Abstract (eng)
The basic aim of this study was to investigate the developement of forgetting function of facial recognition memory after a six month period in two different age-groups. The main clinical implication of this longitudinal study is the opportunity to detect differences in normal and pathological age process concerning facial recognition memory.
Therefore 120 healthy subjects, which made up two age-groups (20-30 years; 50-60 years) were invited to participate in this study and were subsequently compared in course of six month intervall. Stimuli consisted of 16 black and white photographs of familiar and unfamiliar actors and actresses. For the reason of clinical and cognitive impairment, 13 subjects were excluded from the study. Firstly, subjects were asked to name the stimuli in both, encoding- and in test phase. Additionally they made an old-new descision task for facial stimuli during the test phase. Test phase also required correct identification of faces including 3 distractors. Especially interesting was the extent to which careful assessment of factors such as pleasentness, familiarity, correct and consistent naming, and identification could be used to accurately predict the recognition performance.
Assumed relationships just partially reflected the empirically proved data. As predicted, the factor time period exerted an immense influence on facial recognition memory. In line with prior results a significant age effect could be found. Older subjects showed poor recognition memory. Concerning the interaction AgeXTime, merely a tendency confirmed the hypothesis. Furthermore, this study was not able to approve previous results, whereby older participants exceeded younger subjects in FA-rates. These findings suggest that 50- to 60- year-olds seem to be less affected by memory loss than expected.
Congruent and correct naming appear to be robust predictors for facial recognition memory. Surprisingly, the latter showed a negative relation to recognition memory. It might be, that participants employed a naming strategy, not only in odors, but also in visual stimuli, that guided their responses.
This and the negative relationship of incorrect naming should be reviewed in further study. Pleasentness and familiarity seem to influence facial recognition memory in more indirect manner.