title: Individual differences in adaptive coding of face identity are linked to individual differences in face recognition ability.
abstract: Despite their similarity as visual patterns, we can discriminate and recognize many thousands of faces. This expertise has been linked to 2 coding mechanisms: holistic integration of information across the face and adaptive coding of face identity using norms tuned by experience. Recently, individual differences in face recognition ability have been discovered and linked to differences in holistic coding. Here we show that they are also linked to individual differences in adaptive coding of face identity, measured using face identity aftereffects. Identity aftereffects correlated significantly with several measures of face-selective recognition ability. They also correlated marginally with own-race face recognition ability, suggesting a role for adaptive coding in the well-known other-race effect. More generally, these results highlight the important functional role of adaptive face-coding mechanisms in face expertise, taking us beyond the traditional focus on holistic coding mechanisms.
authors.affiliation: ARC Centre of Excellence in Cognition and its Disorders, School of Psychology, University of Western Australia.
authors.forename: Gillian
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Rhodes
authors.affiliation: ARC Centre of Excellence in Cognition and its Disorders, School of Psychology, University of Western Australia.
authors.forename: Linda
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Jeffery
authors.affiliation: ARC Centre of Excellence in Cognition and its Disorders, School of Psychology, University of Western Australia.
authors.forename: Libby
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Taylor
authors.affiliation: ARC Centre of Excellence in Cognition and its Disorders, School of Psychology, University of Western Australia.
authors.forename: William G
authors.initials: WG
authors.lastname: Hayward
authors.affiliation: ARC Centre of Excellence in Cognition and its Disorders, School of Psychology, University of Western Australia.
authors.forename: Louise
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Ewing
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D001076:Aptitude; D001213:Asian / Q000523:psychology; D001288:Attention; D004192:Discrimination, Psychological; D005145:Face; D005260:Female; D005366:Figural Aftereffect; D006801:Humans; D007206:Individuality; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D010364:Pattern Recognition, Visual; D011214:Practice, Psychological; D021641:Recognition, Psychology; D012933:Social Identification; D013223:Statistics as Topic; D044465:White People / Q000523:psychology; D055815:Young Adult