Famous Faces Test (NUFFACE)

Background

The Famous Faces Test is a classic psychological assessment of long term memory retrieval originally created by Elizabeth Warrington and Helen Sanders in 1971 at National Hospital, Queen Square, London to study the temporal gradient (Ribot's Law - better recollection for older events). In 1979, a Marilyn Albert and colleagues created a more rigorous version that became widely used in the study and diagnosis of dementia. Tamar Gefen and colleagues updated the test in 2013, replacing outdated figures with celebrities who would be known to generations born between 1945 and 1970.

The test measures recall and recognition of celebrities who became famous in different decades, providing a temporal gradient that can be used to distinguish damage to different areas of the brain. For example, a tendency to remember older (John F. Kennedy) but not newer celebrities (Bill Gates) suggests damage to the Hippocampus, whereas a flat gradient with degraded performance across decades suggests damage to the Cerebral Cortex.

Task Procedure

Participants are shown a series of 20 well-known faces from the mid to late 20th century and asked to recall their first and last name (recall). If they are unable to recall both names, they are asked what if anything they remember about the person (recognition).

The test administrator scores recall responses with 0 (no name recalled), 1 (first or last name recalled), or 2 (first and last name recalled). Recognition responses are scored 0 (no facts recalled), 1 (1 fact recalled), or 2 (2 or more facts recalled). Those who correctly recall both names are automatically given 2 points for recognition.

What it Measures

The Famous Faces test is a measure of long term memory retrieval.

Psychological domains

• Lexical Retrieval: Ability to access the specific linguistic label
• Semantic Memory: Ability to access biographical facts
• Structural Encoding: Ability to perceive and recognize a face

Main Performance Metrics

• Total Correct Names: Lexical retrieval
• Total Correct Facts: Semantic knowledge
• Difference Between Above Scores: Indicates atrophe in the Left vs Bilateral Temporal Lobes

Psychiatric Conditions

Performance on the Famous Faces Test is tends to be higher or lower in the patients with the following conditions:

• Primary Progressive Aphasia (PPA)
• Semantic Dementia
• Depression (Pseudodementia)

References

Search Google Scholar for peer-reviewed, published research using the Inquisit Famous Faces Test (NUFFACE).

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Sanders HI, Warrington EK. Memory for remote events in amnesic patients. Brain. 1971;94(4):661-8. doi: 10.1093/brain/94.4.661. PMID: 5132964.

Albert MS, Butters N, Levin J. Temporal gradients in the retrograde amnesia of patients with alcoholic Korsakoff's disease. Arch Neurol. 1979 Apr;36(4):211-6. doi: 10.1001/archneur.1979.00500400065010. PMID: 426664.

Greene, J., & Hodges, J. (1996). Identification of famous faces and famous names in early Alzheimer's disease - Relationship to anterograde episodic and general semantic memory. Brain, 119, 111-128.

Haist, F., Gore, J., & Mao, H. (2001). Consolidation of human memory over decades revealed by functional magnetic resonance imaging. Nature Neuroscience, 4(11), 1139-1145.

Snowden, J., Thompson, J., & Neary, D. (2004). Knowledge of famous faces and names in semantic dementia. Brain, 127, 860-872.

Bar, M., Aminoff, E., & Ishai, A. (2008). Famous faces activate contextual associations in the parahippocampal cortex. Cerebral Cortex, 18(6), 1233-1238.

Gonzalez, M., Montero, R., Rodriguez-Ferreiro, J., Lobo, F., Cuetos, M., Menendez Gonzalez, R., & Ribacoba Montero, J. (2009). Naming faces of famous people as an accurate test to differentiate Alzheimer's disease from individuals with subjective memory loss. European Journal Of Neurology, 16, 460.

Stollhoff, R., Jost, J., Elze, T., & Kennerknecht, I. (2011). Deficits in Long-Term Recognition Memory Reveal Dissociated Subtypes in Congenital Prosopagnosia. Plos One, 6(1), Plos One, 2011 Jan 25, Vol.6(1).

Gefen, T., Wieneke, C., Martersteck, A, Whitney, K., Weintraub, S., Mesulam, M.M., & Emily Rogalski, E. (2013). Naming vs knowing faces in primary progressive aphasia. Neurology, 81, 658-664.