Abstract
Despite the importance of face recognition in everyday life and frequent complaints about its failure, there is no comprehensive test battery for this ability. As a first step in constructing such a battery, we present 18 tasks aimed at measuring face perception, face learning, face recognition, and the recognition of facially expressed emotions. A sample of 153 healthy young adults completed all tasks. In general, reaction time measures showed high estimates of internal consistency; tasks focused on performance accuracy yielded reliabilities that were somewhat lower, yet high enough to support their use in a battery of face cognition measures. Some of the tasks allowed computation of established experimental effects in a within-subjects design, such as the part-whole effect. Most of these experimental effects were confirmed in our large sample, and valuable effect size estimates were obtained. However, in many cases these difference measures showed poor estimates of internal consistency.
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This research was supported by grants from the State of Berlin (NaFöG) and the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (Wi 2667/2-2). Portions of this research used the CAS-PEAL face database, collected under the sponsorship of the Chinese National Hi-Tech Program and Isvision Tech. Co.; the Color FERET database of facial images, collected under the FERET program; and the Extended Multimodal Face Database and associated documentation.
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Herzmann, G., Danthiir, V., Schacht, A. et al. Toward a comprehensive test battery for face cognition: Assessment of the tasks. Behavior Research Methods 40, 840–857 (2008). https://doi.org/10.3758/BRM.40.3.840
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.3758/BRM.40.3.840