title: Super-Memorizers Are Not Super-Recognizers.
abstract: Humans have a natural expertise in recognizing faces. However, the nature of the interaction between this critical visual biological skill and memory is yet unclear. Here, we had the unique opportunity to test two individuals who have had exceptional success in the World Memory Championships, including several world records in face-name association memory. We designed a range of face processing tasks to determine whether superior/expert face memory skills are associated with distinctive perceptual strategies for processing faces. Superior memorizers excelled at tasks involving associative face-name learning. Nevertheless, they were as impaired as controls in tasks probing the efficiency of the face system: face inversion and the other-race effect. Super memorizers did not show increased hippocampal volumes, and exhibited optimal generic eye movement strategies when they performed complex multi-item face-name associations. Our data show that the visual computations of the face system are not malleable and are robust to acquired expertise involving extensive training of associative memory.
authors.affiliation: University of Fribourg, Department of Psychology, Rue P.A. de Faucigny 2, 1700 Fribourg, Switzerland.
authors.forename: Meike
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Ramon
authors.affiliation: Bournemouth University, Department of Psychology, Talbot Campus, BH12 5BB, Poole, United Kingdom.
authors.forename: Sebastien
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Miellet
authors.affiliation: Cognitive Neuroscience and Neuropsychiatry Section, UCL Institute of Child Health, 30 Guilford Street, WC1N 1EH, London, United Kingdom.
authors.forename: Anna M
authors.initials: AM
authors.lastname: Dzieciol
authors.affiliation: Radboud University Medical Centre, Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour, Kapittelweg 29, 6525 EN Nijmegen, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: Boris Nikolai
authors.initials: BN
authors.lastname: Konrad
authors.affiliation: Radboud University Medical Centre, Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour, Kapittelweg 29, 6525 EN Nijmegen, The Netherlands.|Max Planck Institute of Psychiatry, Kraepelinstr. 2-10, 80804 Munich, Germany.
authors.forename: Martin
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Dresler
authors.affiliation: University of Fribourg, Department of Psychology, Rue P.A. de Faucigny 2, 1700 Fribourg, Switzerland.
authors.forename: Roberto
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Caldara
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D005133:Eye Movements; D005145:Face; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008568:Memory; D014796:Visual Perception; D055815:Young Adult