Human cognitive neuroscience seminar

Speaker: Dr Meike Ramon (University of Fribourg, Switzerland)

Title: Super-Recognizers: Individual differences and mechanisms underlying superior face (re)cognition

Abstract: Over the past decade, the domain of face identity processing has seen a surging interest in inter-individual differences, alongside a focus on individuals with superior skills — so-called Super-Recognizers (SRs; Russell et al., 2009; Ramon et al., 2019). Their study can provide valuable insights into brain-behavior relationships and advance our understanding of neural functioning. Despite increasing research and interest, and similarly to the field of developmental prosopagnosia, a consensus on diagnostic criteria for SR identification is lacking. Consequently, SRs are currently identified either inconsistently - via undocumented collections of tests, or single (oftentimes suboptimal) tests. This state of the field has two major implications. Firstly, our scientific understanding of SRs will remain at best limited due to the inclusion of false-positive “SR” cases. Secondly, the needs of international security agencies interested in deploying SRs for real-life identity verification are unlikely to be met.

In this talk, three key aspects will be discussed to counteract these issues:

1. Use of a novel formal diagnostic framework for reliable SR identification (Ramon, 2021) also being used to screen the Berlin State Police’s >18K employees prior to SR identification via bespoke applied testing procedures (Ramon & Rjosk, in press).
2. Value of "deep data", i.e. in-depth descriptions of documented SR individuals over time using complementary methods.
3. Need for transparent and consistent case reporting across studies to exploit the informative value of this unique population.