title: Discriminability effect on Garner interference: evidence from recognition of facial identity and expression.
abstract: Using Garner's speeded classification task existing studies demonstrated an asymmetric interference in the recognition of facial identity and facial expression. It seems that expression is hard to interfere with identity recognition. However, discriminability of identity and expression, a potential confounding variable, had not been carefully examined in existing studies. In current work, we manipulated discriminability of identity and expression by matching facial shape (long or round) in identity and matching mouth (opened or closed) in facial expression. Garner interference was found either from identity to expression (Experiment 1) or from expression to identity (Experiment 2). Interference was also found in both directions (Experiment 3) or in neither direction (Experiment 4). The results support that Garner interference tends to occur under condition of low discriminability of relevant dimension regardless of facial property. Our findings indicate that Garner interference is not necessarily related to interdependent processing in recognition of facial identity and expression. The findings also suggest that discriminability as a mediating factor should be carefully controlled in future research.
authors.affiliation: Beijing Key Laboratory of Learning and Cognition, Department of Psychology, Capital Normal University Beijing, China ; State Key Laboratory of Brain and Cognitive Science, Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences Beijing, China.
authors.forename: Yamin
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Brain and Cognitive Science, Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences Beijing, China.
authors.forename: Xiaolan
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Fu
authors.affiliation: School of Psychology, Keynes College, University of Kent Canterbury, UK.
authors.forename: Robert A
authors.initials: RA
authors.lastname: Johnston
authors.affiliation: University at Albany, State University of New York Albany, NY, USA.
authors.forename: Zheng
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Yan
keywords: Garner interference; discriminability; facial expression recognition; facial identity recognition; facial recognition