Face recognition depends on the ability of the face processing system to extract facial features that define the identity of a face. In a recent study we discovered that altering a subset of facial features changed the identity of the face, indicating that they are critical for face identification. Changing another set of features did not change the identity of a face, indicating that they are not critical for face identification. In the current study, we assessed whether developmental prosopagnosics (DPs) and super recognizers (SRs) also rely more heavily on these critical features than non-critical features for face identification. To that end, we presented to DPs and SRs faces in which either the critical or the non-critical features were manipulated. In Study 1, we presented SRs with a famous face recognition task. We found that overall SRs recognized famous faces that differ in either critical or non-critical features better than controls. Similar to controls, changes in critical features had a larger effect on SRs’ face recognition than changes in non-critical features. In Study 2, we presented an identity matching task to DPs and SRs. Similar to controls, DPs and SRs perceived faces that differed in critical features as more different than faces that differed in non-critical features. Taken together, our results indicate that SRs and DPs use the same critical features for face identification as normal individuals. These findings emphasize the fundamental role of this subset of features for face identification.

人脸识别取决于人脸处理系统提取定义人脸身份的面部特征的能力。在最近的一项研究中，我们发现改变面部特征的一个子集会改变面部的身份，这表明它们对于面部识别至关重要。改变另一组特征并没有改变一张脸的身份，表明它们并不重要用于人脸识别。在当前的研究中，我们评估了发育性脸盲症 (DP) 和超级识别器 (SR) 是否也比非关键特征更依赖于这些关键特征来进行面部识别。为此，我们向 DP 和 SR 展示了其中关键或非关键特征被操纵的面孔。在研究 1 中，我们向 SR 展示了一项著名的人脸识别任务。我们发现整体 SR 比对照更能识别出在关键或非关键特征上有所不同的著名面孔。与控制类似，关键特征的变化比非关键特征的变化对 SR 人脸识别的影响更大。在研究 2 中，我们向 DP 和 SR 提出了身份匹配任务。类似于控件，DP 和 SR 认为关键特征不同的面孔比非关键特征不同的面孔更加不同。总之，我们的结果表明 SR 和 DP 使用与正常人相同的面部识别关键特征。这些发现强调了这一特征子集在人脸识别中的基本作用。