I'd know that face anywhere!
Date
2018-11-16
Authors
Gruppuso, Vincenza
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Abstract
The empirical studies reported used the remember/know paradigm to assess the effects of
manipulating the number of exposures, delay, and context on the phenomenology of face
recognition. In this paradigm, participants classified recognized faces according to the
type of memorial awareness for prior occurrence. If recognition was based on the
retrieval of episodic information such as context information, then participants indicated
that they remembered the face. In contrast, if recognition was based on a feeling of
familiarity without the recall of specifying information (i.e., an undifferentiated feeling of
familiarity), then participants indicated that they knew the face.
Dual-process approaches to understanding remember and know states of
awareness and the memorial processes (i.e., recollection (R) and familiarity (F)) that
buttress them include those in which there exists (a) an exclusive relationship between
processes (i.e., R processes underpin remember responses, and F processes underpin know
responses); and, (b) an independent relationship between processes (i.e., remembering is a
function of R, and, knowing is a function of F in the absence of R). In contrast, the single-process
perspective explains response differences in terms of differences in trace strength
of familiarity. Initial increases in strength of familiarity may be sufficient to recognize a
face and to state that one knows it. If additional specifying information becomes available,
familiarity for the face becomes stronger and a remember response is provided.
The model of recognition promoted in these studies includes aspects of the above
approaches. The studies were designed to evaluate predictions following from a
functionalist account of recognition memory. This model of recognition memory is based
on the notion of independent memory attributes. When retrieval of a particular piece of
encoded memory information can fulfil the goal of a task (e.g., identify source), that
particular attribute contributes to an estimate of R. If it fails to do so, but elicits a feeling
of oldness, then the information contributes to an estimate of F. Thus, retrieved
information can contribute to either R or F but never to both within a particular task.
Across tasks, memory attributes are free to contribute to the same or different process.
Thus, in the functional view, R and F are post hoc classifications. In addition, it also
suggests that, in general, processes that contribute to R may not be qualitatively different
from those that contribute to F.
In Experiments 1 and 2, delay between study and test was manipulated to test the
prediction that retroactive interference would contribute to the disruption of integrated
memory attributes. This type of memory information would likely contain target face
information bound to context information (e.g., information about the study room). While
the retrieval of face-plus-context information on an immediate test would contribute to an
estimate of R, the retrieval of face-only information would contribute to an estimate of F.
Context was manipulated in Experiments 3 and 4. Each face was studied with a
unique context photograph. At test, target faces in Experiment 3 were presented with
either a studied or new context. Experiment 4 included an additional condition in which
target faces were paired with switched contexts. In the studied context condition,
memory processes that encoded face and context information would likely be re-enacted,
promote a subjective experience of remembering, and, thus, contribute to an estimate of
R. In contrast, in the switched and new context conditions, retrieved information about
the face only may contribute to a feeling of oldness and an estimate of F.
The results for know responding in Experiments 2, 3, and 4 provided support for
the functional model. In Experiment 1, F for repeated items was unaffected by the delay,
and in Experiment 2 it was reduced by the delay. The latter result suggested that there
were more items on the immediate test that contributed to an estimate of F and were then
forgotten on the delayed test than were items that initially contributed to an estimate of R
and later contributed to an estimate of F. In the final two experiments, the change in
context at test had no effect on estimates of F. While this latter result does not provide
definitive support for the functional model of recognition memory it, as well as the
reduction in estimates of R, does support the notion of independent processes.
Description
Keywords
Face perception, Memory, Recognition