A commonly used test of non-verbal memory, which measures recognition for unfamiliar face pictures, was developed by Warrington (1984), the Recognition Memory for Faces (RMF) test. The task has been widely used in adults in relation to neurological impairment of face recognition. We examined the relationship of RMF scores to age in 500 young people aged between 6 and 16 years. A.linear relationship obtained between 6 and 10 years, followed by a 'plateau' between the ages of 10 and 13, followed by further improvement. Abilities on the test correlated with both verbal and non-verbal intelligence, but the nonlinear function relating age and RMF survived partialling for intelligence in the younger age groups. The improvement of the adolescents compared with older children also survived partialling for IQ. We found no significant influence of gender or reported pubertal status (which was not obtained for all participants) on RMF once age was taken into account. Performance on other face-processing tasks (emotion classification and accuracy in line of sight detection) correlated significantly, if moderately, with RMF scores. Despite its age and imperfections, RMF test may nevertheless be a useful indicator of 'face expertise' in a developmental context.

中文翻译：

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在童年和青春期不断变化的对陌生面孔照片的识别能力：在6到16岁的非语言即时记忆（Warrington RMF）测试中的表现。

Warrington（1984）开发了一种常用的非语言记忆测试，该测试用于测量对陌生人脸图像的识别，这是面部识别记忆（RMF）测试。该任务已被广泛用于成年人的面部识别神经功能障碍。我们研究了500名6至16岁年轻人中RMF得分与年龄之间的关系。在6至10岁之间获得了线性关系，随后在10至13岁之间出现了“高原”，随后得到了进一步的改善。该测试的能力与语言和非语言智力相关，但与年龄和RMF相关的非线性函数在较年轻的年龄组中幸存了部分智力。与智商相比，与大龄儿童相比，青春期的改善也得以幸存。一旦考虑到年龄，我们发现性别或报告的青春期状态（并非所有参与者均获得）对RMF没有显着影响。在其他人脸处理任务上的表现（情绪分类和视线检测的准确性）与RMF得分有中等程度的相关性。尽管存在年龄和缺陷，RMF测试仍可能是发展环境中“面部专业知识”的有用指标。