low
spatial ability subjects. The theoretical implications of these results are discussed. Part III
consists of an experiment in which differences in recognition of male and female faces by
adolescent male and female subjects aged 11 years, 12 years and 13 years were investigated
across two delay conditions. This experiment provided partial support for a developmental dip
in recognition of faces among 12-year olds and also showed an own-sex bias in face
recognition among female subjects. Theoretical accounts for these effects are proposed. In Part
IV, a cross-cultural study in which black-African and white-British subjects who had different
degrees of previous contact with faces of the opposite race were tested for their recognition of
distinctive and typical own-race and other-race faces is reported. This experiment provided
evidence which supported the differential-experience hypothesis of the own-race bias in face
recognition among the African subjects and also suggested that the effect of face
distinctiveness in recognition of faces might be a product of learning the defining
characteristics of a given population of faces. In Part V, three experiments which explored
differences between good and poor face recognisers are reported and discussed. These
experiments raised some important methodological issues regarding the generalisability of the
notion of 'face recognition ability' in situations where the faces to be recognised are shown in
different views, in different facial expressions and in different orientations between study and
test. These experiments also showed that subjects who were good in their recognition of faces
following a change in view were significantly more accurate in their recognition of upsidedown
faces than were subjects who had initially shown poor recognition of faces in different
views. However. there were no significant differences between these two groups of subjects in
their ability to recognise faces that were shown in different facial expressions between study
and test. It is argued that these results suggest that recognition of faces following a change in
facial expression may involve the creation and use of expression-independent representations of
the face while recognition of faces following a change in view or orientation may both involve
the creation and use of view-independent representations of faces. General conclusions and
suggestions for future experimental work are outlined in Part
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