Recognition of inverted photographs of faces by children and adults.
Inverted black-white photographs of the faces of highly familiar peers (classmates, fraternity brothers, etc.) were presented to 350 Ss ranging from 3 to 20 years of age. In an untimed test session, S tried to identify the person in the inverted photograph. Success in this task was positively correlated with age up to approximately 14 years, but performance deteriorated after this age; college-age Ss and preschool Ss' performances were approximately equal. This finding contrasts with the current view that the effects of disorientation on perception becomes less potent with age. A cognitive explanation is offered for the early rise in the performance curve; the subsequent reduction in level of performance is attributed to rigidity of the perceptual mechanism as a function of overlearning of a mono-oriented configuration.
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000367:Age Factors; D001364:Awareness; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D003071:Cognition; D004192:Discrimination, Psychological; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009949:Orientation; D010056:Overlearning; D010379:Peer Group; D014796:Visual Perception