Abstract
Previous research suggests that adult recognition is impaired by the passage of time and changes in appearance, even for familiar faces. However, few studies have investigated the process of familiarization in a naturalistic setting. In the current study, we use the popular television series New Amsterdam to investigate how increased exposure can improve human recognition performance as faces transition from unfamiliar to familiar. Participants were asked to complete two old/new recognition tasks, 1 week apart. At Time 1, participants were shown ambient images of celebrities from the show New Amsterdam, one at a time, for 5 seconds each. After a distractor task, participants completed an old/new recognition task with new images of the New Amsterdam celebrities and of new celebrities. Participants were randomly assigned to one of two conditions: a) exposure, in which they were asked to watch five episodes of New Amsterdam; and b) control, in which they were asked to watch five episodes of Greys Anatomy. At Time 2, participants completed a second old/new recognition task with different images. Face recognition accuracy was measured as the hit rate (labeling an old image as old and a new image as new). Using a signal detection framework, we will calculate a sensitivity score for each participant to assess their recognition accuracy. Preliminary data from 6 adult participants reveal that overall participants were similar in accuracy when in the exposure condition (mean % = 78.1) versus the control condition (mean % = 76.6). We are currently recruiting 100 participants and expect to find greater recognition accuracy for New Amsterdam celebrity faces in the exposure condition at Time 2 compared to Time 1, but that recognition accuracy will remain the same at both times in the control condition. These results will offer insight into how faces become familiar through short-term naturalistic exposure.