Abstract
We examined whether (1) age-associated impairments in face recognition are specific to faces or also apply to within-category recognition of other objects and (2) age-related face recognition deficits are related to impairments in encoding second-order relations and holistic information. In Experiments 1 and 2, we found reliable age differences for recognition of faces, but not of objects. Moreover, older adults (OAs) and younger adults (YAs) displayed similar face inversion effects. In Experiment 3, unlike YAs, OA s did not show the expected decline in performance for recognition of composites (Young, Hellawell, & Hay, 1987). In Experiment 4, both OAs and YAs showed a whole/part advantage (Tanaka & Farah, 1993). Our results suggest that OAs have spared function for processing of secondorder relations and holistic information. Possible explanations for the finding that OAs have greater difficulty recognizing faces than recognizing other objects are proposed.
Article PDF
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Baddeley, A. D. (2002). The psychology of memory. In A. D. Baddeley, M. Kopelman, & B. A. Wilson (Eds.),Handbook of memory disorders (2nd ed., pp. 3–15). Hove, U.K.: Psychology Press.
Bartlett, J. C., &Fulton, A. (1991). Familiarity and recognition of faces in old age.Memory & Cognition,19, 229–238.
Bartlett, J. C., Leslie, J. E., Tubbs, A., &Fulton, A. (1989). Aging and memory for pictures of faces.Psychology & Aging,4, 276–283.
Bartlett, J. C., Strater, L., &Fulton, A. (1991). False recency and false fame of faces in young adulthood and old age.Memory & Cognition,19, 177–188.
Biederman, I., &Kalocsai, P. (1998). Neural and psychophysical analysis of object and face recognition. In H. Wechsler, J. P. Phillips, V. Bruce, F. Fogelman Soulie, & T. S. Huang (Eds.),Face recognition: From theory to applications (pp. 3–25). Berlin: Springer.
Blonder, L. X., Smith, C. D., Davis, C. E., Kesler-West, M. L., Garrity, T. F., Avison, M. J., &Andersen, A. H. (2004). Regional brain response to faces of humans and dogs.Cognitive Brain Research,20, 384–394.
Boutet, I., Gentes-Hawn, A., &Chaudhuri, A. (2002). The influence of attention on holistic face encoding.Cognition,84, 321–341.
Carey, S., &Diamond, R. (1994). Are faces perceived as configurations more by adults than by children?Visual Cognition,1, 253–274.
Cerella, J. (1990). Aging and information processing rate. In J. E. Birren & K. W. Schaie (Eds.),Handbook of the psychology of aging (pp. 201–221). San Diego: Academic Press.
Chaby, L., Jemel, B., George, N., Renault, B., &Fiori, N. (2001). An ERP study of famous face incongruity detection in middle age.Brain & Cognition,45, 357–377.
Connor, L. (2001). Memory in old age: Patterns of decline and preservation.Seminars in Speech & Language,22, 117–125.
Costen, N. P., Parker, D. M., &Craw, I. (1996). Effects of high-pass and low-pass spatial filtering on face identification.Perception & Psychophysics,58, 602–612.
Craik, F. I. M., &Jennings, J. M. (1992). Human memory. In F. I. M. Craik & T. A. Salthouse (Eds.),The handbook of aging and cognition (pp. 51–110). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
Crook, T. H., &Larrabee, G. J. (1992). Changes in facial recognition memory across the adult life span.Journal of Gerontology: Psychological Sciences,47, 138–141.
de Gelder, B., &Rouw, R. (2000). Structural encoding precludes recognition of face parts in prosopagnosia.Cognitive Neuropsychology,17, 89–102.
Diamond, R., &Carey, S. (1986). Why faces are and are not special: An effect of expertise.Journal of Experimental Psychology: General,115, 107–117.
Edelman, S. (1995). Representation, similarity, and the chorus of prototypes.Mind & Machines,5, 45–68.
Fahlander, K., Wahlin, A., Almkvist, O., &Bäckman, L. (2002). Cognitive functioning in Alzheimer’s disease and vascular dementia: Further evidence for similar patterns of deficits.Journal of Clinical & Experimental Neuropsychology,24, 734–744.
Farah, M. J., Wilson, K. D., Drain, H. M., &Tanaka, J. R. (1995). The inverted face inversion effect in prosopagnosia: Evidence for mandatory face-specific perceptual mechanisms.Vision Research,35, 2089–2093.
Farah, M. J., Wilson, K. D., Drain, [H.] M., &Tanaka, J. N. (1998). What is “special” about face perception?Psychological Review,105, 482–498.
Faubert, J. (2002). Visual perception and aging.Canadian Journal of Experimental Psychology,56, 164–176.
Folstein, M. F., Folstein, S. E., &McHugh, P. R. (1975). Mini-mental state: A practical method for grading the cognitive state of patients for the clinician.Journal of Psychiatric Research,12, 189–198.
Gauthier, I., Williams, P., Tarr, M. J., &Tanaka, J. (1998). Training “greeble” experts: A framework for studying expert object recognition processes.Vision Research,38, 2401–2428.
Grady, C. L. (2002). Age-related differences in face processing: A meta-analysis of three functional neuroimaging experiments.Canadian Journal of Experimental Psychology,56, 208–220.
Grégoire, J., &Van der Linden, M. (1997). Effects of age on forward and backward digit spans.Aging, Neuropsychology, & Cognition,4, 140–149.
Haxby, J. V., Hoffman, E. A., &Gobbini, M. I. (2000). The distributed human neural system for face perception.Trends in Cognitive Sciences,4, 223–233.
Hole, G. J. (1994). Configurational factors in the perception of unfamiliar faces.Perception,23, 65–74.
Leder, H., &Bruce, V. (2000). When inverted faces are recognized: The role of configural information in face recognition.Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology,53A, 513–536.
Leder, H., Candrian, G., Huber, O., &Bruce, V. (2001). Configural features in the context of upright and inverted faces.Perception,30, 73–83.
Macmillan, N. A., &Creelman, D. C. (1991).Detection theory: A user’s guide. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Mandler, G. (1980). Recognizing: The judgment of previous occurences.Psychological Review,87, 252–271.
Maurer, D., Le Grand, R., &Mondloch, C. J. (2002). The many faces of configural processing.Trends in Cognitive Sciences,6, 255–260.
Maylor, E. A. (1990). Recognizing and naming faces: Aging, memory retrieval, and the tip of the tongue state.Journal of Gerontology,45, P215-P226.
Maylor, E. A., &Valentine, T. (1992). Linear and nonlinear effects of aging on categorizing and naming faces.Psychology & Aging,7, 317–323.
Moscovitch, M., &Moscovitch, D. A. (2000). Super face-inversion effects for isolated internal or external features, and for fractured faces.Cognitive Neuropsychology,17, 201–219.
Owsley, C., Sekuler, R., &Boldt, C. (1981). Aging and low-contrast vision: Face perception.Investigative Ophthalmology & Visual Sciences,21, 362–365.
Park, D. C., Puglisi, J. T., &Smith, A. D. (1986). Memory for pictures: Does an age-related decline exist?Psychology & Aging,1, 11–17.
Park, D. C., Royal, D., Dudley, W., &Morrell, R. (1988). Forgetting of pictures over a long retention interval in young and older adults.Psychology & Aging,3, 94–95.
Park, D. C., Smith, A. D., Lautenschlager, G., Earles, J. L., Frieske, D., Zwahr, M., &Gaines, C. L. (1996). Mediators of long-term memory performance across the life span.Psychology & Aging,11, 621–637.
Puce, A., Allison, T., Asgari, M., Gore, J. C., &McCarthy, G. (1996). Differential sensitivity of human visual cortex to faces, letter-strings, and textures: A functional magnetic resonance imaging study.Journal of Neuroscience,16, 5205–5215.
Rhodes, G. (1995). Face recognition and perceptual coding. In T. Valentine (Ed.),Cognitive and computational aspects of face recognition: Explorations in face space (pp. 47–68). New York: Routledge.
Salthouse, T. A. (1996a). The processing-speed theory of adult age differences in cognition.Psychological Review,103, 403–428.
Salthouse, T. A. (1996b). Where in an ordered sequence of variables do independent age-related effects occur?Journal of Gerontology: Psychological Sciences & Social Sciences,51, P166-P178.
Searcy, J. H., Bartlett, J. C., &Memon, A. (1999). Age differences in accuracy and choosing in eyewitness identification and face recognition.Memory & Cognition,27, 538–552.
Tanaka, J. W., &Farah, M. J. (1993). Parts and wholes in face recognition.Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology,46A, 225–245.
Tanaka, J. W., Kay, J. B., Grinnell, E., Stansfield, B., &Szechter, L. (1998). Face recognition in young children: When the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.Ansual Cognition,5, 479–496.
Tanaka, J. W., &Sengco, J. A. (1997). Features and their configuration in face recognition.Memory & Cognition,25, 583–592.
Valentine, T. (1988). Upside-down faces: A review of the effect of inversion upon face recognition.British Journal of Psychology,79, 471–491.
Valentine, T. (1991). A unified account of the effects of distinctiveness, inversion, and race in face recognition.Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology,43A, 161–204.
Valentine, T., &Bruce, V. (1986). The effects of distinctiveness in recognising and classifying faces.Perception,15, 525–535.
Wilson, H. R., Loffler, G., &Wilkinson, F. (2002). Synthetic faces, face cubes, and the geometry of face space.Vision Research,42, 2909–2923.
Yin, R. K. (1969). Looking at upside-down faces.Journal of Experimental Psychology,81, 141–145.
Yokota, M., Miyanaga, K., Yonemura, K., Watanabe, H., Nagashima, K., Naito, K., et al. (2000). Declining of memory functions of normal elderly persons.Psychiatry & Clinical Neurosciences,54, 217–225.
Yonelinas, A. (2002). The nature of recollection and familiarity: A review of 30 years of research.Journal of Memory & Language,46, 441–517.
Young, A. W., Hellawell, D., &Hay, D. C. (1987). Configural information in face perception.Perception,16, 747–759.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Additional information
This research was supported by a fellowship from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) to I.B. and by CIHR Grant R0010026 to J.F. The authors thank Veronica J. Dark, Charles Collin, Cary Kogan, and three anonymous reviewers for their helpful suggestions.
Note—This article was accepted by the previous editorial team, when Colin M. MacLeod was Editor.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Boutet, I., Faubert, J. Recognition of faces and complex objects in younger and older adults. Memory & Cognition 34, 854–864 (2006). https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03193432
Received:
Accepted:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03193432