Face Processing Flashcards
(29 cards)
Why is face processing important?
Faces are central to social interactions. Humans are hardwired to see faces - even in objects where faces aren’t actually there.
From what age can we process faces?
Faces are processed preferentially from birth.
What does face processing rely on?
Specific cognitive strategies which develop slowly through childhood and adolescence.
What are the 3 ways to process face information?
Holistic, Featural, Configural.
What is holistic processing?
two eyes, a nose and a mouth in a normal facial configuration - used in face detection - relies of the Gestalt principle.
What is featural processing?
we zoom around the face, see if someone is looking at us, their facial expression - featural processing strategies are not specific to faces.
What is configural processing?
Composing distances between features of the face - used in identification
Evidence for holistic processing:
when parts of a face are obscured (e.g top half of bottom half) we can still detect that it is a face. - Maurer et al 2002
Evidence for configural processing:
Thatcher effect - we don’t see distortions in the face when the face is presented upside down. (the inversion effect disrupts configural processing strategies. (Thompson, 1980)
What brain areas are associated with face processing?
Occipital face area - Inferior occipital gyrus
Fusiform face area - leads to higher processing
Medial pre-frontal cortex - episodic memory -> static face information
Superior temporal sulcus- motor cortex -> dynamic face information.
What areas of the brain are activated when looking at faces v houses?
Right FFA most activated when looking at faces. Left FFA activated a little less.
There is a brain area (Fusiform object area) which is activated when looking at houses.
Give some evidence that the fusiform face area is innate.
2 baby macaques who were raised in isolation, saw no faces. When they were first shown faces the FFA was strongly activated.
When do infants start identifying faces?
In a study, 40 min old infants have strong preference for upright faces which are looking at them, and spent more time looking at eyes than top of head.
When do infants begin to recognise faces in a similar way to adults?
3 months old. there is a delay of about 120ms in the recognition of faces (infants have less myelination so processes are slower).
Do children use featural or configural cues to recognise faces?
Children use simple featural cues to tell people apart.
E.g the activity Jane and her Cousins. The sisters are harder to differentiate from Jane as they all have the same features, just different configurations.
What effect does inversion have on face recognition?
Lessens featural and spacing recognition.
What is the sensitive period for configural processing?
In babies born with cataracts in each eye, deprivation ranged from 62 - 187 days after birth. 9 years later - all still had issues differentiating faces by configuration.
What is the critical period for configural processing abilities?
In 6 month olds we see differentiation between 2 faces of the same species that is NOT human. Infants that are 9 months and adults cannot do this.
Are there exceptions to differentiating within-species (not human)?
Experts with different species e.g dog experts, zoo workers - showed significant inversion effect when looking at dogs. - this shows that expertise is crucial.
When does the FFA emerge?
age 11 - 14. However there is early evidence of face-responsive areas.
Why does the FFA emerge?
It is down to accurate performance and using the right strategies to trigger this performance. Not affected by speed of brain maturation.
What is prosopagnosia?
Visual agnosia characterised by inability to recognise previously known faces, or to learn new ones.
Object recognition usually unimpaired.
Difference between acquired and congenital.
How does acquired prosopagnosia affect recognition of faces?
Acquired prosopagnosia patient with only 67% accuracy compared with 94% in controls. In another study about 17% error rate.
How does congenital prosopagnosia differ from acquired prosopagnosia?
They show similar brain activity as controls - recruit the same brain areas that controls have but do not have the performance or ability that comes with these brain areas.
