Abstract
The Cambridge Face Memory Test (CFMT1) is a validated test of unfamiliar face recognition that is widely used. A longer form of the task (CFMT+) was developed to evaluate individual differences in face recognition abilities2. Both tasks were designed to include adult male face stimuli exclusively in order to avoid inducing potential sex differences in face recognition, which are disproportionately reported during recognition of female faces3. As a result, studies employing the CFMT/CFMT+ are limited to conclusions about male face recognition. However, questions regarding sex differences in face recognition behavior and potential own-sex biases in patterns of recognition are re-emerging in the literature. Therefore, an analogous version of the CFMT with female faces is necessary to evaluate potential sex differences and biases in face recognition behavior. We created a comparable female face version of the CFMT/CFMT+ that is matched in number of trials, blocks, and parameters as the original task. It also includes a 4th block, which is much more difficult than the first three blocks (as in the male version of the CFMT+) to test individual differences. To evaluate the validity, consistency, and internal reliability of the F-CFMT+, we compared the performance of 149 young adults on the short and long forms of our newly-created F-CFMT+ with the M-CFMT+. We found that: a) performance on the F-CFMT+ was highly correlated with performance on the M-CFMT+, b) there was comparable inter-block reliability within the F-CMFT+ as compared to the M-CFMT+, and c) there was a comparable range of individual differences on the two tasks. One important difference is that participants were more accurate overall on the F-CFMT+. Ongoing development of the task will resolve these differences prior to its release for research purposes. 1 Duchaine & Nakayama, 2006, 2 Russell et al. 2009, 3 Lewin & Herlitz, 2002
Meeting abstract presented at VSS 2017