Self-reported face recognition abilities moderately predict face-learning skills: Evidence from Italian samples

Serena Tagliente; Marcello Passarelli; Vitiana D'Elia; Annalisa Palmisano; James D Dunn; Michele Masini; Tiziana Lanciano; Antonietta Curci; Davide Rivolta

doi:10.1016/j.heliyon.2023.e14125

Self-reported face recognition abilities moderately predict face-learning skills: Evidence from Italian samples

Heliyon. 2023 Feb 26;9(3):e14125. doi: 10.1016/j.heliyon.2023.e14125. eCollection 2023 Mar.

Authors

Serena Tagliente¹, Marcello Passarelli², Vitiana D'Elia¹, Annalisa Palmisano¹, James D Dunn³, Michele Masini⁴, Tiziana Lanciano¹, Antonietta Curci¹, Davide Rivolta¹

Affiliations

¹ Department of Education, Psychology and Communication, University of Bari Aldo Moro, Bari, Italy.
² Institute of Educational Technology, National Research Council, Genova, Italy.
³ School of Psychology, University of New South Wales, (UNSW), Sydney, Australia.
⁴ Valorizzazione Innovazione Empowerment s.r.l. (VIE), Genova, Italy.

Abstract

Face Recognition Ability (FRA) varies widely throughout the population. Previous research highlights a positive relationship between self-perceived and objectively measured FRA in the healthy population, suggesting that people do have insight into their FRA. Given that this relationship has not been investigated in Italian samples yet, the main aim of the present work was to develop an Italian translation of the Prosopagnosia Index-20 (PI-20), a self-report measure of FRA, to investigate the relationship between PI-20 performances and an objective assessment given by the Cambridge Face Memory Test Long Form (CFMT+) in the Italian population. A sample of 553 participants filled in the PI-20 Italian version 1 or 2 (PI-20_GE or PI-20_BA) and completed the CFMT+. Results showed a negative correlation between both versions of the Italian PI-20 and CFMT+ scores, meaning that the more self-evaluations were negative, the worse they objectively performed. The same results applied to the extreme limits of the distribution (i.e., 10% of the highest and lowest PI-20 scores). Furthermore, both age and administration order of the tests were predictor variables of CFMT+ scores. Overall, our results suggest that people possess insight, although relatively limited, into their FRA.

Keywords: CFMT; Face; Face recognition; Individual differences; Metacognition; PI-20; Prosopagnosia.