Memory for faces: Are caricatures better than photographs?

Abstract

Because photographs capture an individual at a moment in time, they contain fleeting features as well as more stable ones. Caricature line drawings, however, include stable features and emphasize distinctive ones. As such, caricatures are closer to schematic memory representations than are photographs. Three experiments using faces of public figures test the hypothesis that caricatures yield better performance than do photographs. Contrary to hypothesis, photographs lead to better performance than do line-drawing caricatures in three different tasks: name recall, face recognition, and name-face verification reaction time. Photographs are also rated as more characteristic or representative of their targets than are line-drawing caricatures. © 1985 Psychonomic Society, Inc.