Abstract
The Cambridge Face Memory Test (CFMT, Duchaine & Nakayama, 2006) is a measure of face recognition ability. It was designed to prevent use of salient diagnostic features, problematic in older tests, and is expected to promote holistic processing, a hallmark strategy of face recognition. However, the actual strategy used on the CFMT has not been directly tested. Attempts to correlate CFMT performance with holistic processing have produced conflicting results, but holistic processing measurements are often unreliable. A recent high-powered study with the first test designed for reliable individual differences in the measurement of holistic processing (the Vanderbilt Holistic Face Processing Test, VHPT-F; Richler et al., 2014, reliability ~.6) found no relationship between holistic processing and the CFMT. Unlike previous measures of holistic processing, faces do not repeat across trials in the VHPT-F, so we hypothesize that the correlation between the CFMT and prior holistic processing measures may stem from stimulus repetition. Because stimuli repeat in the CFMT (6 target faces are repeatedly tested), it is possible that the face learning ability measured by the CFMT is most relevant when only a handful of faces are discriminated across trials, reducing the relevant dimensions and promoting a part-based strategy. We created a new test of face matching ability similar to the CFMT but without face repetition. On each trial, 2 faces are studied for 4s, followed by a 3-AFC. We collected data from 100 subjects for two separate forms of the VFMT1.0 (each 48 trials) in an online sample. It revealed good performance on catch trials, a good spread of item difficulties, average performance of 60% (SD = 20%), and reliability of .7 for both versions. In future work, we will use item analyses to refine the test, and explore correlations with CFMT, the Vanderbilt Expertise Test with objects, and the VHPT-F.
Meeting abstract presented at VSS 2015