When false recognition is out of control: the case of facial conjunctions.
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.
Jones
Todd C
TC
Victoria University of Wellington, Wellington, New Zealand. todd.jones@vuw.ac.nz
Bartlett
James C
JC
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