Face-Name Recall and Associative Memory

Imagine lacking the ability to recognize the familiar face of a loved one or spouse. Or having to rely on voices, clothing, and certain attributes of that individual in order to have some kind of knowledge on who they actually are. This condition is defined as Prosopagnosia; known as face blindness or facial agnostic. According to Barton (2008), it was first described as a consequence of cerebral damage by Quaking and Bordello in 1867. This term comes from the Greek word “face” and “lack of knowledge.” Stated by the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (2007), Prosopagnosia is anticipated to be the result of damages, abnormalities, or destruction in the right fusiform gyrus; part of the brain that controls the perception of faces and the functionality of memory in the neural system. This deficit can be present from birth, the result of a stroke, a traumatic brain injury, or neurodegenerative diseases. In order to help an individual with Prosopagnosia, it is essential to develop compensatory or redeeming strategies, as well as the use of clues or attributes to help them better identify individuals.

In adults, three variables were used to test the other-race effect on facial recognition: orientation, face type and ethnicity. Adults at least 18 years of age and older (N = 64) were asked to recognize upright and inverted adult and infant faces. Recognition was tested using a forced-choice procedure. 4 slides were shown during a trial to make sure participants understood the instructions. Next, participants viewed 48 slides with faces alternating between adult female and infant faces; first segment each face was upright, second segment faces were inverted. The results of the study found that there was no significance between race and facial recognition. Other research conducted has shown that race does in fact have a significant effect on facial recognition.

The researchers used 11 Polaroid photos of VJ’s club members to teach the face-name associations. This was performed by the method of combining visual imagery, vanishing cues, and expanding rehearsal (Clare et al., 2001). The researchers took VJ to the familiar environment of the club to do generalisation sessions using the photos and found the initial recall was 20% and raised to 98% over time and became 100% at the one, three, six and nine months follow-up

Social cognition depends first and far most on information and accurate information is needed to understand a person. Sometimes we have very little information to base our judgment on, yet that does not stop us from making further intuitions about other people or situations. Psychologist, Janine Willis and Alex Todorov, have demonstrated this fact through a Face perception research or snap judgments study— (Gilovich et al, 2012). In this study, participants were shown a variety of faces and their task was to rate how attractive, aggressive, liable, trustworthy, and competent each person seemed. The results displayed that people are more likely approach those they perceive as trustworthy and not aggressive and less likely to approach that they anticipant as untrustworthy and aggressive (Gilovich et al, 2012). In the case of racism, the heated relationship between the white policemen and black community is related to the first impression of each party that created stereotypes based on their

The studies conducted by Northwestern say that brain activity increases in the first 200 milliseconds when we first interact with a person from our same race or from a different race. The studies say that there is a time right after a person meets another of the same race or a different race that determines whether the face is remembered or even forgotten. The point where the brain begins to remember or forget the memory is almost immediately after a person first sees the face. People also remember people by their attributes for example, you might see that a face reminds you of someone you know. You may see that the persons expression appears kind or afraid, or it looks like the face of a famous athlete or a singer. Being able to identify people's attributes increases the likelihood that a face will be

There are several different types of psychological and neurological phenomena that individuals live with every day. One of most interesting conditions that many individuals might not be aware of is prosopagnosia or face blindness. Prosopagnosia is the inability to recognize and distinguish faces. For example, individuals with this condition could have difficulty recognizing their child’s, spouse’s, parent’s, or friend’s face. Many individuals with prosopagnosia will rely on other features to distinguish between other people, such as hair style or color, voices, or posture. As discussed in Chapter 3, prosopagnosia is thought to affect the Fusiform Face Area.

Processing faces is extremely important to humans as social beings. We are able to put and identity on thousands of faces (Gazzaniga, 2002) with ease, something we might take for granted. The value of this ability can be better understood when the world is viewed through the eyes of somebody with prosopagnosia, the inability to recognise faces. The following quotation from David Fine, a prosopagnosic describing the difficulty associated with the disorder.

Hannula’s research is based on, “memory for different kinds of relations (i.e., spatial and nonspatial relations) is tested with different paradigms under long- and short-lag conditions” (Hannula, 2014). Hannula also showed detailed information about the experiments such as stimuli design, procedure, and statistical analyses. Hannula describe the history and condition of the participants that was involved in the experiment. “Participants in both experiments were six patients (three male, three female) with amnesia, and six neurologically intact comparison participants, each matched to one of the patients individually with respect to age, education, and intelligence quotient”(Hannula, 2014). The method that was used in the first experiment is eye-movement methodology. The “eye-movement methodology to explore the status of relational memory representations that are to be maintained over the course of a very brief delay in work involving presentation of scenes that were exact matches or were manipulated versions of scenes viewed just seconds earlier”(Hannula,

Looking Past Appearances People are susceptible to making faulty assumptions about others. Intentionally and unintentionally, judgments upon an unfamiliar face is made swiftly. In less than a second, a snap judgement that is “surprisingly hard to budge” is formed in the mind (Highfield, Wiseman, Jenkins). In a phenomenon known as the halo effect, “the perception of positive qualities in one thing or part gives rise to the perception of similar qualities in related things or in the whole.” (Dobrin)

It is important because from the findings of this experiment, we can relate it to the attractiveness adults see in other adults. Adults who are more attractive and have a symmetrical face are preferred over others. This experiment also brought up a good fact that, no matter what age you are, it is harder to distinguish a face if inverted. This experiment overall not only provides information about newborn infants perception, it provides a basis for development. We can use this information and connect it to development from birth to

Individuals are perceived according to their facial expressions more so than the words they speak.

Overly, the model provides coherent explanation of many kind of information about faces and how they relate to each other. It provides evidence about significant differences in processing of familiar and unfamiliar faces. Nonetheless there are limitations. For instance, there is not enough information about processing unfamiliar faces. Burton et al. (1999)

A person’s recognition memory indicates the ability to recognise something they have seen before when you show it to them. Therefore its been suggested that objects are ascribed more value because people simply own them (mere ownership effect). Previous research has shown that our memory is better for objects we own compared to those of a stranger. Thus the importance of the self-relevance effect shows the tendency for individuals to have better memory for information that relates to oneself in comparison to material that has less personal relevance. Our experiment has stemmed from an accumulation of prior literature and has been based off a study by Cunningham, Turk, Macdonald and Macrae (2008), which was designed to test ownership on memory performance. The participant’s sorted cards into two baskets, by matching the colour of the sticker to the relevant basket. The experimenter held up the cards individually, named the item pictured on the card, then handed it to the relevant participant to put in the correct basket. A surprise recognition memory test of the item required participants to determine whether the item had previously been seen or was new and

In this essay descriptions as well as identifications of research evidence for both Bruce and Young’s 1986 cognitive model of face recognition and Burton, Bruce and Johnston’s 1990 cognitive model of face recognition; which are then applied to two separate case studies and an explanation of which better suits each shall be given. For the purposes of this essay, Bruce and Young’s 1986 model shall be theory 1, and Burton, Bruce and Johnston’s 1990 model, shall be theory 2.

Typification is an idea which states that an individual maintains a certain image or picture with respect to a certain role or situation used to categorize him or her. In a research, physical attractiveness was aimed to demonstrate that the stereotyped individual's behavior confirms another person's stereotype of him or her. A group of individuals was to socially interact, both groups, one male group, and one female group were separated to evaluate the findings of the research. The groups interacted via a telephone conversation in which they could not see one another. Males were then given a photograph of the female with whom he was conversating, the photos identified the females as either physically attractive or physically unattractive. Each