Gesichterlernen / Face Learning

• Applicant: Jürgen Michael Kaufmann, Ph.D.
• Subject Area: General, Cognitive and Mathematical Psychology
• Term: from 2009 to 2016
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 69199027

Representations of familiar and unfamiliar faces appear to differ strongly (for a review see Johnston & Edmonds, 2009). This raises the question what characterizes the representational transition during face learning. Crucially, there is a change from an inflexible and image dependent representation to a mental representation that can be activated by a broad range of very different images of a known person. As yet, the precise mechanisms by which such a change is achieved are only beginning to be understood. In everyday life, the ability to recognize faces is an important prerequisite for successful social interactions. More recently, individual differences in this ability receive increasing scientific attention, but the functional mechanisms underlying these differences are still largely unknown. During the first funding period, we created a large stimulus data base of famous 2D and unfamiliar 2D and 3D faces, and generated face averages as well as photorealistic 2D and 3D caricatures. Using these stimuli, we conducted a series of EEG experiments, in which we investigated neural correlates of face learning, with a particular focus on effects of distinctiveness, caricaturing and attractiveness. In addition, we studied the role of stimulus variability and contrasted face learning with pure image learning. Furthermore, we investigated the functional relationship between face and voice processing, testing cognitive models of person perception. In the second funding period we will extend research on face learning, with a strong focus on individual differences. We assume that face learning and recognition skills show convergent validity vis-à-vis established measures of social competence and discriminant validity vis-à-vis psychometric intelligence. Furthermore, we will investigate the predictive validity of face learning capacity regarding real-life outcomes in the domain of interpersonal functioning, such as job performance, partner- and other relationships. If face learning skill proves as an aspect of “social competence”, we expect significant advantages in these domains for good face recognizers. Another important aspect of this project is that it will provide crucial information for the development of training strategies for clinical and non-clinical groups suffering from poor face recognition skills. By combining methods and expertise from experimental psychology, cognitive neurosciences and differential psychology, we expect substantial progress in the understanding of the precise mechanisms underlying face learning. The project will therefore contribute to bridging the gap between the study of basic perceptual processes and higher order social functioning. Using the large stimulus data base available, we will record performance and EEG data, scan paths and electro-dermal responses for the study of face learning and recognition, as well as the range and the quality of individual differences in these abilities. The relationship between behavioural, neurophysiological, and psychometric individual difference variables will be explored by means of structural equation modelling.

• DFG Programme: Research Units
• Subproject of: FOR 1097: Person Perception