Research article summary (published 28 Jul 2007):

Face familiarity, distinctiveness, and categorical perception.

Full Abstract

Four experiments with faces support the original interpretation of categorical perception (CP) as only present for familiar categories. Unlike in the results of Levin and Beale (2000), no evidence is found for face identity CP with unfamiliar faces. Novel face identities were shown to be capable of encoding for immediate sorting purposes but the representations utilized do not have the format of perceptual categories. One possibility explored was that a choice of a distinctive face as an end-point in a morphed continuum can spuriously produce effects that resemble CP. Such morphed continua provided unequal psychological responses to equal physical steps though much more so in a better likeness paradigm than for forced-choice recognition. Thus, researchers doing almost the same experiments may produce very different results and come to radically different conclusions.

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Author information

Author/s: Angeli, Adriana (A); Davidoff, Jules (J); Valentine, Tim (T);

Affiliation: Goldsmiths, University of London, London, UK.

Journal and publication information

Publication Type: Journal Article

Journal: Quarterly journal of experimental psychology (2006) (Q J Exp Psychol (Colchester)), published in England. (Language: eng)

Reference: 2008-May; vol 61 (issue 5) : pp 690-707

Dates: Created 2008/04/22; Completed 2008/07/24;

PMID: 17853232, status: MEDLINE (last retrieval date: 11/6/2008)

Sourced from the National Library of Medicine. Abstract text and other information may be subject to copyright.

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MeSH headings (categories)

This article was linked to the MESH Headings shown below.

Adolescent Adult Discrimination (Psychology) - physiology Face Female Humans

Individuality Male Middle Aged Recognition (Psychology) - physiology Students - psychology Visual Perception - physiology

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