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Developmental prosopagnosics and super recognizers rely on the same facial features used by individuals with normal face recognition abilities for face identification.

Abudarham, N., Bate, S., Duchaine, B. and Yovel, G., 2021. Developmental prosopagnosics and super recognizers rely on the same facial features used by individuals with normal face recognition abilities for face identification. Neuropsychologia, 160 (September), 107963.

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DOI: 10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2021.107963

Abstract

Face recognition depends on the ability of the face processing system to extract facial features that define the identity of a face. In a recent study we discovered that altering a subset of facial features changed the identity of the face, indicating that they are critical for face identification. Changing another set of features did not change the identity of a face, indicating that they are not critical for face identification. In the current study, we assessed whether developmental prosopagnosics (DPs) and super recognizers (SRs) rely more heavily on critical features than non-critical features for face identification. To that end, we presented to DPs and SRs faces in which either the critical or the non-critical features were manipulated. In Study 1, we presented SRs with a famous face recognition task. We found that overall SRs recognized famous faces that differ in either critical or non-critical features better than controls. Similar to controls, changes in critical features had a larger effect on SRs' face recognition than changes in non-critical features. In Study 2, we presented an identity matching task to DPs and SRs. Similar to controls, DPs and SRs perceived faces that differed in critical features as more different than faces that differed in non-critical features. Taken together, our results indicate that SRs and DPs use the same critical features as normal individuals for face identification. These findings emphasize the fundamental role of this subset of features for face identification.

Item Type:Article
ISSN:0028-3932
Uncontrolled Keywords:Developmental Prosopagnosia ; Face perception ; Face recognition ; Features ; Super recognizers
Group:Faculty of Science & Technology
ID Code:35833
Deposited By: Symplectic RT2
Deposited On:26 Jul 2021 14:02
Last Modified:18 Jul 2022 01:08

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