Socio-emotional functioning and face recognition ability in the normal population

Recent research indicates face recognition ability varies within the normal population. To date, two factors have been identified that influence this cognitive process: the age and gender of the perceiver. In this paper, we examine the influence of socio-emotional functioning on face recognition ability. We invited participants with high and low levels of empathy (as indicated by the Empathy Quotient) to take part in a face recognition test. Participants were asked to study a set of faces, and at test viewed the studied faces intermixed with novel faces. As predicted, high empaths achieved higher scores in the face recognition test compared to low empaths. This pattern of findings provides further evidence that face recognition ability varies within the normal population, and suggests socio-emotional functioning may be an additional factor that influences face recognition ability.