Recognition of faces: I. An exploratory study

Abstract

Shepard’s recognition procedure was applied to photographs to test its usefulness for exploring perception of, and memory for, faces. Recognition was measured as a function of number of faces viewed and of vertical orientation. Recognition accuracy was significantly greater for upright than for inverted photographs, suggesting that faces are not here perceived and stored simply as patterns. Inspection Series length did not significantly affect recognition accuracy. Comparison of upright-viewing-and-upright-recognition with inverted-viewing-and-upright-recognition yielded no significant differences in accuracy, suggesting that unlike information stored during upright viewing, information stored during inverted viewing is not strongly tied to orientation. © 1967, Psychonomic Press. All rights reserved.