I recognise your name but I can’t remember your face: an advantage for names in recognition memory

TY - JOUR

T1 - I recognise your name but I can’t remember your face

T2 - an advantage for names in recognition memory

AU - Burton, Anthony Michael

AU - Jenkins, Robert

AU - Robertson, David

N1 - © Experimental Psychology Society 2018. This is an author-produced version of the published paper. Uploaded in accordance with the publisher’s self-archiving policy. Further copying may not be permitted; contact the publisher for details.

PY - 2019/7/1

Y1 - 2019/7/1

N2 - Forgetting someone’s name is a common failure of memory, and often occurs despite being able to recognise that person’s face. This gives rise to the widespread view that memory for names is generally worse than memory for faces. However, this everyday error confounds stimulus class (faces vs. names) with memory task: recognition versus recall. Here we compare memory for faces and names when both are tested in the same recognition memory framework. Contrary to the common view, we find a clear advantage for names over faces. Across three experiments, we show that recognition of previously unfamiliar names exceeds recognition of previously unfamiliar faces. This advantage persists, even when the same face pictures are repeated at learning and test—a picture-memory task known to produce high levels of performance. Differential performance between names and faces disappears in recognition memory for familiar people. The results are discussed with reference to representational complexity and everyday memory errors.

AB - Forgetting someone’s name is a common failure of memory, and often occurs despite being able to recognise that person’s face. This gives rise to the widespread view that memory for names is generally worse than memory for faces. However, this everyday error confounds stimulus class (faces vs. names) with memory task: recognition versus recall. Here we compare memory for faces and names when both are tested in the same recognition memory framework. Contrary to the common view, we find a clear advantage for names over faces. Across three experiments, we show that recognition of previously unfamiliar names exceeds recognition of previously unfamiliar faces. This advantage persists, even when the same face pictures are repeated at learning and test—a picture-memory task known to produce high levels of performance. Differential performance between names and faces disappears in recognition memory for familiar people. The results are discussed with reference to representational complexity and everyday memory errors.

KW - Name recall

KW - face memory

KW - face recognition

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85069269409&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1177/1747021818813081

DO - 10.1177/1747021818813081

M3 - Article

SN - 1747-0218

VL - 72

SP - 1847

EP - 1854

JO - Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology

JF - Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology

IS - 7

ER -