Abstract
We tested 4 people who claimed to have significantly better than ordinary face recognition ability. Exceptional ability was confirmed in each case. On two very different tests of face recognition, all 4 experimental subjects performed beyond the range of control subject performance. They also scored significantly better than average on a perceptual discrimination test with faces. This effect was larger with upright than with inverted faces, and the 4 subjects showed a larger “inversion effect” than did control subjects, who in turn showed a larger inversion effect than did developmental prosopagnosics. This result indicates an association between face recognition ability and the magnitude of the inversion effect. Overall, these “super-recognizers” are about as good at face recognition and perception as developmental prosopagnosics are bad. Our findings demonstrate the existence of people with exceptionally good face recognition ability and show that the range of face recognition and face perception ability is wider than has been previously acknowledged.
Article PDF
Explore related subjects
Discover the latest articles and news from researchers in related subjects, suggested using machine learning.Avoid common mistakes on your manuscript.
References
Barton, J. J. S., Cherkasova, M. V., Press, D. Z., Intriligator, J. M., & O’Connor, M. (2003). Developmental prosopagnosia: A study of three patients. Brain & Cognition, 51, 12–30.
Behrmann, M., & Avidan, G. (2005). Congenital prosopagnosia: Face-blind from birth. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 9, 180–187.
de Gelder, B., & Rouw, R. (2000). Configural face processes in acquired and developmental prosopagnosia: Evidence for two separate face systems? NeuroReport, 11, 3145–3150.
Duchaine, B., Germine, L., & Nakayama, K. (2007). Family resemblance: Ten family members with prosopagnosia and within-class object agnosia. Cognitive Neuropsychology, 24, 419–430.
Duchaine, B., & Nakayama, K. (2006a). The Cambridge Face Memory Test: Results for neurologically intact individuals and an investigation of its validity using inverted performance and prosopagnosic subjects. Neuropsychologia, 44, 576–585.
Duchaine, B., & Nakayama, K. (2006b). Developmental prosopagnosia: A window to content-specific face processing. Current Opinion in Neurobiology, 16, 166–173.
Duchaine, B., Yovel, G., Butterworth, E. J., & Nakayama, K. (2006). Prosopagnosia as an impairment to face-specific mechanisms: Elimination of the alternative hypotheses in a developmental case. Cognitive Neuropsychology, 23, 714–747.
Kennerknecht, I., Grueter, T., Welling, B., Wentzek, S., Horst, J., Edwards, S., & Grueter, M. (2006). First report of prevalence of syndromic hereditary prosopagnosia (HPA). American Journal of Medical Genetics, 140A, 1617–1622.
Kress, T., & Daum, I. (2003). Event-related potentials reflect impaired face recognition in patients with congenital prosopagnosia. Neuroscience Letters, 352, 133–136.
Le Grand, R., Cooper, P. A., Mondloch, C. J., Lewis, T. L., Sagiv, N., de Gelder, B., & Maurer, D. (2006). What aspects of face processing are impaired in developmental prosopagnosia? Brain & Cognition, 61, 139–158.
McConachie, H. R. (1976). Developmental prosopagnosia: A single case report. Cortex, 12, 76–82.
Megreya, A. M., & Burton, A. M. (2006). Unfamiliar faces are not faces: Evidence from a matching task. Memory & Cognition, 34, 865–876.
Morgan, C. A., III, Hazlett, G., Baranoski, M., Doran, A., Southwick, S., & Loftus, E. (2007). Accuracy of eyewitness identification is significantly associated with performance on a standardized test of face recognition. International Journal of Law & Psychiatry, 30, 213–223.
Nakayama, K., Garrido, L., Russell, R., Chabris, C. F., Gerbasi, M., & Duchaine, B. C. (2006). Developmental prosopagnosia: Phenotypes and estimated prevalence. Society for Neuroscience Abstracts, No. 702.9.
Wells, G. L., & Olson, E. A. (2003). Eyewitness testimony. Annual Review of Psychology, 54, 277–295.
Wilhelm, O., Herzmann, G., Kunina, O., & Sommer, W. (2007). Face cognition: A set of distinct mental abilities. Available from Nature Precedings at http://hdl.handle.net/10101/npre.2007.1385.1.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Additional information
The present study was supported by the US National Eye Institute (NRSA to R.R. and R01-EY13602 to K.N.) and the UK Economic and Social Research Council (RES-061-23-0040 to B.D.).
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Russell, R., Duchaine, B. & Nakayama, K. Super-recognizers: People with extraordinary face recognition ability. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review 16, 252–257 (2009). https://doi.org/10.3758/PBR.16.2.252
Received:
Accepted:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.3758/PBR.16.2.252