On Training People to Recognize Faces

Abstract Experiments were carried out in an attempt to validate the facial recognition element of a three-day training course in person recognition. In one experiment the subjects had to rely on memory. In two other experiments they were provided with an array of full-face photographs to match against different poses and expressions of the same faces. The performance of subjects who had received training was never reliably better than that of untrained subjects, and in one experiment was significantly worse. Ii is suggested that the emphasis on isolated facial features in the training course may be responsible for its lack of success, and that processing independent features is not a good basts for a model of facial recognition