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The Measure of Perceived Similarity Between Faces: Old Issues for a New Method

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Abstract

Measuring perceived similarity is an important issue in visual perception of faces, since a measure of the perceived similarity between faces may be used to investigate fundamental tasks like face categorization and recognition. Despite its fundamental role, measuring perceived similarity between faces is not trivial from both a theoretical and methodological point of view. In this paper we present theoretical arguments that undermine the method currently most used to measure perceived similarity between faces in visual perception, and we propose an alternative method. We finally compare the two methods and find some empirical evidence that the proposed method can provide a more reliable evaluation of the perceived similarity between faces.

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Notes

  1. Note that the proposed method is constructed to be intrinsically context-dependent, even if experiments with a change of context could be developed in order to provide an empirical support to its context-dependency.

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Acknowledgments

We would like to thank an anonymous reviewer for helpful comments and suggestions that improved parts of the manuscript. We would also like to thank Giuliana Frau for creating Fig. 1 and Paul Egré for his generous support. This research was funded through a Regional grant n. CRP-18397-2009, Regione Sardegna (Italy), and a P.O.R. SARDEGNA F.S.E. 2007–2013 fellowship.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Political Science, Communication, Engineering and Information Technologies, University of Sassari, Viale Mancini 5, 07100, Sassari, Italy

    Ludovica Lorusso, Luca Pulina & Enrico Grosso

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  1. Ludovica Lorusso
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  2. Luca Pulina
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  3. Enrico Grosso
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Correspondence to Ludovica Lorusso.

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Lorusso, L., Pulina, L. & Grosso, E. The Measure of Perceived Similarity Between Faces: Old Issues for a New Method. Rev.Phil.Psych. 6, 317–339 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13164-014-0229-9

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