title: When false recognition is out of control: the case of facial conjunctions.
abstract: In three experiments, a dual-process approach to face recognition memory is examined, with a specific focus on the idea that a recollection process can be used to retrieve configural information of a studied face. Subjects could avoid, with confidence, a recognition error to conjunction lure faces (each a reconfiguration of features from separate studied faces) or feature lure faces (each based on a set of old features and a set of new features) by recalling a studied configuration. In Experiment 1, study repetition (one vs. eight presentations) was manipulated, and in Experiments 2 and 3, retention interval over a short number of trials (0-20) was manipulated. Different measures converged on the conclusion that subjects were unable to use a recollection process to retrieve configural information in an effort to temper recognition errors for conjunction or feature lure faces. A single process, familiarity, appears to be the sole process underlying recognition of conjunction and feature faces, and familiarity contributes, perhaps in whole, to discrimination of old from conjunction faces.
authors.affiliation: Victoria University of Wellington, Wellington, New Zealand. todd.jones@vuw.ac.nz
authors.forename: Todd C
authors.initials: TC
authors.lastname: Jones
authors.forename: James C
authors.initials: JC
authors.lastname: Bartlett
mesh_terms: D001245:Association Learning; D001288:Attention; D004192:Discrimination, Psychological; D005145:Face; D006801:Humans; D008570:Memory, Short-Term; D011939:Mental Recall; D010364:Pattern Recognition, Visual; D010469:Perceptual Distortion; D021641:Recognition, Psychology; D012094:Repression, Psychology; D012153:Retention, Psychology