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Abstract

In addition to the nonrigid and rigid motions of the head, both of which have been shown to facilitate face recognition, another familiar type of movement occurs whenever a person approaches you. We investigated whether this kind of looming motion has any effect on recognition performance. We used 12 different male head models from the MPI face database and placed them on the same 3-D body model. These figures were animated to approach the observer. Subjects were familiarised either with the last frame out of the rendered sequence, which basically showed the head and shoulders of the person, or the entire video sequence. To facilitate learning, observers filled out a questionnaire relating to the facial features and the personality of each individual, a facilitation phase that lasted approximately 1 h. After a brief intervening task, observers were shown 12 pairs of static faces, one old and one new in each pair, and asked to identify the familiar individual. These test faces were rendered from a novel viewpoint to increase the demands of the recognition task. Our initial results indicate a robust advantage for dynamic familiarisation.