Beyond face memory: The cognitive strengths of super recognizers

Super Recognizers (SRs) are renowned for their exceptional memory for facial identities and are increasingly employed to support perpetrator identification in forensic contexts. Little is known, however, about their broader cognitive abilities. Here, we provide the first comprehensive assessment of cognitive skills in a large and rigorously defined group of SRs (N=17). We evaluated five domains: (1) face-identity processing, including memory and perception; (2) face non-identity perception (expression, age, sex); (3) non-face memory, both visual (cars, abstract art, words) and auditory (music, environmental sounds); (4) non-face, non-memory cognition, including attention, perceptual discrimination, and working memory; and (5) general intelligence. SRs showed substantial superiority on 14 of 21 tests—indicating that their cognitive strengths extend well beyond face-identity memory alone. Notably, they excelled on all non-memory face tests and all non-face memory tests. However, their superiority was not universal: on tests involving neither faces nor memory, group-level effect sizes were modest, and many SRs scored at or below average. Against this relatively ordinary cognitive backdrop, SRs’ clear superiority with faces, memory, and face memory stands out in stark contrast—effectively ruling out general intelligence, test-taking strategies, or motivation as explanations for their exceptional performance. By presenting the first comprehensive profile of SR cognition, this study clarifies the scope and limits of their abilities beyond face-identity memory and offers actionable guidance for deploying SR expertise in applied and forensic settings.