Encoding Operations and Recognition Memory for Faces

Encoding operations and recognition memory for faces

Two experiments examined the effects of encoding operations on forced-choice recognition memory for upright and inverted photographs of faces. In Experiment 1, with distractors closely matched to targets, performance was better on upright than on inverted faces, but was unaffected by whether subjects judged faces for distinctive features, distinctive traits or distinctive expressions. In Experiment 2, where distractors were either absent or weakly matched to distractors, accuracy was again higher on upright than on inverted faces, and was similar for the three encoding operations on upright faces. In contrast, it was poorer for distinctive expression judgments than for distinctive feature or for distinctive trait judgments on inverted faces. These results support Winograd's (1981) claim that distinctive feature and distinctive trait judgments both lead to the isolation of distinctive features. However, it was argued that distinctive expression judgments led to configural processing that was disrupted by inversion.

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Abstract Two experiments examined the effects of encoding operations on forced-choice recognition memory for upright and inverted photographs of faces. In Experiment 1, with distractors closely matched to targets, performance was better on upright than on inverted faces, but was unaffected by whether subjects judged faces for distinctive features, distinctive traits or distinctive expressions. In Experiment 2, where distractors were either absent or weakly matched to distractors, accuracy was again higher on upright than on inverted faces, and was similar for the three encoding operations on upright faces. In contrast, it was poorer for distinctive expression judgments than for distinctive feature or for distinctive trait judgments on inverted faces. These results support Winograd's (1981) claim that distinctive feature and distinctive trait judgments both lead to the isolation of distinctive features. However, it was argued that distinctive expression judgments led to configural processing that was disrupted by inversion.

Recognition memory for faces is better following semantic evaluations (e.g., likeability, specific personality traits) than following judgments that are more directly related to parts of the face (e.g., gaze direction, size of individual features, gender) (e.g., Bower & Karlin, 1974; Patterson & Baddeley, 1977; Sporer, 1991; Winograd, 1981).

This effect may be due to greater "depth of processing" (Bower & Karlin, 1974), according to which memory improves for encoding operations that extract information from later associative rather than earlier sensory stages of processing (Craik & Lockhart, 1972). However, the depth of processing model has been debated (Baddeley, 1978; Lockhart & Craik, 1990), and other evidence casts doubt on whether semantic judgments are based on different information than are feature judgments. In particular, recognition memory is similar for what Winograd (1981) terms "constrained trait" judgments, in which the appropriateness of a single trait (e.g., intelligence) is evaluated for each face, and for "distinctive feature" judgments, in which a distinctive feature for each face is chosen from a list (e.g., eyes, nose, etc.) (Memon & Bruce, 1983; Parkin & Hayward, 1983; Sporer, 1991; Winograd, 1981). Furthermore, recognition memory accuracy is also similar for distinctive feature and for "distinctive trait" judgments (Winograd, 1981), in which the most appropriate trait for each face is selected from a list (e.g., intelligent, snobbish, etc.).

In contrast, recognition memory performance is better for constrained trait, distinctive trait and distinctive feature judgments than for "constrained feature" judgments (Winograd, 1981), in which only an aspect of a single feature (e.g., nose length, space between eyes) is judged for each face (Patterson & Baddeley, 1977; Sporer, 1991; Winograd, 1981). According to the "feature quantity" (Bloom & Mudd, 1991) or "elaboration" (Winograd, 1981) hypothesis, the three more successful encoding operations are all based on a more complete scan of the face, leading to a memory representation that contains information about many individual features rather than just one or a few (Goldstein & Chance, 1981). However, Winograd (1981) proposes that constrained trait, distinctive trait and distinctive feature judgments enhance recognition memory accuracy because they all lead to the isolation of a distinctive feature for each face: many features are scanned, but the quantity of information processed is not the critical determinant of performance.

On the other hand, Wells and Hryeiw (1984) dispute both arguments that relate trait encoding operations to the processing of individual features. Instead, they propose that these semantic judgments are based on the face as a whole, and depend on configural, holistic, or topographical cues that reflect the position of features on the face, and spatial relations among the features. Furthermore, following others (e.g., Ellis, Shepherd, & Davies, 1975), Wells and Hryeiw argue that the recognition test of memory is holistic rather than feature-based because between-feature cues are available in the test items. Consequently, they claim that the advantage of trait judgments over constrained feature judgments occurs because of the match between encoding and retrieval operations (an "encoding specificity" hypothesis, Tulving & Thomson, 1973). Furthermore, Patterson and Baddeley (1977) observe that faces may be processed as integrated wholes no matter what the instructions. These arguments imply that the more successful encoding operations may all be based on configural processing rather than on the processing of many features or of a distinctive feature. Like Winograd's distinctive feature hypothesis, the configuration hypothesis recognizes that many features on a face are sampled. However, the positive effect on recognition accuracy is due to the extraction of between-feature information rather than to the extraction of a distinctive feature.

Can We Distinguish the Effects of Encoding Operations with Different Kinds of Recognition Memory Tasks?

The configural, feature quantity, and distinctive feature accounts all assume that similar high levels of recognition memory performance are based on a similar analysis of the face under each encoding operation. However, the distinctive feature judgments and the