From rotation to disfiguration: testing a dual-strategy model for recognition of faces across view angles

A study is reported of the effect of distinctive marks on the recognition o f unfamiliar faces across view angles. Subjects were asked to memorize a se t of target faces, half of which had distinctive marks. Recognition was ass essed by presenting the target faces, either in the same orientation, or af ter 90 degrees rotation, mixed with an equal number of distracters. Results show that the effect of distinctive marks depends on the view presented du ring learning. When a frontal view was learned, as predicted by the dual-st rategy model [Valentin et al, in press, in Computational, Geometric, and Pr ocess Perspectives on Facial Cognition: Context and Challenges Eds T Wenger , J Townsend (Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates)], distinctive mar ks improve recognition performance in the 90 degrees condition but not in t he 0 degrees condition. However, when a profile view was learned, distincti ve marks have no effect on recognition performance, even in the 90 degrees condition where a frontal view is tested.