Encoding and storage effects in 7‐year‐olds' and 10‐year‐olds' memory for faces

Abstract

In an attempt to examine children's encoding and storage of faces, two experiments are reported on temporal factors in recognition memory for unfamiliar faces by 7-year-old and 10-year-old children. In Expt 1, viewing durations of 1 and 3 seconds and delay intervals of 0 and 1 week were examined. The younger children were less accurate at immediate test: no difference between the two age groups was evident after a week's interval. Faces presented for 3 s were recognized more accurately than those shown for 1 s. Experiment 2 involved a modification in design and temporal parameters: faces were shown for either 2 or 6 s and testing followed immediately, a day later, or a week later. The performance of 7-year-olds was unaffected by duration of encoding or length of interval. In contrast the 10-year-old children performed better with 6s cornpared with 2 s exposure. They also made more accurate recognition at immediate test compared with intervals of 1 day or 1 week. The results of these two experiments provide the first systematically derived data on the way children process facial information as a function of viewing duration and delay interval. Theoretical and practical implications of the observations are discussed.

A comparison of video and static photo lineups with child and adolescent witnesses

“…The majority of available research on the identification accuracy of children finds that performance on face recognition tasks typically improves with age (Brewer & Day, 2005;Carey & Diamond, 1977;Ellis & Flin, 1990;Goodman & Reed, 1986;Shapiro & Penrod, 1986). However, a recent review of developmental face recognition concludes that children as young as 5 years of age can process faces as efficiently as adults and presents evidence which strongly suggests that developmental differences in performance may be the result of developmental differences in memory capacities and visual attention (Crookes & McKone, 2009).…”

Face-Space: A Unifying Concept in Face Recognition Research

“…Face recognition abilities improve through childhood (e.g. Blaney & Winograd, 1978;Ellis & Flin, 1990;List, 1986). This improvement may follow a linear pattern (Feinman & Entwisle, 1976;Hills, 2014) and is associated with better memory for faces in children (Dempster, 1981;Hills 2012) and faster responding (Johnston & Ellis, 1995).…”

Memory for faces in epileptic children before and after brain surgery

“…Carey and colleagues (Carey, Diamond, & Woods, 1980) have studied systematically the developmental changes in children's facial memory and have found that 6-to 16-year-old children perform worse than adults. Moreover, children's memory for faces is more sensitive than adults' to facial expression, facial perspective, clothing, or hairstyle (Carey & Diamond, 1977;Ellis & Flin, 1990;Ellis, 1992). Carey (1992) has proposed that, unlike adults, children cannot abstract the invariant details of faces nor distinguish distinct features in faces.…”