Abstract
In the present study, we investigated age-related decline in face recognition memory and whether this decline is moderated by the age of the target faces and by the number of faces that the participant must learn (memory load). Thirty-two participants in each of three age groups (18–39 years, 60–75 years, and 76–96 years) completed a face recognition task. Signal detection analyses confirmed that face recognition accuracy declined with age. However, this finding was qualified by an interaction between participant age and target age, which revealed that the age-related decline in face recognition accuracy occurred only for young target faces. Increased memory load was associated with comparable performance decrements across all age groups. However, memory load appears not to be the cause of these decrements. Instead, they appear to be a product of recognition load (the number of stimuli presented in the recognition phase).
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This research was funded by the School of Psychology at Massey University. All materials and procedures were approved by the Massey University Human Ethics Committee, Palmerston North (Protocol 01/28). Parts of this article were presented in 2003 at the 15th Annual Convention of the American Psychological Society in Atlanta.
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Lamont, A.C., Stewart-Williams, S. & Podd, J. Face recognition and aging: Effects of target age and memory load. Memory & Cognition 33, 1017–1024 (2005). https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03193209
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03193209