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Article
Face distinctiveness and delayed testing: Differential effects on performance and confidence
Journal of General Psychology (2006)
  • Mitchell M. Metzger, Ashland University
Abstract

The author investigated the effect of delayed testing on participants' memory for distinctive and typical faces. Participants viewed distinctive and typical faces and were then tested for recognition immediately or after a delay of 3, 6, or 12 weeks. Consistent with prior research, analysis of measure of sensitivity (d') showed that participants performed better on distinctive rather than typical faces, and memory performance declined with longer retention intervals between study and testing. Furthermore, the superior performance on distinctive faces had vanished by the 12-week test. Contrary to d' data, however, an analysis of confidence scores indicated that participants were still significantly more confident on trials depicting distinctive faces, even with a 12-week delay between study and recognition testing.

Keywords
  • confidence,
  • facial recognition,
  • delayed testing
Disciplines
Publication Date
2006
Citation Information
Mitchell M. Metzger. "Face distinctiveness and delayed testing: Differential effects on performance and confidence" Journal of General Psychology Vol. 133 Iss. 2 (2006)
Available at: http://works.bepress.com/mitchell_metzger/3/