Abstract
Face recognition is supposed to be fast. However, the actual speed at which faces can be recognized remains unknown. To address this issue, we report two experiments run with speed constraints. In both experiments, famous faces had to be recognized among unknown ones using a large set of stimuli to prevent pre-activation of features which would speed up recognition. In the first experiment (31 participants), recognition of famous faces was investigated using a rapid go/no-go task. In the second experiment, 101 participants performed a highly time constrained recognition task using the Speed and Accuracy Boosting procedure. Results indicate that the fastest speed at which a face can be recognized is around 360–390 ms. Such latencies are about 100 ms longer than the latencies recorded in similar tasks in which subjects have to detect faces among other stimuli. We discuss which model of activation of the visual ventral stream could account for such latencies. These latencies are not consistent with a purely feed-forward pass of activity throughout the visual ventral stream. An alternative is that face recognition relies on the core network underlying face processing identified in fMRI studies (OFA, FFA, and pSTS) and reentrant loops to refine face representation. However, the model of activation favored is that of an activation of the whole visual ventral stream up to anterior areas, such as the perirhinal cortex, combined with parallel and feed-back processes. Further studies are needed to assess which of these three models of activation can best account for face recognition.
Highlights
The idea that face recognition is fast appears appealing (e.g., Bruce and Young, 1986; Jemel et al, 2010; Zheng et al, 2012)
This experiment is in agreement with a previous study (BarraganJason et al, 2012) and suggests that participants were rather slow overall since the median of minimal reaction times (RTs) was 555 ms, despite the use of speed constraints
The main aim of this experiment was to determine the minimum RT needed to recognize a face. This experiment showed that (1) a large proportion of participants showed individual minRTs faster than 400 ms; (2) 360 ms was the fastest individual minRT (350 ms across trials). This experiment brings strong evidence that face recognition is possible in ∼360 ms and probably not faster than this
Summary
The idea that face recognition is fast appears appealing (e.g., Bruce and Young, 1986; Jemel et al, 2010; Zheng et al, 2012). Variable reaction times (RTs) have been reported in studies of face recognition, ranging from 400 to 900 ms (mean or median RTs, e.g., Kampf et al, 2002; Herzmann et al, 2004; Caharel et al, 2005; Anaki et al, 2007; Baird and Burton, 2008; Anaki and Bentin, 2009; Ramon et al, 2011; Barragan-Jason et al, 2012) Such variability can be accounted for by numerous factors, such as the number of stimuli (only one to hundreds), the use of repeated or trial-unique stimuli, and the nature of the stimuli (photographs or drawings). Top-down recognition corresponds to the situation of looking for someone in particular and involves the pre-activation of some diagnostic features about the person to be recognized (e.g., Lewis and Ellis, 2000; Tanaka, 2001) Such a paradigm can presumably be performed on the basis of a search for a few visual features and is expected to be fast. The fastest speed at which a face can be recognized clearly depends on the type of paradigm (top-down or bottom-up) used
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