Benton Facial Recognition Test Research Articles

The Cambridge Face Memory Test: Results for neurologically intact individuals and an investigation of its validity using inverted face stimuli and prosopagnosic participants

The two standardized tests of face recognition that are widely used suffer from serious shortcomings [Duchaine, B. & Weidenfeld, A. (2003). An evaluation of two commonly used tests of unfamiliar face recognition. Neuropsychologia, 41, 713–720; Duchaine, B. & Nakayama, K. (2004). Developmental prosopagnosia and the Benton Facial Recognition Test. Neurology, 62, 1219–1220]. Images in the Warrington Recognition Memory for Faces test include substantial non-facial information, and the simultaneous presentation of faces in the Benton Facial Recognition Test allows feature matching. Here, we present results from a new test, the Cambridge Face Memory Test, which builds on the strengths of the previous tests. In the test, participants are introduced to six target faces, and then they are tested with forced choice items consisting of three faces, one of which is a target. For each target face, three test items contain views identical to those studied in the introduction, five present novel views, and four present novel views with noise. There are a total of 72 items, and 50 controls averaged 58. To determine whether the test requires the special mechanisms used to recognize upright faces, we conducted two experiments. We predicted that controls would perform much more poorly when the face images are inverted, and as predicted, inverted performance was much worse with a mean of 42. Next we assessed whether eight prosopagnosics would perform poorly on the upright version. The prosopagnosic mean was 37, and six prosopagnosics scored outside the normal range. In contrast, the Warrington test and the Benton test failed to classify a majority of the prosopagnosics as impaired. These results indicate that the new test effectively assesses face recognition across a wide range of abilities.

Exploring the Williams syndrome face-processing debate: the importance of building developmental trajectories.

Face processing in Williams syndrome (WS) has been a topic of heated debate over the past decade. Initial claims about a normally developing ('intact') face-processing module were challenged by data suggesting that individuals with WS used a different balance of cognitive processes from controls, even when their behavioural scores fell within the normal range. Measurement of evoked brain potentials also point to atypical processes. However, two recent studies have claimed that people with WS process faces exactly like normal controls. In this paper, we examine the details of this continuing debate on the basis of three new face-processing experiments. In particular, for two of our experiments we built task-specific full developmental trajectories from childhood to adolescence/adulthood and plotted the WS data on these trajectories. The first experiment used photos of real faces. While it revealed broadly equivalent accuracy across groups, the WS participants were worse at configural processing when faces were upright and less sensitive than controls to face inversion. In Experiment 2, measuring face processing in a storybook context, the face inversion effect emerged clearly in controls but only weakly in the WS developmental trajectory. Unlike the controls, the Benton Face Recognition Test and the Pattern Construction results were not correlated in WS, highlighting the different developmental patterns in the two groups. Again in contrast to the controls, Experiment 3 with schematic faces and non-face stimuli revealed a configural-processing deficit in WS both with respect to their chronological age (CA) and to their level of performance on the Benton. These findings point to both delay and deviance in WS face processing and illustrate how vital it is to build developmental trajectories for each specific task.

Developmental prosopagnosia and the Benton Facial Recognition Test.

The Benton Facial Recognition Test is used for clinical and research purposes, but evidence suggests that it is possible to pass the test with impaired face discrimination abilities. The authors tested 11 patients with developmental prosopagnosia using this test, and a majority scored in the normal range. Consequently, scores in the normal range should be interpreted cautiously, and testing should always be supplemented by other face tests.

Emotion recognition deficits in body dysmorphic disorder

Patients with Body Dysmorphic Disorder (BDD) are characterized by excessive concerns about imagined defects in their appearance, most commonly, facial features. In this study, we investigated (1) the ability to identify facial expressions of emotion, and (2) to discriminate single facial features in BDD patients, Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD) patients, and in healthy control participants. Specifically, their ability for general facial feature discrimination was assessed using the Short Form of the Benton Facial Recognition Test (Benton AL, Hamsher KdeS, Varney NR, Spreen O. Contributions to neuropsychological assessment: a clinical manual. New York: Oxford University Press; 1983). However, findings of the BFRT indicate no differences among the groups. Moreover, participants were presented with facial photographs from the Ekman and Friesen (Ekman P, Friesen W. Unmasking the face: a guide to recognizing emotions from facial cues. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall; 1975 and Ekman P, Friesen W. Pictures of facial affect. Palo Alto: Consulting Psychologists Press, 1976) series and were asked to identify the corresponding emotion. The BDD group was less accurate than the control group, but not the OCD group, in identifying facial expressions of emotion. Relative to the control and OCD groups, the BDD group more often misidentified emotional expressions as angry. In contrast to the findings of Sprengelmeyer et al. [Proc. Royal Soc. London Series B: Biol. Sci. 264 (1997),1767], OCD patients did not show a disgust recognition deficit. Poor insight and ideas of reference, common in BDD, might partly result from an emotion recognition bias for angry expressions. Perceiving others as angry and rejecting might reinforce concerns about one's personal ugliness and social desirability.

Facial affect recognition deficits in bipolar disorder.

Patients diagnosed with bipolar disorder (BPD), by definition, have problems with emotional regulation. However, it remains uncertain whether these patients are also deficient at processing other people's emotions, particularly while manic. The present study examined the ability of 25 manic bipolar patients and 25 healthy participants on tasks of facial recognition and facial affect recognition at three different presentation durations: 500 ms, 750 ms, and 1000 ms. The groups did not differ in terms of age, education, sex, ethnicity, or estimated IQ. The groups did not differ significantly on either a novel computerized facial recognition task or the Benton Facial Recognition Test. In contrast, the bipolar group performed significantly more poorly than did the comparison group on a novel facial affect labeling task. Although the patient group had slower reaction times on all 3 computerized tasks, the presentation duration did not have an effect on performance in the patients. This study suggests that patients with bipolar disorder are able to recognize faces, but have difficulty processing facial affective cues.

An evaluation of two commonly used tests of unfamiliar face recognition

The Warrington Recognition Memory for Faces (RMF) and the Benton Facial Recognition Test (BFRT) are commercially available tests that are commonly used by clinicians and cognitive neuropsychologists to evaluate unfamiliar face recognition. Yet, it is not clear that a normal score on either instrument demonstrates normal unfamiliar face recognition. Because the RMFs stimuli contain abundant non-internal facial feature information, subjects may be able to score in the normal range without using internal facial features. On the BFRT, subjects commonly rely on feature matching strategies using the hairline and eyebrows rather than recognizing the facial configuration. To test whether these routes to recognition can support normal performance, normal subjects were tested with versions of the RMF and the BFRT in which the faces had been painted over in a way that prevented the operation of some of the procedures normally involved with face recognition. Even though these modifications removed all of the internal feature information in the RMF, many subjects scored in the normal range, and despite precluding the use of configural processing in the BFRT, many of the scores were in the normal range. As a result, it is apparent that normal scores on these tests do not demonstrate normal unfamiliar face recognition and so clinicians should be cautious in interpreting scores in the normal range. Finally, these results place in question models supported by dissociations involving normal performance on these tests.

Source Monitoring in Alcoholism

Recent research on the neural bases of source memory suggests that this type of memory is relevant to the neuropsychological assessment of neurobehavioral disorders. Source memory refers to the ability to discriminate the origin or source of information (e.g., did I think of the idea or did I read about it). We examined source monitoring in abstinent alcoholic patients (N = 53) and nonalcoholic controls (N = 34) and report significant impairments in the alcoholic patients' ability to remember the source of recently presented information. Decrements in source memory were uncorrelated with alcoholic patients' neuropsychological deficits on the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test or the Benton Facial Recognition Test. Using qualitative measures of brain CT scans in a subsample of 39 alcoholic patients, we found that source memory was correlated with Sylvian fissure ratings in the left hemisphere. We propose that source memory decrements are another area of neuropsychological functioning affected in chronic alcoholism. Tasks of source memory may offer the neuropsychologist a valuable new tool for evaluating cognitive functions in neurobehavioral disorders.

Facial affect recognition in pre-lingually deaf people with schizophrenia

The present study examined facial affect recognition in pre-lingually deaf individuals with schizophrenia. Affective facial-labeling task and the control task of face feature processing (the Benton facial recognition test) were performed by deaf subjects with schizophrenia using French sign language (FSL), hearing subjects with schizophrenia, and hearing healthy controls. Deaf subjects with schizophrenia performed more poorly than hearing clinical controls with schizophrenia or healthy controls on the affective facial-labeling task. No differences were found on the control task between deaf subjects with schizophrenia and hearing clinical or healthy controls. The results showed that facial affect recognition and face feature processing were differently impaired in pre-lingually deaf individuals with schizophrenia, suggesting that neurocognitive backgrounds of impaired affective facial processing may be distinct from those of general impairment in face processing.

Perception of facial affect in chronic schizophrenia and right brain damage

This study was designed to compare the performance of 50 chronic schizophrenics (CS) to that of 30 right brain-damaged patients (R), and 50 healthy controls (N) on several facial perception measures: Emotion Labelling and Recognition, and the Benton Facial Recognition Test. CSs were diagnosed according to DSM-IV criteria and their psychiatric state was assessed using the PANSS scale. All subjects were right handed. Their cognitive state was assessed using the MMSE. Subjects rated their current mood on a visual analogue scale. The results showed that the CSs and Rs were significantly impaired compared to Ns for the emotional tasks but did not differ from each other. Moreover, the patient groups were significantly less accurate in recognising emotionally neutral facial stimuli. Each subject group had more difficulty processing negative relative to positive affect. The deficit in schizophrenia was found to be stable, which may reflect a trait-like, rather than a state-dependent, characteristic. Moreover, some support is provided for the notion that facial affect perception in chronic schizophrenia is associated with right hemisphere dysfunction.

Cognitive functioning in adults with Attention-Deficit/ Hyperactivity Disorder

Children with Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) appear to be deficient in executive control. The purpose of this study was to determine if adults with ADHD are also deficient in executive control. The performance of 18 adults with ADHD and 18 control subjects was compared on two tests of executive control, and two control tasks. The executive control tasks used in the study were the Trail Making Test (B), and the Tower of Hanoi. The control tasks used were the Trail Making Test (A), and the Benton Facial Recognition Test. The subjects with ADHD performed more poorly than did the normal controls on the executive control tasks. The subjects with ADHD, however, also performed more poorly on the Trail Making Test (A). The ADHD subjects showed a deficit in executive control, but this deficit was not confined to the executive control domain.

Neuropsychiatric Significance of Subcortical Hyperintensity

Neuropsychiatric Significance of Subcortical Hyperintensity

Aging and lineup performance at long retention intervals: effects of metamemory and context reinstatement.

Young (18-30 years) and older (62-79 years) adults (N = 96) engaged in a 20-min live interaction with the future target in a lineup task. One month later, participants were interviewed about the events in the prior encounter (with or without context reinstatement), and then they saw a target-present (TP) or target-absent (TA) lineup. The lineup was followed by the Benton Face Recognition Test (A. Benton, A. Sivan, K. Hamsher, N. Varney, & O. Spreen, 1994), which correlated positively with accuracy in TP, especially for young adults. False identification in TA was associated with (a) higher scores on a memory self-efficacy scale and (b) higher recall of information about the initial event, although only for seniors. Results suggested that age-related increases in false identification generalize to ecologically valid conditions and that seniors' performance on lineups is negatively related to verbal recall as well as to self-reports of satisfactory experiences with memory in life.

Determinants of Benton Facial Recognition Test performance in normal adults.

Determinants of Benton Facial Recognition Test performance in normal adults.

Determinants of Benton Facial Recognition Test performance in normal adults.

Clinical investigations have found that lesions of the right cerebral hemisphere can disrupt face perception. Much less is known about the determinants of facial discrimination in healthy adults, although age-related differences in many cognitive abilities have been shown to correlate with simple processing speed and variation in regional brain volumes. In this study, 174 healthy adults between the ages of 20 and 92 were asked to match pictures of unfamiliar faces. After their performance was regressed on age, sex, education, and perceptual comparison speed, adding terms for frontal lobe volume, nonfrontal volume, and ventricle-to-brain ratio (VBR) derived from magnetic resonance imaging improved the model and accounted for 35% of the variance in facial discrimination. VBR and processing speed alone accounted for nearly 34% of the variance. These findings suggest that both normal atrophic brain changes and decreases in processing speed contribute to individual differences in facial discrimination.

Social and Cognitive Factors Affecting the Own-Race Bias in Whites

This study investigated factors associated with the commonly found own-race bias (ORB) in face recognition. We utilized several measures of general face-recognition memory, visual perception and memory, general cognitive functioning, racial attitudes, and cross-race experience in an attempt to distinguish those individuals more likely to demonstrate the effect. White respondents (N = 129) were presented two facial-recognition tests (immediate and delayed) involving Black and White faces of both genders. The resulting ORB stemmed largely from a bias to respond "seen before" to Black faces, and produced an effect that was reliable across a 2-day period. An own-sex bias in accuracy was also found. The Benton Facial Recognition test and the Rey-Osterrieth Complex Figure test, 2 central measures of visual memory, were related to ability to recognize White faces. Self-reported amount of recent cross-race experiences was also correlated with overall accuracy on Black and White faces.

Social and Cognitive Factors Affecting the Own-Race Bias in Whites

This study investigated factors associated with the commonly found own-race bias (ORB) in face recognition. We utilized several measures of general face-recognition memory, visual perception and memory, general cognitive functioning, racial attitudes, and cross-race experience in an attempt to distinguish those individuals more likely to demonstrate the effect. White respondents (N = 129) were presented two facial-recognition tests (immediate and delayed) involving Black and White faces of both genders. The resulting ORB stemmed largely from a bias to respond seen before to Black faces, and produced an effect that was reliable across a 2-day period. An own-sex bias in accuracy was also found. The Benton Facial Recognition test and the Rey-Osterrieth Complex Figure test, 2 central measures of visual memory, were related to ability to recognize White faces. Self-reported amount of recent cross-race experiences was also correlated with overall accuracy on Black and White faces.

The nature and prevalence of memory disorder late after stroke.

This study aimed to investigate the incidence and nature of memory impairment late after stroke. Out of 193 patients between 12 to 36 months post-cerebrovascular accident contacted in a postal survey, 113 replied that they had experienced memory impairment following the stroke. Seventy of these patients were assessed on an adapted version of the Rivermead Behavioural Memory Test, Warrington's Recognition Memory Test for words and faces, and an every day memory questionnaire. The Token Test and the Benton Facial Recognition Test were also administered as measures of language and visuoperceptual processing. Thirty-five of the patients were impaired on one or more of the memory measures. Of these, 16 showed no evidence of dysphasia or visuoperceptual impairment. The 16 cases of selective memory impairment typically had mild to moderate deficits, and only three were impaired across all three tests. The results suggest that memory impairment following stroke does not necessarily involve general memory impairment. The evidence for material-specific memory deficits was much weaker.

Picture and motor sequencing in multiple sclerosis.

Previous studies consistently report that patients with multiple sclerosis (MS) perform poorly on the Picture Arrangement subtest of the Wechsler Intelligence test. Although this finding implies that MS causes difficulties in cognitive sequencing, the Picture Arrangement test taps many cognitive abilities in addition to sequencing, and the reported deficits by MS patients could reflect difficulties in other skills such as information processing speed or visual acuity and scanning. To circumvent some of these interpretive problems, we used an untimed test of sequencing that required arranging relatively large drawings of familiar scenarios. The MS patients were impaired on this picture sequencing test, but they performed normally on the Luria three-step test of motor sequencing. Correlational analyses showed that picture and motor sequencing were highly correlated, and that performance on both sequencing tests was related to performance on a global mental status exam, the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test and Benton's Facial Recognition Test, but not to upper limb speed and dexterity. These findings demonstrate a relatively specific deficit in cognitive sequencing by MS patients, that can be partially dissociated from impairment in performing simple motor acts.

Source monitoring during name recognition in older adults: psychometric and electrophysiological correlates.

The hypothesis that source monitoring in older adults is specifically related to frontal lobe function was tested. In a fame-judgment task, older adults' ability to monitor the source of name familiarity was independent of their short-term recognition ability. Source errors were not related to performance on the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test, a psychometric index of frontal function, or to the initial orienting response of the contingent negative variation (CNV), a frontally based electrophysiological measure, even though these "frontal" measures were reliably related to each other. Source error was predicted by the latter portion of the CNV, the expectancy response, and by the Benton Facial Recognition Test, a visuoperceptual task not typically linked to frontal function. These data suggest that the accuracy of source attribution in older adults depends on various attentional control processes, not all of which may be frontally based.

Neuropsychological Importance of Subcortical White Matter Hyperintensity

Subcortical hyperintensity on magnetic resonance imaging is a common incidental finding in healthy elderly subjects. The relationship of such changes to cognitive functioning remains unclear, however, because only a small number of studies have examined this issue with conflicting results. We therefore assessed 66 healthy adult volunteers (mean [+/- SD] age, 61.8 +/- 15.8 years) with magnetic resonance imaging scans rated for subcortical hyperintensity, and with two neuropsychological instruments selected a priori on the basis of previous reports in the literature. Findings were highly significant for both the Benton Facial Recognition Test and the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale-Revised Digit Symbol. However, in both cases, the majority of variance was accounted for by age and educational level. Effects of subcortical hyperintensity were not significant. We conclude that subcortical hyperintensity in healthy adults does not relate to cognitive functioning, at least with these two instruments.