Abstract
This study examines how people recognize familiar and unfamiliar faces, by investigating how inner (eyebrows, eyes, nose, and mouth) and outer (hair, ears, and facial outline) features influence face recognition. Two experiments were conducted in which participants selected from among images of faces, which had been altered to emphasize either the inner or outer features, the best likeness of the person. The two experiments differed in terms of the familiarity of the faces, with familiar faces (such as friends and acquaintances) in Experiment 1 and unfamiliar faces (strangers) in Experiment 2. The results indicated that participants only selected images close to the original when the faces were familiar and the inner features had been manipulated, with participants selecting averaged facial images in the other conditions. Based on these results, this paper claims that the distinctiveness of inner features is exaggerated in the memory representations of familiar faces.
