Inaccuracies in judging aspect ratio of familiar and unfamiliar faces A Sandford, A M Burton |
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School of Psychology, University of Aberdeen, United Kingdom
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| Researchers have suggested configural information is critical in face identity processing (Maurer et al., Trends Cogn Sci 6: 255-60, 2002). However, observers are very inaccurate at estimating the distances between the features of unfamiliar faces (Schwaninger et al., Vision Res 43: 1501-15, 2003). In this study, we ask whether viewers show evidence of having good representations of the spatial relationship between features of familiar faces. Configural face processing theories seem to imply that such representations will be highly accurate, given that differences in spatial layout between faces are rather subtle. In several experiments, we asked viewers to correct faces seen in the wrong aspect ratio, using a mouse to re-size a window. Participants were poor at this task, making 8-9% errors for both familiar and unfamiliar faces – this performance being worse than an equivalent task using geometric shapes. Knowledge of a face did not help participants accurately to render the spatial layout of features in this simple aspect-ratio task. These findings challenge theories of face identification based on the spatial layout of features. For such theories to be useful, it will be necessary to explain exactly how to operationalize face configuration, and for such an operationalization to be robust in the face of quite severe distortions in aspect ratio. |
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