Sequences of 10 faces and also sequences of 10 half faces were shown to adolescent familial retardates and normal Ss of equal MA. Recognition memory was tested by asking S to discriminate the 10 stimuli that had been seen from 10 distractors. The retardates' performance was equal to that of the normals when whole faces were to be remembered but the normals were superior when half faces were employed. The results suggest that the symmetry of the human face may provide redundancy which aids the retardates' performance.
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