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Abstract

Caricatured faces are recognized as quickly and accurately as (and sometimes faster and better than) the veridical versions (Benson Perrett, 1994). This “caricature effect” (CE)
has been demonstrated only for the frontal view of faces and only when the caricatures
were presented during the testing phase. First, we investigated whether the caricature
effect generalizes across changes in viewpoint (frontal, three-quarter, and profile). Second,
we examined the effect of presenting caricatured faces during the learning phase,
which we term the “reverse caricature effect” (RCE). Face recognition performance was
tested using two tasks: an old/new recognition paradigm and a sequential matching task.
Observers learned faces either in the frontal, three-quarter, or profile views, and were
tested with all three viewpoints. Half of the subjects participated in the CE condition
(learning with veridicals, testing with caricatures) and the other half of the subjects participated
in the RCE condition (learning with caricatures, testing with veridicals). The
caricatures were created using a 3D face morphing algorithm (Blanz Vetter, 1999).
Accuracy sensitivity was measured using d’. For the CE condition, caricatures were recognized
more accurately than veridical versions of the same face (mean d’: sequential
matching: caricature=1.15, veridical=1.09; Old/New: caricature=1.42, veridical=1.18).
This difference was (nearly) significant (sequential matching: F(2,58)=28, p<0.001; Old/
New: F(1, 162)=3.19, p=0.076). The interaction between face caricature level and viewpoint
(testing view and/or learning view) was not significant. This suggests that the caricature
effect generalizes across viewpoint. Similar results were found for the RCE condition.
These results are discussed within the framework of a face space model for
representing faces.