Development of face recognition: A maturational component?

Abstract

In these studies we assessed development between ages 6 and 16 of the ability to encode unfamiliar faces. Performance improved markedly between ages 6 and 10 and then remained at a fixed level or actually declined for several years, finally improving again by age 16. Evidence is provided that this distinctive developmental course reflects, in part, acquisition of processes specific to the encoding effaces rather than general pattern encoding or metamemorial skills. The possibility that maturational factors contribute to the developmental course efface recognition is raised, and two sources of data relevant to assessing this possibility are discussed. Normal adults have a prodigious capacity for making new faces familiar. Whether one's high school class contained 90 or 800 people, approximately 90% of those classmates are recognized 35 years after graduation (Bahrick, Bahrick, & Wittlinger, 1975). Less dramatically, laboratory studies have shown that very brief exposure to previously unfamiliar faces permits subjects to distinguish those faces from new ones at a later time. The level of performance remains high across inspection sets that range in size from 20 to 72 (Bower & Karlin, 1974; Galper, 1970; Hochberg & Galper, 1967; Yarmey, 1971; Yin, 1969; but also see Diamond & Carey, 1977, and Patterson & Baddeley,