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Glucose enhancement of face recognition is unaffected by alterations of face features
Neurobiology of Learning and Memory (2003)
  • Mitchell M. Metzger, Ashland University
  • Robert W. Flint, Jr., The College of Saint Rose
Abstract

Glucose improves memory on a variety of tasks has been well established in both the animal and human literature. Of particular relevance to the present experiment is the finding that administration of glucose improves face recognition performance in both healthy, young adults (Metzger, 2000) and in Alzheimer's patients (Manning, Ragozzino, & Gold, 1993). This experiment attempted to expand on these findings to determine if glucose-enhanced performance for face recognition is specific to certain face features (e.g., nose, eyes, or hair). In a between subjects experiment that tested healthy, young adults, a pre-training administration of glucose (50 g) was shown to improve face recognition performance relative to placebo (27.3 mg saccharin); however, the significant improvement on the task was not specific to a particular feature. This result suggests that glucose did not enhance memory for individual face features, but rather enhanced overall memory for face stimuli.

Publication Date
September, 2003
Citation Information
Mitchell M. Metzger and Robert W. Flint. "Glucose enhancement of face recognition is unaffected by alterations of face features" Neurobiology of Learning and Memory Vol. 80 Iss. 2 (2003)
Available at: http://works.bepress.com/mitchell_metzger/10/