The role of distinctiveness in person recognition from faces and voices

Conference (2012, August 30)

Objectives: When we recognize a familiar person, we can retrieve different kinds of information about her/him: semantic information (e.g. the person’s occupation), episodic information, such as a memory ... [more ▼]

Objectives: When we recognize a familiar person, we can retrieve different kinds of information about her/him: semantic information (e.g. the person’s occupation), episodic information, such as a memory of a specific occasion on which this person has previously been encountered and lexical information (i.e. the name). Recent findings indicated that semantic and episodic information retrieval is more likely to be elicited following familiar face than voice recognition. The present study was designed in order to explore the potential role of stimulus distinctiveness as an underlying factor of the face advantage. Design: The design included two within-subject factors: the stimulus domain (faces or voices) and the stimulus distinctiveness (distinctive or typical). Methods: The proportions of episodic and semantic information recalled following the recognition of famous faces and voices was assessed, using an adapted version of the Remember/Know paradigm. Results: In line with earlier results, more semantic and episodic information was retrieved from faces than voices. Moreover, semantic information was better retrieved from distinctive than typical stimuli. Nonetheless, distinctiveness impacted less than domain on the recall of semantic information, since more semantic details were retrieved from typical faces than from distinctive voices. Conclusions: These results are discussed in the light of current models of person recognition. [less ▲]

Recalling semantic information about newly learned faces and voices

in Memory (2012), 20(5), 527-534

Several findings showed that semantic information is more likely to be retrieved from recognised faces than from recognised voices. Earlier experiments, which investigated the recall of biographical ... [more ▼]

Several findings showed that semantic information is more likely to be retrieved from recognised faces than from recognised voices. Earlier experiments, which investigated the recall of biographical information following person recognition, used stimuli that were pre-experimentally familiar to the participants, such as famous people’s voices and faces. We propose an alternative method to compare the participants’ ability to associate semantic information with faces and voices. The present experiments allowed a very strict control of frequency of exposure to pre-experimentally unfamiliar faces and voices and ensured the absence of identity clues in the spoken extracts. In Experiment 1 semantic information was retrieved from the presentation of a name. In Experiment 2 semantic and lexical information was retrieved from faces and/or voices. A memory advantage for faces over voices was again observed. [less ▲]

Retrieving semantic information from persons’ names.

Poster (2011)

Effets de l’apprentissage de voix et de visages sur le rappel d’informations sémantiques à partir de noms de personnes.

Conference (2010, September)

Person recognition: Effects of face and voice learning on access to semantic information from names.

Conference (2010, May 28)

Several studies showed that it is more difficult to retrieve semantic information from recognized voices than from recognized faces. However, earlier studies that investigated the recall of biographical ... [more ▼]

Several studies showed that it is more difficult to retrieve semantic information from recognized voices than from recognized faces. However, earlier studies that investigated the recall of biographical information following person recognition used stimuli that were pre-experimentally familiar to the participants, such as famous people’s voices and faces. The present study was designed in order to allow a stricter control of frequency exposure with both types of stimuli (voices and faces). In the present study, subjects had to associate lexical (i.e., name) and semantic information (i.e., occupation) with faces or voices. When asked later to recall semantic information being cued by the person’s names, participants provided significantly more occupations for the targets that had been previously associated with faces than with voices. These results and their implications for current Interactive Activation and Competition person recognition models are discussed. Finally, the potential role of the relative distinctiveness of voices and faces is also considered. [less ▲]

Familiar person recognition: Is autonoetic consciousness more likely to accompany face recognition than voice recognition?

in Dubois, Daniel (Ed.) COMPUTING ANTICIPATORY SYSTEMS, CASYS'09 - Ninth International Conference, Liège, Belgium, 3-8 August 2009 (2009, August 05)

Retrieving episodic memories when recognizing familiar faces and names

in Proceedings of the 31st Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society. Austin, TX: Cognitive Science Society. (2009)

Familiar person recognition: do we remember more episodic memories from faces than from names?

Poster (2009)

This study was aimed at investigating whether the recognition of familiar faces is more likely to be associated with an experience of Remembering than the recognition of familiar names. Using the Remember ... [more ▼]

This study was aimed at investigating whether the recognition of familiar faces is more likely to be associated with an experience of Remembering than the recognition of familiar names. Using the Remember/Know paradigm the proportions of episodic memories recalled following the recognition of famous faces and names (Conditions) were assessed. Presented faces and names were previously judged by an independent group of participants as eliciting an equivalent level of familiarity. Nevertheless significant differences between the two conditions appeared in hit and false alarm rates. However, present results showed no significant difference in the recollection of personal memories (Remember responses conditionalized on the hits), following familiar faces compared with familiar names recognition. This finding contrasts with recent accounts assuming that faces are more prone to yield episodic memories than other cues to person identity. These results and their implications for current Interactive Activation and Competition person recognition models are discussed. [less ▲]