An Own-Age Bias in Recognizing Faces with Horizontal Information.

Andreas Schaich,Thorsten Kolling,Monika Knopf,Sven Obermeyer

doi:10.3389/fnagi.2016.00264

Andreas Schaich, Thorsten Kolling + Show 2 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3389/fnagi.2016.00264

Copy DOI

Abstract

Horizontal information, as a result of a selective filtering process, is essential in younger adults’ (YA) ability to recognize human faces. Obermeyer et al. (2012) recently reported impaired recognition of faces with horizontal information in older adults (OA) suggesting age-variant processing. Two yet unconsidered factors (stimulus age and exposure duration) that may have influenced previous results, were investigated in this study. Forty-seven YA (18–35 years) and 49 OA (62–83 years) were tested in a 2 × 2 × 2 × 2 mixed design with the between-subjects factors age group (YA vs. OA) and stimulus age (young faces vs. older faces) and the within-subjects factors filter [filtered (HF) faces vs. unfiltered faces (UF)] and exposure duration (0.8 s vs. 8 s). Subjects were presented morph videos between pairs of faces: a starting face gradually merged into either the previously encoded target face or a control face. As expected, results showed an increase in recognition sensitivity (d′) with longer exposure duration in YA with both younger and older HF faces. OA, however, were unable to recognize filtered young faces not even with increased exposure duration. Furthermore, only elderly participants showed more accurate recognition with faces of their own age relative to other-age faces (own-age bias, OAB). For YA no OAB was observed. Filtered face recognition was significantly correlated with unfiltered recognition in YA but not in OA. It is concluded, that processing of horizontal information changes at a higher age. Presenting filtered or unfiltered faces both targets convergent face-specific processing only in YA but not in OA.

Highlights

While crystallized intellectual abilities and expertise-based knowledge can be preserved until a high age (e.g., Salthouse, 1990) declining cognitive functions with age have been documented especially for working memory, attentional and executive processes (Salthouse, 1996; Craik and Salthouse, 2000; Grady and Craik, 2000)
A mixed design was used with the between-subjects factors age group (YA vs. older adults (OA)) and stimulus age
Stimulus age was introduced: younger adults’ (YA) and OA were presented with either younger or older stimuli resulting in a fully crossed design allowing assessment of an own-age bias (OAB) which is expressed in greater sensitivity to age-congruent stimuli as opposed to ageincongruent faces

Summary

Introduction

While crystallized intellectual abilities and expertise-based knowledge can be preserved until a high age (e.g., Salthouse, 1990) declining cognitive functions with age have been documented especially for working memory, attentional and executive processes (Salthouse, 1996; Craik and Salthouse, 2000; Grady and Craik, 2000). Analogous results have been gathered regarding the ability to recognize human faces (Crook and Larrabee, 1992; Searcy et al, 1999). Despite the age independent necessity to perceive, process and remember human faces on a daily basis this ability seems to develop disadvantageously over lifetime. The majority of studies depict age-dependent decline in facial recognition accuracy (Grady, 2002; Hildebrandt et al, 2013), and slower recognition processing times in OA (Grady et al, 2000). Inflated false alarm rates in OA have regularly been reported (Edmonds et al, 2012; Lee et al, 2014)

Objectives

Methods

Results

Conclusion