AGE EFFECTS IN THE PROCESSING OF TYPICAL AND DISTINCTIVE FACES

Two experiments exploring the differential processing of distinctive a nd typical faces by adults and children are reported. Experiment 1 emp loyed a recognition memory task. On three out of four dimensions of me asurement, children of 5 years of age did not show an advantage for di stinctive faces, whereas older children and adults did. In Experiment 2, however, subjects of all ages classified typical faces faster than distinctive ones in a face/non-face decision task: the 5-year-olds per formed exactly as did adults and older children. The different pattern s in performance between these two tasks are discussed in relation to possible cognitive architectures for the way young children represent faces in memory. Specifically, we examine two alternative architecture s proposed by Ellis (1992) as precursors for Valentine's (1991a) multi dimensional adult face-space and discuss whether implementations of th ese spaces should be based on a norm-based or an exemplar-based framew ork.