Domain-Specific and Domain-General Individual Differences in Visual Object Recognition

Abstract

Research in visual object recognition has largely focused on mechanisms common to most people, but there is increased interest in whether and how people differ in the ability to recognize objects and faces. New tests with a variety of familiar categories are being created and validated to measure domain-specific abilities. Because variability in experience with familiar objects contributes to performance, tests with novel objects were designed; these tests provided evidence for a domain-general visual ability that is relatively independent from general intelligence. These advances have led to improvements in linking activity in some visual areas of the brain with domain-specific experience. Much remains to be done to uncover the neural correlates of domain-general visual ability and assess the predictive ability of visual abilities in real-world settings.