Neurotypical observers show large and reliable individual differences in gaze behavior along several semantic object dimensions. Individual gaze behavior toward faces has been linked to face identity processing, including that of neurotypical observers. Here, we investigated potential gaze biases in Super-Recognizers (SRs), individuals with exceptional face identity processing skills. Ten SRs, identified with a novel conservative diagnostic framework, and 43 controls freely viewed 700 complex scenes depicting more than 5000 objects. First, we tested whether SRs and controls differ in fixation biases along four semantic dimensions: faces, text, objects being touched, and bodies. Second, we tested potential group differences in fixation biases toward eyes and mouths. Finally, we tested whether SRs fixate closer to the theoretical optimal fixation point for face identification. SRs showed a stronger gaze bias toward faces and away from text and touched objects, starting from the first fixation onward. Further, SRs spent a significantly smaller proportion of first fixations and dwell time toward faces on mouths but did not differ in dwell time or first fixations devoted to eyes. Face fixation of SRs also fell significantly closer to the theoretical optimal fixation point for identification, just below the eyes. Our findings suggest that reliable superiority for face identity processing is accompanied by early fixation biases toward faces and preferred saccadic landing positions close to the theoretical optimum for face identification. We discuss future directions to investigate the functional basis of individual fixation behavior and face identity processing ability.

Neurotypical observers show large and reliable individual differences in gaze behavior along several semantic object dimensions. Individual gaze behavior towards faces has been linked to face identity processing, including that of neurotypical observers. Here, we investigated potential gaze biases in Super-Recognizers (SRs) - individuals with exceptional face identity processing skills. 10 SRs, identified with a novel conservative diagnostic framework, and 43 controls freely viewed 700 complex scenes, depicting more than 5000 objects. First, we tested whether SRs vs. controls differ in fixation biases along four semantic dimensions: Faces, Text, objects being Touched and Bodies. Second, we tested potential group differences in fixation biases towards eyes and mouths. Finally, we tested whether SRs show less intra- and inter-individual variability with regard to their preferred vertical fixation position in faces. SRs showed a stronger gaze bias towards Faces and away from Text and Touched objects, starting from the first fixation onwards. Further, SRs showed a trend to fixate faces more centrally than controls. They spent a significantly smaller proportion of first fixations and dwell time towards faces on Mouths and a similar trend emerged for Eyes. SRs also exhibited significantly less inter-individual variance in vertical face fixation locations than controls. Our findings demonstrate that reliable superiority for face identity processing is accompanied by early fixation biases towards faces, with fixations biased centrally within faces. We discuss future directions to investigate the functional basis of individual fixation behavior and face identity processing ability.

A face's memorability refers to the unique combination of visual features facilitating its recognition. Despite considerable variation in face recognition ability amongst the general population, individuals show substantial concordance regarding faces' memorability. This agreement persists, though reduced, when the viewpoints across which identities are seen at encoding and recognition differ. Consequently, individuals must extract some invariant facial information during recognition, robust to changes in viewpoint, to do so consistently (i.e. as a function of stimulus memorability). However, the extent of such consistency remains unclear. Therefore, in two experiments we tested recognition of (i) implicitly encoded face images and (ii) explicitly encoded identities in a group of control observers against a group of "Super-Recognizers" (SRs) possessing exceptional face processing skills (Ramon, 2021). Novel "With or Without You" (WoWY) resampling analyses assessed the consistency of SRs relative to control observers, simultaneously providing measures of intraindividual consistency. When implicit encoding was surreptitiously solicited (Experiment 1), recognition of studied images was comparable between groups. Yet, when encoding was explicitly solicited (Experiment 2), SRs more accurately recognized identities across viewpoint changes than controls. Critically, image-dependent information could only inform recognition in the first experiment, whereas viewpoint-invariant information could inform recognition equally in both. Individual observers' performance profiles reveal that only SRs memorability-related performance was consistent between experiments. Overall, SRs' unique capacity for recognizing faces based on viewpoint-invariant information is rooted in fundamentally more robust representations of identity. These results invite a reinterpretation of face memorability describing viewpoint-invariant information, diagnostic of facial identity representations in memory.