The effect of context change on children's recognition of unfamiliar faces

Abstract

This study investigated the effect of context on face recognition by children. Three groups of children, aged 6, 8 and 10 years, and an adult comparison group, were presented again with children's faces in either the same or different backgrounds from those in which they originally appeared and with either the same or different expressions. Distractors were presented in an old or a novel background. Changing the background context for targets had an equally detrimental effect on hit rate for children in each age group, although it was less for adults, possibly due to a ceiling effect. Hit rate increased overall with age. Number of false positives was similar across age groups when distractors appeared in new contexts, but decreased with age when presented in old contexts. Change in expression affected adults more than children. The results show that context affects face recognition in all the age groups tested but indicate that the processes underlying the effect may differ somewhat for children and adults.