| Sumario: | The ability to remember faces is essential for everyday life, with deficits indicative of some neurological conditions. Face recognition ability tasks vary considerably in their design (i.e., use of the same or a different picture for learning and recall and inclusion or exclusion of nonface characteristics), which is known to impact performance levels. However, it is unknown whether these design features cause additional cognitive abilities to be assessed. We preregistered three hypotheses, namely performance on face recognition tasks can best be explained by: (Hypothesis 1) a single general face recognition ability; (Hypothesis 2) a general face recognition ability and an unrelated ability representing one's capacity to ignore external information when recognizing faces; and (Hypothesis 3) a general face recognition ability, a separable unrelated ability to ignore external information, and a third unrelated ability representing one's capacity to recognize faces specifically when different photographs of the same individual are used. During a controlled laboratory session, N = 176 adults (M = 25.52 years) completed 16 face recognition tasks that comprised different versions of the aforementioned task designs. With confirmatory factor analysis, we found support for Hypothesis 1, indicating that the rank order of participants regarding their face recognition ability does not meaningfully differ due to the different task designs, indicating additional abilities are not needed. Public Significance Statement: While face recognition tasks employ a variety of design features, we found that these different designs do not result in a different set of abilities being assessed. Regardless of whether tests use the same picture or a different picture during learning and recall, or do or do not include external features in the images like hair, only a single general face recognition ability is assessed.
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