Elaboration and distinctiveness in memory for faces

Abstract

Investigated why faces that have been judged with reference to traits such as honesty or friendliness are better remembered than faces judged with respect to a physical feature. Four experiments were conducted with approximately 263 Ss in which an orienting task was controlled by the following conditions: distinctive feature scan, constrained features, distinctive trait scan, and constrained trait. Results of Exps I and II support an elaboration hypothesis in that it was the amount rather than the type of information encoded that accounted for the observed effect. Exps III and IV provide evidence that elaborative encoding was effective because the likelihood of a distinctive feature being encoded increased with the degree of elaboration. The role of distinctiveness was thus emphasized. (22 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2006 APA, all rights reserved). © 1981 American Psychological Association.