TY - JOUR
T1 - The Rapid Forgetting of Faces
AU - Krill, Dana
AU - Avidan, Galia
AU - Pertzov, Yoni
N1 - Funding Information: This research was supported by an Israel Science Foundation (ISF) grant (1747/14) to YP, as well as the China-Israel Cooperative Scientific Research grant (3-13562) to YP. The research was also supported by ISF grant 296/15 to GA. Publisher Copyright: © Copyright © 2018 Krill, Avidan and Pertzov.
PY - 2018/7/27
Y1 - 2018/7/27
N2 - How are faces forgotten? Studies examining forgetting in visual working memory (VWM) typically use simple visual features; however, in ecological scenarios, VWM typically contains complex objects. Given their significance in everyday functioning and their visual complexity, here we investigated how upright and inverted faces are forgotten within a few seconds, focusing on the raw errors that accompany such forgetting and examining their characteristics. In three experiments we found that longer retention intervals increased the size of errors. This effect was mainly accounted for by a larger proportion of random errors - suggesting that forgetting of faces reflects decreased accessibility of the memory representations over time. On the other hand, longer retention intervals did not modulate the precision of recall - suggesting that forgetting does not affect the precision of accessible memory representation. Thus, when upright and inverted faces are forgotten there is a complete failure to access them or a complete collapse of their memory representation. In contrast to the effect of retention interval (i.e., forgetting), face inversion led to larger errors that were mainly associated with decreased precision of recall. This effect was not modulated by the duration of the retention interval, and was observed even when memory was not required in the task. Therefore, upright faces are remembered more precisely compared to inverted ones due to perceptual, rather than mnemonic processes.
AB - How are faces forgotten? Studies examining forgetting in visual working memory (VWM) typically use simple visual features; however, in ecological scenarios, VWM typically contains complex objects. Given their significance in everyday functioning and their visual complexity, here we investigated how upright and inverted faces are forgotten within a few seconds, focusing on the raw errors that accompany such forgetting and examining their characteristics. In three experiments we found that longer retention intervals increased the size of errors. This effect was mainly accounted for by a larger proportion of random errors - suggesting that forgetting of faces reflects decreased accessibility of the memory representations over time. On the other hand, longer retention intervals did not modulate the precision of recall - suggesting that forgetting does not affect the precision of accessible memory representation. Thus, when upright and inverted faces are forgotten there is a complete failure to access them or a complete collapse of their memory representation. In contrast to the effect of retention interval (i.e., forgetting), face inversion led to larger errors that were mainly associated with decreased precision of recall. This effect was not modulated by the duration of the retention interval, and was observed even when memory was not required in the task. Therefore, upright faces are remembered more precisely compared to inverted ones due to perceptual, rather than mnemonic processes.
KW - face inversion effect
KW - face perception
KW - face recognition
KW - forgetting
KW - visual short-term memory
KW - visual working memory
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85074528389&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2018.01319
DO - https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2018.01319
M3 - Article
C2 - 30100894
SN - 1664-1078
VL - 9
JO - Frontiers in Psychology
JF - Frontiers in Psychology
M1 - 1319
ER -