This review estimated the strength of the relationship between self-reported and objectively measured face identity recognition ability and examined potential moderators of this relationship. CINAHL, Medline, PsycInfo, Scopus, and ProQuest Dissertation and Theses databases were searched on April 16, 2025, for two concepts: insight and face recognition. Studies were included if they were written in English, comprised adult samples, included an objective face recognition task and a measure of self-reported face recognition ability, and reported the relationship between the two. Forty-four studies (N = 11,074) comprising 141 effect sizes were included in a random effects meta-analysis with robust variance estimation, which revealed a significant, positive relationship between self-reported and objective face recognition ability of medium strength (r = .26, 95

Facial expression recognition depends on both motion and intensity, but how these factors interact within and across emotions remains unclear. Here we examined recognition accuracy of basic emotions (anger, disgust, fear, joy, sadness, surprise) across low, medium, and high intensity displays of static and naturally dynamic facial expressions. Results showed while there was an overall increase in accuracy with intensity, there were complex interactions between intensity, motion, and emotion. Dynamic cues enhanced recognition of joy, surprise, and anger, particularly at low intensity, whereas disgust, fear, and sadness were recognised with greater accuracy from static expressions. We found common confusion patterns of fear-surprise, anger-sadness, and disgust-anger. However, contrary to reports of equivalent confusion patterns across dynamic and static expressions, motion reduced confusions of surprise as fear, but increased confusions of fear as surprise. This novel finding suggests that temporal unfolding facilitates recognition of surprise, but obscures cues aiding identification of fear. These patterns show that the benefits of dynamic information are intensity and emotion-specific and limited when emotions share morphological features. The current findings highlight the complexity of the role of motion and intensity in facial expression recognition and underscore the importance of employing naturally unfolding dynamic stimuli.

Recognising faces is widely believed to be achieved using "special" neural and cognitive mechanisms that depend on "holistic" processing, which are not used when recognising other kinds of objects. An important, but largely unaddressed, question is how much like a Human face a stimulus needs to be to engage this "special" mechanism(s). In the current study, we attempted to answer this question in 3 ways. In Experiments 1 and 2 we examined the extent to which the disproportionate inversion effect for human faces extends to the faces of other species (including a range of other primates). Results suggested that the faces of other primates engage the mechanism responsible for the inversion effect approximately as well as that mechanism is engaged by Human faces, but that non-primate faces engage the mechanism less well. And so primate faces, in general, seem to produce a disproportionate inversion effect. In Experiment 3 we examined the extent to which the Composite effect extends to the faces of a range of other primates, and found no compelling evidence of a composite effect for the faces of any other primate. The composite effect was exclusive to Human faces. Because these data differ so dramatically from a previously reported study asking similar questions Taubert (2009), we also (in Experiment 4) ran an exact replication of Taubert's Experiment 2, which reported on both Inversion and Composite effects in a range of species. We were unable to reproduce the pattern of data reported by Taubert. Overall, the results suggest that the disproportionate inversion effect extends to all of the faces of the non-human primates tested, but that the composite effect is exclusive to Human faces.

Background Cognitive psychology is challenging for both teachers and learners due to the abstract and complex nature of mental processes and variation in student motivation. Objective To test the effectiveness of an approach that seeks to motivate students to engage and successfully complete a cognitive psychology course by highlighting transferrable skills. Method A cognitive psychology course was redesigned to emphasize the transferability of skills. It involved providing students with scaffolded assessments, just-in-time learning, and drawing explicit connections between knowledge, skill development, and real-world applications. Results Comparison of student performance before and after course modifications showed a significant increase in learning outcomes, especially for students at the lower end of the performance spectrum. Conclusion A program of scaffolded assessment with just-in-time skills reinforcement and explicit discussion of the broader application of those skills is an effective approach to teaching cognitive psychology. Teaching implications This program produced a reliable improvement in learning outcomes in a course with a high level of theoretical and abstract content. The improvement was most noticeable in lower achieving students; however, all students benefit from a better developed transferable skill base and an awareness that can be used to articulate skills to potential employers.

Unfamiliar face identification is concerningly error prone, especially across changes in viewing conditions. Within-person variability has been shown to improve matching performance for unfamiliar faces, but this has only been demonstrated using images of a front view. In this study, we test whether the advantage of within-person variability from front views extends to matching to target images of a face rotated in view. Participants completed either a simultaneous matching task (Experiment 1) or a sequential matching task (Experiment 2) in which they were tested on their ability to match the identity of a face shown in an array of either one or three ambient front-view images, with a target image shown in front, three-quarter, or profile view. While the effect was stronger in Experiment 2, we found a consistent pattern in match trials across both experiments in that there was a multiple image matching benefit for front, three-quarter, and profile-view targets. We found multiple image effects for match trials only, indicating that providing observers with multiple ambient images confers an advantage for recognising different images of the same identity but not for discriminating between images of different identities. Signal detection measures also indicate a multiple image advantage despite a more liberal response bias for multiple image trials. Our results show that within-person variability information for unfamiliar faces can be generalised across views and can provide insights into the initial processes involved in the representation of familiar faces.

Matching the identity of unfamiliar faces is highly error-prone, especially when the face is a different race to the viewer. This is referred to as the other-race effect (ORE). Recent research has tested methods for improving unfamiliar face matching performance and found that exposure to within-person variability (the way a face varies across multiple encounters) improves the identification of unfamiliar own-race faces. The current study investigates whether exposure to within-person variability can improve the identification of other-race faces as well as reduce the ORE. Using a cross-over design (N= 105), Caucasian-Australian and Asian-Singaporean participants completed a simultaneous matching task with Caucasian and Asian faces. Participants viewed a target image with either one other ambient image or an array of three ambient images and judged whether the identity in the array was the same or different to the target image identity. Results showed that viewing multiple images improved matching accuracy for own- and other-race faces in trials where the target image identity was the same as the image array. However, multiple images decreased accuracy in trials where the target image was a different identity. Notably, although multiple images improved accuracy for matching other-race faces, the improvement was not different from that for own-race faces. That is, the ORE was not reduced. This pattern was also shown in the analysis of signal detection measures. These findings highlight the robust nature of the ORE and provide insight into the formation of familiar face representations.

Introduction We aimed to investigate the association between schizotypy and intentionality bias, the tendency to interpret ambiguous actions as being intentional, for social and non-social actions separately. This bias contributes to interpersonal difficulties, and has been associated with psychotic symptoms, such as delusions. However, results have been inconsistent for an association between putative psychosis proneness, schizotypy, and intentionality bias. Further, the multidimensional nature of schizotypy has not been considered. Agreeableness was measured to examine the specificity of the relationship, and inhibition to examine its potential role as a mediator. Methods Two online studies are reported (n = 280 and n = 163) in which participants made intentionality judgements about ambiguous actions described in sentences. They also completed questionnaire measures of schizotypy and agreeableness, and inhibitory efficiency (a sentence completion task). Results Schizotypy was associated with perceiving ambiguous actions as intentional, particularly in social contexts, after controlling for agreeableness. The association with social intentionality was stronger for schizotypy subscales capturing paranoia and unusual beliefs. Inhibitory efficiency as not a significant predictor of intentionality bias. Conclusion These finding suggest intentionality biases for social and non-social events are distinguishable. In relation to schizotypy, social situations appear to generate perceptions of intentionality. Intentionality bias represents a phenotypic cognitive risk for psychosis which should be further investigated.

Background Individuals with psychotic disorders often report feelings of loneliness, fewer social contacts and less satisfaction with their social support prior to diagnosis. However, temporal relationships between these variables remain unclear. The primary aim of this study was to examine whether subjective and objective social factors predict, or are predicted by, psychotic-like experiences (PLEs) in healthy young adults.Methods 196 undergraduates completed baseline and 3-month follow-up assessments for PLEs, loneliness, social support size, and satisfaction. Cross-lagged panel models were conducted to investigate the temporal relationships between these variables.Results Higher loneliness scores, fewer social contacts, and being less satisfied with social support at both time points were significantly associated with higher endorsement of PLEs. Furthermore, after controlling for baseline levels, cross-lagged analyses revealed that individuals who reported feeling more lonely and having less social support at baseline, predicted higher PLEs three months later but not vice versa. No cross-lagged effect was found between the satisfaction of social support and PLEs.Conclusion The study highlights the significant relationships between loneliness, social support and PLEs. Higher levels of loneliness and smaller social support networks predicted future PLEs. These findings need to be given full consideration in future clinical practice and intervention for young adults with PLEs.

It can be difficult to recognise new instances of an unfamiliar face. Recognition errors in this particular situation appear to be viewpoint dependent with error rates increasing with the angular distance between the face views. Studies using front views for comparison have shown that recognising faces rotated in yaw can be difficult and that recognition of faces rotated in pitch is more challenging still. Here we investigate the extent to which viewpoint dependent face recognition depends on the comparison view. Participants were assigned to one of four different comparison view groups: front, ¾ yaw (right), ¾ pitch-up (above) or ¾ pitch-down (below). On each trial, participants matched their particular comparison view to a range of yaw or pitch rotated test views. Results showed that groups with a front or ¾ yaw comparison view had superior overall performance and more successful generalisation to a broader range of both pitch and yaw test views compared to groups with pitch-up or pitch-down comparison views, both of which had a very restricted generalisation range. Regression analyses revealed the importance of image similarity between views for generalisation, with a lesser role for 3D face depth. These findings are consistent with a view interpolation solution to view generalisation of face recognition, with front and ¾ yaw views being most informative.

The other-race effect in face identification has been reported in many situations and by many different ethnicities, yet it remains poorly understood. One reason for this lack of clarity may be a limitation in the methodologies that have been used to test it. Experiments typically use an old-new recognition task to demonstrate the existence of the other-race effect, but such tasks are susceptible to different social and perceptual influences, particularly in terms of the extent to which all faces are equally individuated at study. In this paper we report an experiment in which we used a face learning methodology to measure the other-race effect. We obtained naturalistic photographs of Chinese and Caucasian individuals, which allowed us to test the ability of participants to generalize their learning to new ecologically valid exemplars of a face identity. We show a strong own-race advantage in face learning, such that participants required many fewer trials to learn names of own-race individuals than those of other-race individuals and were better able to identify learned own-race individuals in novel naturalistic stimuli. Since our methodology requires individuation of all faces, and generalization over large image changes, our finding of an other-race effect can be attributed to a specific deficit in the sensitivity of perceptual and memory processes to other-race faces.

Matching the identities of unfamiliar faces is heavily influenced by variations in their images. Changes to viewpoint and lighting direction during face perception are commonplace across yaw and pitch axes and can result in dramatic image differences. We report two experiments that, for the first time, factorially investigate the combined effects of lighting and view angle on matching performance for unfamiliar faces. The use of three-dimensional head models allowed control of both lighting and viewpoint. We found viewpoint effects in the yaw axis with little to no effect of lighting. However, for rotations about the pitch axis, there were both viewpoint and lighting effects and these interacted where lighting effects were found only for front views and views from below. The pattern of effects was similar regardless of whether view variation occurred as a result of head (Experiment 1) or camera (Experiment 2) suggesting that face matching is not purely image based. Along with face inversion effects in Experiment 1, the results of this study suggest that face perception is based on shape and surface information and draws on implicit knowledge of upright faces and ecological (top) lighting conditions.

Although many researchers agree that faces are processed holistically, we know relatively little about what information holistic processing captures from a face. Most studies that assess the nature of holistic processing do so with changes to the face affecting many different aspects of face information (e.g., different identities). Does holistic processing affect every aspect of a face? We used the composite task, a common means of examining the strength of holistic processing, with participants making same-different judgments about configuration changes or component changes to 1 portion of a face. Configuration changes involved changes in spatial position of the eyes, whereas component changes involved lightening or darkening the eyebrows. Composites were either aligned or misaligned, and were presented either upright or inverted. Both configuration judgments and component judgments showed evidence of holistic processing, and in both cases it was strongest for upright face composites. These results suggest that holistic processing captures a broad range of information about the face, including both configuration-based and component-based information. (PsycINFO Database Record

Holistic processing is considered one of the hallmarks of face recognition. Recent studies using the composite task claim to show a lack of holistic processing for dynamic faces, however they only presented moving faces in the learning phase and tested with static composite images. So while previous research has addressed the question of whether moving faces influence the processing of subsequently viewed static faces, the question of whether moving faces are processed holistically remains unanswered. We address that question here. In our study participants learned faces in motion and were tested on moving composite faces, or learned static faces and were tested on static composite faces. We found a clear composite effect for both upright static and dynamic faces, with no significant difference in the magnitude of those effects. Further, there was no evidence of composite or motion effects in inverted conditions, ruling out low level or other motion signal properties as explanations of performance in upright faces. Together, these results show that upright moving faces are processed holistically, in a similar manner to static faces, extending decades of research with static faces and confirming the importance of holistic processing to familiar face recognition.

Investigations of change detection consistently reveal an effect of change magnitude: changes involving more object parts are detected more easily than those involving fewer parts. Whether large changes improve detection by providing stronger preattentive signals to the change location is subject to debate. We report a cued object change detection experiment that tested this hypothesis while controlling for stimulus familiarity, semantic knowledge, and change type (addition versus deletion). We found strong magnitude effects regardless of whether trials were validly or invalidly cued. The size of the cueing effects, which were exhibited for all the change magnitudes examined, did not decrease with the number of parts changing. These findings provide little support for a preattentive guidance hypothesis and instead support the thesis that change detection requires attention.

There is evidence that facial expressions are perceived holistically and featurally. The composite task is a direct measure of holistic processing (although the absence of a composite effect implies the use of other types of processing). Most composite task studies have used static images, despite the fact that movement is an important aspect of facial expressions and there is some evidence that movement may facilitate recognition. We created static and dynamic composites, in which emotions were reliably identified from each half of the face. The magnitude of the composite effect was similar for static and dynamic expressions identified from the top half (anger, sadness and surprise) but was reduced in dynamic as compared to static expressions identified from the bottom half (fear, disgust and joy). Thus, any advantage in recognising dynamic over static expressions is not likely to stem from enhanced holistic processing, rather motion may emphasise or disambiguate diagnostic featural information.

presented at The 41st Annual Australasian Experimental Psychology Conference, 23-26 April 2014, Brisbane, Australia

presented at The Psychonomic Society 55th Annual Meeting, 20-23 November 2014, Long Beach,presented at The Psychonomic Society 55th Annual Meeting, 20-23 November 2014, Long Beach,

presented at The Asia-Pacific Conference on Vision (APCV) 2014 19-22 July 2014, Takamatsu, Japan