Abstract
Humans have a natural expertise in recognizing faces. However, the nature of the interaction between this critical visual biological skill and memory is yet unclear. Here, we had the unique opportunity to test two individuals who have had exceptional success in the World Memory Championships, including several world records in face-name association memory. We designed a range of face processing tasks to determine whether superior/expert face memory skills are associated with distinctive perceptual strategies for processing faces. Superior memorizers excelled at tasks involving associative face-name learning. Nevertheless, they were as impaired as controls in tasks probing the efficiency of the face system: face inversion and the other-race effect. Super memorizers did not show increased hippocampal volumes, and exhibited optimal generic eye movement strategies when they performed complex multi-item face-name associations. Our data show that the visual computations of the face system are not malleable and are robust to acquired expertise involving extensive training of associative memory.
Highlights
High levels of performance may be achieved, seemingly involuntarily, through repeated exposure as demonstrated in the area of face processing
These can involve unfamiliar face perception or memory (Cambridge Face Perception Test, CFPT; [48]; Cambridge Face Memory Test, CFMT; [49]; see below for more details), as well as identification of famous individuals by pictures taken long before they were publicly known (Before They Were Famous Test, BTWF; [46]). Their superior ability at upright matching of facial identity [50,51,52] gives rise to comparably larger a face inversion effect [4], a perceptual phenomenon considered to reflect face-specific processes. In light of these findings, as well as evidence suggesting that visual processing is modulated depending on individuals’ mnemonic goals [53, 54], we investigated whether face processing computations that are considered perceptually rooted are malleable and modulated through explicit training regimes lending to superior memory
Our data shows that Superior memorizers (SMs)’ superior performance in face-name association is not accompanied by superior/expert visual skills. It indicates that SMs excel at face memory tasks because of deliberate training in mnemonic strategies, rather than a pre-existing or acquired propensity in processing facial information or a reorganization of the computational processes of the face system
Summary
High levels of performance may be achieved, seemingly involuntarily, through repeated exposure as demonstrated in the area of face processing. Humans are considered experts at processing faces [1] as they are discriminated and recognized more efficiently than non-face objects of comparable complexity and within-category similarity [2, 3]. Early proposals suggested that some degree of hard-wiring exists for face recognition [13,14,15], as supported by more recent studies of its heritability. These studies, involving large cohorts of twins [16, 17], indicate a genetic basis for face recognition, which is a highly specific ability that is uncorrelated with general visual and verbal recognition performance.
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