Abstract
Despite many years of research, there has been surprisingly little progress in our understanding of how faces are identified. Here I argue that there are two contributory factors: (a) Our methods have obscured a critical aspect of the problem, within-person variability; and (b) research has tended to conflate familiar and unfamiliar face processing. Examples of procedures for studying variability are given, and a case is made for studying real faces, of the type people recognize every day. I argue that face recognition (specifically identification) may only be understood by adopting new techniques that acknowledge statistical patterns in the visual environment. As a consequence, some of our current methods will need to be abandoned.
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 1467-1485 |
Number of pages | 19 |
Journal | Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology |
Volume | 66 |
Issue number | 8 |
Early online date | 7 Jun 2013 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 1 Aug 2013 |
Keywords
- face recognition
- identity
- variability