Recognition of faces and complex objects in younger and older adults

Abstract

We examined whether (1) age-associated impairments in face recognition are specific to faces or also apply to within-category recognition of other objects and (2) age-related face recognition deficits are related to impairments in encoding second-order relations and holistic information. In Experiments 1 and 2, we found reliable age differences for recognition of faces, but not of objects. Moreover, older adults (OAs) and younger adults (YAs) displayed similar face inversion effects. In Experiment 3, unlike YAs, OAs did not show the expected decline in performance for recognition of composites (Young, Hellawell, & Hay, 1987). In Experiment 4, both OAs and YAs showed a whole/part advantage (Tanaka & Farah, 1993). Our results suggest that OAs have spared function for processing of secondorder relations and holistic information. Possible explanations for the finding that OAs have greater difficulty recognizing faces than recognizing other objects are proposed.

Age-related differences in face recognition: Neural correlates of repetition and semantic priming in young and older adults.

“…Previous studies examined either more basic processes of face perception (Boutet & Faubert, 2006;Komes et al, 2014bKomes et al, , 2015Konar et al, 2013;Meinhardt-Injac, Persike, & Meinhardt, 2014a;Wiese et al, 2013) or name generation (James, 2004(James, , 2006James, Fogler, & Tauber, 2008) in older adults, two processes that are often assumed as reflecting opposite end points in the sequence of processing steps in person recognition (Bruce & Young, 1986Hanley, 2011). The present study examined the steps in-between these end points.…”

“…It is known that recognition memory for faces decreases with higher age (e.g., Bartlett & Leslie, 1986;Hildebrandt, Sommer, Herzmann, & Wilhelm, 2010;Wiese, Schweinberger, & Hansen, 2008;Wolff, Wiese, & Schweinberger, 2012), whereas more basic abilities of face perception (such as "holistic" or "configural" processing of faces) appear to remain largely intact (Boutet & Faubert, 2006;Konar et al, 2013;Meinhardt-Injac et al, 2014b; but see Wiese, Kachel, & Schweinberger, 2013). Using structural equation modelling to examine individual differences in face processing, Hildebrandt and colleagues (2010) reported decreases in face memory to start in the fifth decade and decreases in face perception to start in the seventh decade of life.…”

“…Whereas difficulties in person recognition are frequently reported even in younger people (Young, Hay, & Ellis, 1985) and perceived as particularly disturbing by older adults (Leirer, Morrow, Sheikh, & Pariante, 1990), empirical research on face recognition in older adults is still relatively sparse. Although neuroscientific evidence suggests a reduced specialization of the ventral visual cortex for face processing (Park et al, 2004), a number of recent behavioural studies concluded that basic processes of face perception are relatively spared in older age (Boutet & Faubert, 2006;Konar, Bennett, & Sekuler, 2013;MeinhardtInjac, Persike, & Meinhardt, 2014b). At some variance with these studies using unfamiliar faces, learning new facial identities has been observed to be less efficient in older adults (Germine, Duchaine, & Nakayama, 2011).…”

Detecting navigational deficits in cognitive aging and Alzheimer disease using virtual reality

“…Previous descriptions of age-related declines in visual memory have shown deficits with faces but not other figures, 29 or environmental scenes. 30 Our finding of figural and scene memory impairments in normal aging may reflect the more naturalistic demands of a navigational environment.…”

Reduction in White Matter Connectivity, Revealed by Diffusion Tensor Imaging, May Account for Age-related Changes in Face Perception

“…The reduction in face processing proficiency, however, may not be solely a function of memory or learning changes, as older observers perform more poorly than their younger counterparts even when the need for memory or learning of faces is minimized (Boutet & Faubert, 2006). The age-related decline is also apparent when the task is purely perceptual and is based solely on shape and facial geometry; for example, in one recent study, faces shown from the same vantage point were equally well discriminated by observers, independent of age, but faces shown from different viewpoints were more poorly discriminated by older observers and there was no improvement in performance even with prolonged exposure duration (Habak, Wilkinson, & Wilson, in press).…”