Individual differences in object recognition.

There is substantial evidence for individual differences in personality and cognitive abilities, but we lack clear intuitions about individual differences in visual abilities. Previous work on this topic has typically compared performance with only 2 categories, each measured with only 1 task. This approach is insufficient for demonstration of domain-general effects. Most previous work has used familiar object categories, for which experience may vary between participants and categories, thereby reducing correlations that would stem from a common factor. In Study 1, we adopted a latent variable approach to test for the first time whether there is a domain-general object recognition ability, o. We assessed whether shared variance between latent factors representing performance for each of 5 novel object categories could be accounted for by a single higher-order factor. On average, 89% of the variance of lower-order factors denoting performance on novel object categories could be accounted for by a higher-order factor, providing strong evidence for o. Moreover, o also accounted for a moderate proportion of variance in tests of familiar object recognition. In Study 2, we assessed whether the strong association across categories in object recognition is due to third-variable influences. We find that o has weak to moderate associations with a host of cognitive, perceptual, and personality constructs and that a clear majority of the variance in and covariance between performance on different categories is independent of fluid intelligence. This work provides the first demonstration of a reliable, specific, and domain-general object recognition ability, and suggest a rich framework for future work in this area. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).

About-face on face recognition ability and holistic processing.

Previous work found a small but significant relationship between holistic processing measured with the composite task and face recognition ability measured by the Cambridge Face Memory Test (CFMT; Duchaine & Nakayama, 2006). Surprisingly, recent work using a different measure of holistic processing (Vanderbilt Holistic Face Processing Test [VHPT-F]; Richler, Floyd, & Gauthier, 2014) and a larger sample found no evidence for such a relationship. In Experiment 1 we replicate this unexpected result, finding no relationship between holistic processing (VHPT-F) and face recognition ability (CFMT). A key difference between the VHPT-F and other holistic processing measures is that unique face parts are used on each trial in the VHPT-F, unlike in other tasks where a small set of face parts repeat across the experiment. In Experiment 2, we test the hypothesis that correlations between the CFMT and holistic processing tasks are driven by stimulus repetition that allows for learning during the composite task. Consistent with our predictions, CFMT performance was correlated with holistic processing in the composite task when a small set of face parts repeated over trials, but not when face parts did not repeat. A meta-analysis confirms that relationships between the CFMT and holistic processing depend on stimulus repetition. These results raise important questions about what is being measured by the CFMT, and challenge current assumptions about why faces are processed holistically.

The commonality between the perceptual adaptation mechanisms involved in processing faces and nonface objects of expertise.

OBJECTIVE: The authors designed 2 experiments to examine the commonality of the N170 component involved in processing faces and nonface objects of expertise. METHOD: In Experiment 1, to investigate the N170 adaptation effect between faces and printed language, 18 bilingual participants (7 males) were recruited, and the N170 response elicited by faces and words was recorded using a 128-channel HydroCel Geodesic Sensor Net. To address whether this asymmetrical between-category N170 adaptation effect generalizes to any object of expertise, in Experiment 2, 19 participants (9 males) were recruited by training to become Greeble experts. The N170 component elicited by faces and Greebles was recorded before and after training. RESULTS: In Experiment 1, the authors found that only faces can affect the N170 response elicited by words but words cannot affect the N170 response elicited by face. In Experiment 2, both before and after training, Greeble adaptors did not affect the N170 response elicited by faces. It is important to note that after training, the faces decreased the N170 response elicited by the Greebles. CONCLUSIONS: These results suggest that not only is there some commonality of N170 response elicited by face and nonface objects of expertise but also the kinds of functions associated with the N170 neural selectivity to faces were more than that to nonface expert objects.

The Vanderbilt holistic face processing test: a short and reliable measure of holistic face processing.

Efforts to understand individual differences in high-level vision necessitate the development of measures that have sufficient reliability, which is generally not a concern in group studies. Holistic processing is central to research on face recognition and, more recently, to the study of individual differences in this area. However, recent work has shown that the most popular measure of holistic processing, the composite task, has low reliability. This is particularly problematic for the recent surge in interest in studying individual differences in face recognition. Here, we developed and validated a new measure of holistic face processing specifically for use in individual-differences studies. It avoids some of the pitfalls of the standard composite design and capitalizes on the idea that trial variability allows for better traction on reliability. Across four experiments, we refine this test and demonstrate its reliability.