Current Projects

Face recognition is an important aspect in our lives, we need to recognize our family and friends–we even need to recognize actors in movies in order to follow the plot! Face recognition is also used in more security based settings, such as when we need to use our photographic-ID to cross borders or to purchase age-restricted goods. Whereas it is easy to be accurate in recognizing the faces of individuals with whom we are familiar, even when their appearance changes (e.g., from different hairstyles, make-up, facial hair, age, emotion) and to discriminate them from someone who looks similar, it is incredibly difficult to do this with the faces of individuals with whom we are unfamiliar–leading to frequent errors. My research focuses on unfamiliar, newly learned and familiar face identification, with a specific focus on the mechanisms that influence performance.

* The role of decision-making:

In this first stream of research, I have been investigating the interplay between decision making and unfamiliar face identification. I am currently using a wide variety of techniques to investigate the role of decision making in face identification (e.g., experimental manipulations, eye-tracking, individual differences). For example, in a recent project my colleagues and I manipulated variables such as payoffs and base rates to examine their influence on face identification decisions– the resulting manuscript is published in JARMAC. Within this stream, approximately half of my projects are investigating variables that effect face identification decisions, and the rest are investigating the various components of decision making as potential predictors of this face identification.

* The role of experience:

There are many ways in which experience can influence face identification–this spans from experience with an individual face (i.e., familiarity) to experience with specific face categories or faces in general. In this second stream of research, I have been investigating the influence of experience in face identification. I have been using a wide-variety of approaches in these examinations. For example, in my experiments that investigated the process of learning a newly encountered face, I use experimental, individual difference, and developmental/lifespan approaches. These approaches have enabled me to examine variables that influence the efficiency with which a newly encountered face is learned and also the predictors of face learning.