The Lasting Impression of Chairman Mao: Hyperfidelity of Familiar-Face Memory

• Published in: Perception (London) Vol. 32; no. 5; pp. 601 - 614
• Main Authors: Ge, Liezhong, Luo, Jing, Nishimura, Mayu, Lee, Kang
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: London, England SAGE Publications 01-01-2003; Pion
• Subjects: Adult; Biological and medical sciences; China - ethnology; Discrimination (Psychology); Face; Female; Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology; Humans; Male; Memory; Pattern Recognition, Visual; Perception; Photography; Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry; Psychology. Psychophysiology; Recognition (Psychology); Vision; China; Human; Visual memory; Vision; Stimulus familiarity; Perception; Cognition; Experimental study; Face
• ISSN: 0301-0066; 1468-4233
• DOI: 10.1068/p5022

We examined the accuracy of a highly-familiar-face representation in memory. In experiment 1, a famous portrait of Chairman Mao was digitally altered in terms of the distance between his two eyes, two pixels at a time. Mainland Chinese adults were shown the original or altered photos, one at a time, and asked to determine whether each was that of Chairman Mao or altered. Eastern Asian and Caucasian participants, who were unfamiliar with Mao's photo, were shown simultaneously the original face paired with the altered ones and asked to determine whether the photos were identical. The Mainland Chinese participants' memory threshold approximated the perceptual discrimination threshold of the Eastern Asian and Caucasian participants. Experiments 2 and 3 ruled out that the result of experiment 1 was due to artifacts of photographic alteration. The findings of the present study suggest that our memory of a very familiar face is highly accurate, at least in terms of the interocular configuration. The accuracy is perhaps only limited by the perceptual resolution capacity of our visual system.