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bioRxiv · 10.64898/2026.09.18.750666

Standardized human tests show that most vision models are face-blind

Dudipala, K. R.·Martinez-Addiego, F.·Rahnev, D.·Duchaine, B. C.·Ratan Murty, N. A.
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Abstract

Face recognition ability varies enormously across humans. Individuals with face-blindness (prosopagnosia) struggle to recognize even close family members while super-recognizers can identify strangers with exceptional accuracy. Where do ANNs fall within the human face recognition spectrum? Here, we administered the standardized tests used to characterize human face recognition ability to a diverse set of models, allowing us to contextualize a model's performance within the distribution of human behavior. We found that the majority 55% of models to be classified as face-blind and that even the best face-trained models do not cross the human threshold to be considered a super-recognizer. Interrogating the internal representations of these models showed that models that performed well on standardized face recognition tasks were more identity-selective and viewpoint-invariant. We also found that low-performing models did contain some identity information in independent representational subspaces. Removing viewpoint-dependent subspace improved face recognition abilities in 49 of the 53 models tested. Targeted unit ablations further identified opposing contributions, with viewpoint-dependent units disrupting identity coding and viewpoint-tolerant units supporting it. Together, our results show that most AI models are face-blind with worse face recognition ability than humans, and demonstrate how differences across AI models can be used generate testable hypotheses about the computational basis of human face recognition in humans which can then be probed in future studies.

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Dudipala, K. R., Martinez-Addiego, F., Rahnev, D., Duchaine, B. C., Ratan Murty, N. A.. 2026-09-24. Standardized human tests show that most vision models are face-blind. https://doi.org/10.64898/2026.09.18.750666

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