Kristen Baker
2025-2026 – Postdoctoral Fellowship at the University of Kent, UK (Funding: The British Academy, Postdoctoral Fellowship scheme)
2023-2025 – Postdoctoral Fellowship at the University of Kent, UK (Funding: The Royal Society, Newton International Fellowship scheme)
2023 – PhD in Psychology (Behavioural and Cognitive Neuroscience) at Brock University, Canada
2018 – M.A. in Psychology (Behavioural and Cognitive Neuroscience) at Brock University, Canada
2016 – B.A. in Psychology at Brock University, Canada
While we can easily and accurately recognize the familiar faces of our family, friends, and even celebrities, we are often error-prone when tasked with recognizing the faces of individuals who are unfamiliar. This is because two individuals can look very similar to each other, and the same person can look very different across encounters. Understanding the accuracy with which we recognize people not only has important theoretical implications, but also has important implications for social (e.g., failing to recognize a new colleague) and security settings (e.g., eyewitness testimony; verifying photographic-ID at the border, or for age-restricted goods).
My research examines how we recognize faces. I am currently investigating the roles of cognitive processes (e.g., decision making, attention, memory) and experience (e.g., with a particular individual’s face, with faces in general across the lifespan) using different methodologies (e.g., experimental, individual differences). You can read more about research being conducted in the lab on the Person Perception Lab’s website (personperceptionlab.com).
For the next academic year:
I am looking to recruit undergraduate research assistants.
I am accepting undergraduate honours thesis students.
I am accepting graduate students applications.
I encourage interested students to reach out to me via email with a description of your research interests, why you think the Person Perception Lab would be a good fit for you, and your resume/CV.
Key publications
(Note. * indicates a student trainee as a co-author)
- Baker, K. A., *Stabile, V. J., & Mondloch, C. J. (2026). Contextual cues do not facilitate spontaneous face recognition. British Journal of Psychology, 00, 1–18.
- *Nguyen, A., Baker, K.A., *Nullmeyer, M., *Damaso, K., & Mondloch, C.J. (2026). Noisy variability does not benefit face learning. Paper accepted by Journal of Experimental Psychology: General.
- Baker, K.A., Mondloch, C.J., Hancock, P.J., & Bindemann, M. (2026). A criterion-placement theory of face matching. Cognition, 266, 106319. Advanced online publication.
- Baker, K.A. & Bindemann, M. (2025) Decision-making framing in facial image comparison. Journal of Applied Research in Memory and Cognition, 1-38. Advanced online publication.
- *Stabile, V.J., Baker, K.A., & Mondloch, C.J. (2024). An economic approach to unfamiliar face matching: Effects of base rates, payoffs, and perceptual discriminability. Journal of Applied Research in Memory and Cognition. 13(4), 569–581.
- Baker, K.A. & Mondloch, C.J. (2023) Unfamiliar face matching ability predicts the slope of face learning. Scientific Reports, 13, Article 5248.
- Baker, K.A., *Stabile, V.J., & Mondloch, C.J. (2023). Stable individual differences in unfamiliar face identification: Evidence from simultaneous and sequential matching tasks. Cognition, 232, Article 105333.
- Baker, K.A. & Mondloch C.J. (2022). Picture this: Photographers no better than controls for recognizing unfamiliar faces. Perception, 51(8), 591-595.
- Laurence, S., Baker, K.A., Proietti, V.M., & Mondloch, C.J. (2022). What happens to our representation of identity as familiar faces age? Evidence from priming and identity aftereffects. British Journal of Psychology, 113(3), 677-695.
- Baker, K.A., & Mondloch, C.J. (2019). Two sides of face learning: Improving between-identity discrimination identities while tolerating more within-person variability in appearance. Perception, 48(11), 1124-1145.
- Zhou, X., Matthews, C.M., Baker, K.A., & Mondloch, C.J. (2018). Becoming familiar with a newly encountered face: Evidence of an own-race advantage. Perception, 47(8), 807-820.
- Baker, K.A., Laurence, S., & Mondloch, C.J. (2017). How does a newly encountered face become familiar? The effect of within-person variability on adults’ and children’s perception of identity. Cognition, 161, 19-30.