The Function and Specificity of Sensitivity to Cues to Facial Identity: An Individual-Differences Approach

Abstract

The expertise of adults in recognising the identity of individual faces has been attributed to their exquisite sensitivity to differences among faces in the spacing of features (second-order relations). However, the reliability of individual differences and the extent to which this sensitivity predicts individuals' ability to recognise faces has not been tested directly. We administered two sets of tasks to adult females (n = 31); the tests were separated by 2 to 11 days. Individual differences in sensitivity to the spacing of facial features were reliable across days and correlated with individual differences in sensitivity to the spacing of features (doors and windows) in houses, but did not predict accuracy when participants matched facial identity across changes in point of view. Individual differences in sensitivity to featural cues to facial identity were not reliable, likely because of ceiling effects. The function and specificity of sensitivity to the spacing of features is discussed.

When intuition fails to align with data: A reply to Rossion (2013)

“…The correlation we reportedin Richler, Cheung & Gauthier (2011b) was .40;the correlation reported by Degutis et al was.33. Moreover, this result has also beenreplicated in McGugin et al (2012), where thefirst-order correlation was .26, and the partialcorrelation (factoring out age, sex, and theirinteractions with holistic processing) was .33. #152: “Researchers in this field are not interested in the general processes that can drive such inter-individual correlations, but rather in what specifically differs between upright face processing, namely holistic face perception.” Rossion seems to be confusing his ownresearch interests with those of an entire field.A very cursory review found 16 articlespublished from 2010 onwards that use anindividual differences approach in the study offace recognition: Avidan et al (2011),Bukach et al (2012), Davis et al (2011), DeGutis et al (2013),Dennett et al (2011), Dennett et al (2012),Germine et al (2011), Konar et al (2010),McGugin et al (2012), Mondloch & Desjarlais (2010),Richler et al (2011), Wang et al (2012),Wilhelm et al (2010),Wilmer et al (2010), Zhou et al (2012), Zhu et al (2010). #154: “…the study of Mack et al (2011) entitled `Indecision on decisional separability' dismissed entirely the conclusions reached by Richler et al (2008a) that holistic processing has a decisional locus.” In Mack et al (2011) we explained why theanalysis tool developed by Kadlec & Townsend (1992)and used in Richler, Gauthier et al (2008)is not valid. Indeed, we only used thatanalysis in that single paper because wediscovered these issues and made them publicimmediately. #159: “…Richler et al (2009a) did not use any misaligned faces or inverted faces as a control, which makes it impossible to interpret their effects.” This is an opinion, and the term “impossible”seems overly strong.…”

The Influence of Shyness on the Scanning of Own- and Other-Race Faces in Adults

“…However, relatively few studies have examined individual differences in face processing [7] and the way in which individuals’ personality characteristics influence identity recognition and facial scanning patterns. Personality traits may particularly affect facial scanning patterns because such characteristics shape aspects of social cognition as basic as eye contact [8].…”

Explaining Sad People’s Memory Advantage for Faces

“… 1 The terms configural and holistic processing have been used interchangeably by researchers, yet there is evidence that they refer to different processes, given substantial evidence indicates that expert face processing does not rely on fine-grained configural information ( Hole et al, 2002 ; Mondloch and Desjarlais, 2010 ; for a review see Burton et al, 2015 ). Indeed, tests of configural processing do not correlate with other tests of holistic processing strongly (see e.g., Wilhelm et al, 2010 ).…”