Typicality and familiarity of faces

Abstract

We examined context-free familiarity information as a source of the effects of face typicality upon face recognition. Experiment 1 tested memory for typical and unusual faces by (1) subjects who received an input list followed immediately by a recognition test (standard condition), (2) subjects who viewed all test faces (targets and lures) prior to the input list (prefamiliarization condition), and (3) subjects who viewed all test faces after the input list but prior to recognition (postfamiliarization condition). Although false-alarm errors in the standard condition were lower for unusual than for typical faces, this effect was reduced by postfamiliarization and was eliminated entirely by prefamiliarization. The prefamiliarization and typicality effects were replicated in Experiment 2, which showed that patterns of old judgments were compatible with the hypothesis that, although familiarity of new faces is greater if these faces are typical, the increment in familiarity that results from presentation is greater if these faces are unusual. © 1984 Psychonomic Society, Inc.