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Italian normative data and validation of two neuropsychological tests of face recognition: Benton Facial Recognition Test and Cambridge Face Memory Test

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Abstract

The Benton Facial Recognition Test (BFRT) and Cambridge Face Memory Test (CFMT) are two of the most common tests used to assess face discrimination and recognition abilities and to identify individuals with prosopagnosia. However, recent studies highlighted that participant–stimulus match ethnicity, as much as gender, has to be taken into account in interpreting results from these tests. Here, in order to obtain more appropriate normative data for an Italian sample, the CFMT and BFRT were administered to a large cohort of young adults. We found that scores from the BFRT are not affected by participants’ gender and are only slightly affected by participant–stimulus ethnicity match, whereas both these factors seem to influence the scores of the CFMT. Moreover, the inclusion of a sample of individuals with suspected face recognition impairment allowed us to show that the use of more appropriate normative data can increase the BFRT efficacy in identifying individuals with face discrimination impairments; by contrast, the efficacy of the CFMT in classifying individuals with a face recognition deficit was confirmed. Finally, our data show that the lack of inversion effect (the difference between the total score of the upright and inverted versions of the CFMT) could be used as further index to assess congenital prosopagnosia. Overall, our results confirm the importance of having norms derived from controls with a similar experience of faces as the “potential” prosopagnosic individuals when assessing face recognition abilities.

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Notes

  1. Despite that the female sample was much bigger than the male one, Levene’s test for equality of variances did not reveal any significant difference in the variance of the two groups in none of the average scores (all p > .18); for this reason, t and p values for equal variances assumed are reported.

  2. Again, despite that the female sample was much bigger than the male one, Levene’s test for equality of variances did not reveal any significant difference in the variance of the two groups, neither in the total score of the upright and inversion versions of the CFMT, nor in the inversion effect (all p > .11).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Human Vision and Eye Movement Laboratory, Departments of Medicine (Neurology), Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences, University of British Columbia, 2550 Willow Street, Vancouver, BC, V5Z 3N9, Canada

    Andrea Albonico

  2. NeuroMI-Milan Center for Neuroscience, Milan, Italy

    Andrea Albonico, Manuela Malaspina & Roberta Daini

  3. Psychology Department, Università degli Studi di Milano-Bicocca, Milan, Italy

    Manuela Malaspina & Roberta Daini

  4. COMiB–Optics and Optometry Research Center, Università degli Studi di Milano-Bicocca, Milan, Italy

    Roberta Daini

Authors
  1. Andrea Albonico
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  2. Manuela Malaspina
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  3. Roberta Daini
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Correspondence to Andrea Albonico.

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Albonico, A., Malaspina, M. & Daini, R. Italian normative data and validation of two neuropsychological tests of face recognition: Benton Facial Recognition Test and Cambridge Face Memory Test. Neurol Sci 38, 1637–1643 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10072-017-3030-6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10072-017-3030-6

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