The question whether object representations in the human brain are object-c
entered or viewer-centered has motivated a variety of experiments with dive
rgent results. A key issue concerns the visual recognition of objects seen
from novel views. If recognition performance depends on whether a particula
r view has been seen before, it can be interpreted as evidence for a viewer
-centered representation. Earlier experiments used unfamiliar objects to pr
ovide the experimenter with complete control over the observer's previous e
xperience with the object. In this study, we tested whether human recogniti
on shows viewpoint dependence for the highly familiar faces of well-known c
olleagues and for the observer's own face. We found that observers are poor
er at recognizing their own profile, whereas there is no difference in resp
onse time between frontal and profile views of other faces. This result sho
ws that extensive experience and familiarity with one's own face is not suf
ficient to produce viewpoint invariance. Our result provides strong evidenc
e for viewer-centered representations in human visual recognition even for
highly familiar objects.