Super-Recognizers, or Su-Perceivers? Insights from Fast Periodic Visual Stimulation (FPVS) EEG

The term Super-Recognizer (SR), which describes individuals with supposedly superior facial recognition abilities, may be something of a misnomer. In the same way that blind individuals would not be considered prosopagnosic, SR diagnoses should emphasise at least face identity processing (FIP) specificity, if not recognition in particular. However, SRs tend to be diagnosed with face-specific behavioral tasks, probing either perception and/or recognition, and leaving the neural basis and mechanisms underlying their abilities largely unexplored. The present study therefore sought to determine whether any common FIP subprocesses, among a sample of stringently and comparably diagnosed SRs, would distinguish them from neurotypical controls. To this end, we conducted three Fast Periodic Visual Stimulation (FPVS) EEG experiments in a group of Berlin Police officers identified as SRs using the only existing formal diagnostic framework for lab-based SR identification (Ramon, 2021) that aligns with the seminal study of SRs (Russell et al., 2009). These experiments aimed to isolate FIP from behavioral and general perceptual factors in terms of both the consistency and speed of face identity discrimination and categorization. Broadly, the results of all three experiments provided two key findings. First, whichever factors distinguish SRs from controls, they are not face-specific. Second, SRs are not all cut from the same cloth. Rather, the factors distinguishing SRs from controls seem to be individual-specific, warranting more nuanced and bespoke testing criteria for their deployment in practical applications.