Michal Ramot

Michal Ramot, Zuckerman Faculty Scholarat Weizmann Institute’s Department of Neurobiology, published a new study in Nature Communications. The study, “behavioural separation of face memory and face perception,”found that people can perceive faces and hold them in memory as separate processes when a task is relatively simple. However, when the task becomes more demanding, these two abilities appear to interact. The findings help clarify how the brain manages face recognition and memory under different levels of cognitive load.

Abstract:
A long-standing debate in neuropsychology concerns whether perception and memory function as independent systems or interact to support cognition. To investigate this, we develop the Face Memory and Perception task, a paradigm designed to systematically disentangle whether and how these processes interact under different conditions. Across five independent datasets with over 900 participants in total, we observe consistent evidence that face perception and working memory operate independently when task demands are low, but in more complex conditions, these processes appear to interact.