Effects of Face and Name Presentation on Memory for Associated Verbal Descriptors (original) (raw)
Related papers
The Face–Name Mnemonic Strategy from a Different Perspective
Contemporary Educational Psychology, 1997
Prior research has demonstrated that the face-name mnemonic strategy is useful for facilitating memory for names in response to true-to-life representations of faces (e.g., photographs). In Experiment 1, we successfully extended this finding to a situation in which the stimuli cuing name memory were caricatures. In Experiment 2, photographs and caricatures alternated as the stimulus materials prompting either name recall or recognition. Students using the mnemonic strategy again outperformed students using their own best method of study on both immediate and delayed tests. Because caricatures exaggerate prominent features, we had anticipated that the mnemonic approach might be relatively more effective with caricatures than with photographs. However, students using the face-name mnemonic strategy derived comparable benefits with both types of material. ᭧ 1997 Academic Press A task we all face is the task of faces-that is, the task of remembering people's names in response to their faces. In many occupations and everyday social situations, remembering names is an important social skill that brings confidence to the daily interactions of both children and adults. To put a human face on history and current events, students are frequently provided with pictures of individuals to accompany the written text-in both textbooks and now computer compact disks. Although students are Experiment 1 was presented at the 1994 annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association and Experiment 2 was presented at the 1995 annual meeting of the American Psychological Association.
Memory for faces: the effect of facial appearance and the context in which the face is encountered
Psychological Research, 2014
We investigated the effects of appearance of emotionally neutral faces and the context in which the faces are encountered on incidental face memory. To approximate real-life situations as closely as possible, faces were embedded in a newspaper article, with a headline that specified an action performed by the person pictured. We found that facial appearance affected memory so that faces perceived as trustworthy or untrustworthy were remembered better than neutral ones. Furthermore, the memory of untrustworthy faces was slightly better than that of trustworthy faces. The emotional context of encoding affected the details of face memory. Faces encountered in a neutral context were more likely to be recognized as only familiar. In contrast, emotionally relevant contexts of encoding, whether pleasant or unpleasant, increased the likelihood of remembering semantic and even episodic details associated with faces. These findings suggest that facial appearance (i.e., perceived trustworthiness) affects face memory. Moreover, the findings support prior evidence that the engagement of emotion processing during memory encoding increases the likelihood that events are not only recognized but also remembered.
Describing Faces from Memory: Accuracy and Effects on Subsequent Recognition Performance
Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society, 1996
The present research examines: (a) the accuracy of three face description methods, and (b) the effects of post-exposure description and imaging activities on subsequent face recognition performance. Participants viewed a sequence of six target photographs, and after each, performed one of three description tasks: generated their own set of descriptors, checked-off descriptors from a pre-existing list, or rated the same set of descriptors on bipolar scales. Other participants performed a distractor (control) activity. Additionally, participants were either told or not told to image the targets while they simultaneously performed the description tasks. Results showed that the checklist task lowered subsequent recognition performance compared to the generate task. Imaging with the generate task facilitated recognition, but imaging with the checklist and rating tasks degraded recognition. The generate task produced the highest quality descriptions as determined by other participants' performance in matching the descriptions to face photographs. The checklist decrement is discussed in terms of memorial confusion initiated by the presence of irrelevant face cues. These results indicate that descriptor generation is the preferred method of collecting eyewitness' face descriptions.
Effects of pictures on the organization and recall of social information
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1985
The role of visual stimuli in the organization and recall of social information was investigated in a study that presented photographs of stimulus persons along with verbal trait descriptors. Paired with four trait descriptors of each stimulus person, subjects saw either (a) no picture, (b) one trait-unrelated picture, (c) four traitunrelated pictures, or (d) four trait-related pictures. These conditions permitted a test of several competing explanations for the previously obtained improvement in memory for semantic information when accompanied by pictorial information. Results indicated that pictures incremented recall of trait information in two distinct stages-once with the addition of pictorial information and again when the pictures became relevant to the traits. Clustering in free recall on the basis of person categories was unaffected by the experimental conditions. These findings were consistent with the hypothesis that pictures enhance person memory by fostering elaboration on stimulus information at encoding.
Why never forgetting a face matters: Visual imagery and social memory
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1982
This research tested the hypothesis that individuals who tend to form vivid visual images of others (vivid imagers) have more accurate social memories than those who form relatively nonvivid visual images of others (nonvivid imagers). In the first investigation, vivid imagers outperformed nonvivid imagers in remembering details concerning the attitudes, activities, and life history of a woman whom they observed being interviewed. Investigation 2 provided more definitive evidence for the link between visual imagery and social memory by demonstrating that vivid imagers had more accurate memories after seeing an interviewee answer questions, whereas seeing the interviewee had no impact on the memories of nonvivid imagers. The discussion considers the impact that imagery processes may have on a variety of social thought processes.
Memory & Cognition, 2008
Using synthetic faces that varied along four perceptual dimensions (Wilson, Loffler, & Wilkinson, 2002), we examined the effects of face similarity on memory for face-name associations. The nature of these stimuli allowed us to go beyond the categorical similarity manipulations used in previous verbal associative memory studies to trace out the parametric relation between similarity and various performance measures. In Experiment 1, we found that recall performance diminished as a function of how many studied faces were in the vicinity of the cue face in similarity space. Also, incorrect recalls were more likely to come from nearby positions in face space. Experiments 2 and 3, respectively, demonstrated analogous effects with a set of more distinguishable, photorealistic faces, and in an associative recognition task. These results highlight the similarity between associative recall and associative recognition, and between face-name association and other domains of associative memory.
Beneficial effects of verbalization and visual distinctiveness on remembering and knowing faces
Memory & Cognition, 2006
We examined the effect of verbally describing faces upon visual memory. In particular, we examined the locus of the facilitative effects of verbalization by manipulating the visual distinctiveness of the to-be-remembered faces and using the remember/know procedure as a measure of recognition performance (i.e., remember vs. know judgments). Participants were exposed to distinctive faces intermixed with typical faces and described (or not, in the control condition) each face following its presentation. Subsequently, the participants discriminated the original faces from distinctive and typical distractors in ayes/no recognition decision and made remember/know judgments. Distinctive faces elicited better discrimination performance than did typical faces. Furthermore, for both typical and distinctive faces, better discrimination performance was obtained in the description than in the control condition. Finally, these effects were evident for both recollection- and familiarity-based recognition decisions. We argue that verbalization and visual distinctiveness independently benefit face recognition, and we discuss these findings in terms of the nature of verbalization and the role of recollective and familiarity-based processes in recognition.
The relations between facial features, facial impression, and recognition memory for faces
The Japanese Journal of Cognitive Psychology, 2004
The present study investigated relationships among physical features, impressions, and recognition memory for faces. The stimuli were pictures of male and female faces. First, the sizes, lengths, and angles of physical features of the faces were measured, and then a principal components analysis was performed. Second, 108 university students evaluated the impressions of the faces by the semantic differential technique, and then a factor analysis was performed. Third, 80 university students performed recognition memory tasks for the faces. Subsequently, the analyses of correlations, partial correlations, and ANOVA were performed on the principal component scores of the physical features, the factor scores of impressions, and the recognition performance. The results of the analyses showed that: (a) the impression of facial uniqueness formed from eyes and eyebrows facilitated recognition memory for the faces and (b) the physical features of a small mouth and a round jaw facilitated recognition memory.
Recalling Semantic and Episodic Information From Faces and Voices: A Face Advantage
Current Directions in Psychological Science, 2012
Recent studies have demonstrated that the retrieval of biographical information about familiar people is easier when we see their faces than when we hear their voices. This advantage of faces over voices has been observed for the retrieval of semantic information (e.g., a person's occupation) as well as for the recall of episodic information (e.g., specific memories associated with a person). In this article, we outline a recent progression of studies that have demonstrated this advantage of faces over voices by comparing the retrieval of semantic and episodic information following person recognition from faces and from voices. We show that the face advantage is a robust phenomenon that persists whatever the type of target persons (celebrities, personally familiar people, or newly learned persons).