Differential recognition of the right vs. left halves of human faces

Abstract

In an earlier facial recognition study, subjects inspected 6 full faces and, 1 week later, tried to identify those 6 from among 12 faces that were presented as full faces, left halves only, or right halves only. Fewer errors were committed by subjects who viewed faces that were left half only than by subjects who viewed faces that were right half only. Such a finding could stem from differences in the amount of information contained in the left versus right halves of faces or from differences in the amount of information extracted by the subjects. The present experiment supports the latter explanation by showing the same advantage of left half over right half even when the faces used were mirror images of the faces used in the earlier experiment. In both experiments, fewer errors were committed by subjects who viewed full faces during testing than by subjects who viewed partial faces. © 1985, The Psychonomic Society, Inc.. All rights reserved.