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Kids Recognize Faces Better Than Adults

Anna Salleh, ABC Science Online

Susilo and colleagues tested holistic processing by children aged 8 to 13 years compared to that of adults aged 22 to 65 to see whether it was stronger for other children's faces.

To test the holistic processing, Susilo and colleagues showed participants in their experiment pairs of "composite" faces.

In some of the cases the top halves of the two faces were identical, in other cases they were different. The bottom halves of the faces were always from different people.

The participants were asked to look at just the top halves of the faces and decide whether they were identical or not.

The stronger the holistic processing, the harder participants found it was to identify identical top-halves. This was because the different bottom halves interfered with their perception of the identical top halves, making them appear different.

Using this test, called the composite illusion (or effect), Susilo and colleagues found that children had stronger holistic processing for other children than the adults did.

Whether people are born with holistic processing or not is still very much open, said Susilo.

But, he added, evidence suggests that it is possible for your environment to influence which faces you develop holistic processing for.

"Both recognition memory and holistic processing is stronger/better for the type of faces you interact with the most in everyday life," says Susilo.

Susilo said the fact that children spend so much time with other children in schools could be the reason behind their greater holistic processing of other childrens' faces.

He said understanding more about the brain processes involved in facial recognition can one day help people who are "face blind".

Such people, who suffer a condition known as prosopagnosia, are unable to identify any faces.

It can also help develop better computer facial recognition technology, said Susilo.

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