Abstract
In three experiments, a dual-process approach to face recognition memory is examined, with a specific focus on the idea that a recollection process can be used to retrieve configural information of a studied face. Subjects could avoid, with confidence, a recognition error to conjunction lure faces (each a reconfiguration of features from separate studied faces) or feature lure faces (each based on a set of old features and a set of new features) by recalling a studied configuration. In Experiment 1, study repetition (one vs. eight presentations) was manipulated, and in Experiments 2 and 3, retention interval over a short number of trials (0\2-20) was manipulated. Different measures converged on the conclusion that subjects were unable to use a recollection process to retrieve configural information in an effort to temper recognition errors for conjunction or feature lure faces. A single process, familiarity, appears to be the sole process underlying recognition of conjunction and feature faces, and familiarity contributes, perhaps in whole, to discrimination of old from conjunction faces.
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The research was supported, in part, by grants from the School of Psychology, VUW, to the first author.
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Jones, T.C., Bartlett, J.C. When false recognition is out of control: The case of facial conjunctions. Memory & Cognition 37, 143–157 (2009). https://doi.org/10.3758/MC.37.2.143
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.3758/MC.37.2.143