Recognition of younger and older faces in Korsakoff's syndrome

The own-age bias refers to the observation that face recognition is typically superior for own-age faces compared with other-age faces. We investigated this bias in Korsakoff patients, as well as its relationship with social contact and episodic memory. Korsakoff patients and age-matched controls were exposed to older faces (own-age faces) and younger faces (other-age faces). In the recognition phase, they were invited to decide whether faces had been exposed in the encoding phase or not. Results revealed an own-age bias in control participants (i.e., high recognition of older than for younger faces), but not in Korsakoff patients (i.e., similar recognition of older and younger faces). Furthermore, both Korsakoff's syndrome and controls reported more social contact with old than with young individuals. Recognition of younger and older faces in Korsakoff patients was significantly correlated with episodic performance but not with social contact with younger and older people. We conclude that the lack of own-age bias in Korsakoff's syndrome is related rather to compromise of episodic memory than to diminished social contact with younger adults.