FACE RECOGNITION IN PRIMATES - A CROSS-SPECIES STUDY

Recognition for human faces, monkey faces, and objects was assessed in both adult humans (Homo sapiens) and monkeys (Macaca mulatta) with a visual paired-comparison task. The results demonstrated that while bot h species showed strong novelty preference for objects, human particip ants showed novelty preference for human faces but not for monkey face s, and vice versa for the monkeys. This 'species-specific effect' in f ace recognition is discussed in relation with data on both the 'other- race effect' observed in humans and the effects of experience or train ing on face recognition processes in primates. (C) 1998 Elsevier Scien ce B.V. All rights reserved.