Revelation effect: Effects of test conditions on face recognition

Revelation effect refers to a bias in recognition memory where people are more likely to judge items as 'old' if they were distorted and then had to be revealed before a recognition decision is made. We explored this effect with human face recognition. More specifically, we investigated whether the detrimental effects of rotation on face recognition could be countered by reinstating the faces to their upright positions and whether such reinstatement would also cause a revelation effect. In Experiment 1, rotated faces in the test caused recognition accuracy to decline. In Experiment 2, participants made a second recognition decision after each face was brought to its upright position, and although accuracy improved, no revelation effect emerged. In Experiment 3, participants made the recognition decision only after the faces were brought to an upright position; initially rotated faces were more likely to be judged as old than were initially upright faces. Thus, although reinstating the orientation of faces increased accuracy, it also led to a revelation effect in the nonverbal domain.