Is Face Recognition Special? Differences between Face and Object Recognition

Essential readings

Is face recognition special? Discuss with regards to differences between face recognition and recognition of other objects.

Object recognition is one of the most important cognitive functions, and the mental processes involved in recognising simple objects are immensely complex.  As social beings, it is essential for us to recognize other people, and this essay should focus on the cognitive processes that are involved in this task.  Identifying an individual person (i.e. your mum) requires different cognitive mechanisms than simply recognizing a table, or simply knowing it is a face. Some have argued that face recognition is a unique cognitive process that is very distinct from our ability to recognize other objects.  In this essay you are asked to evaluate this idea. Please keep in mind the content from Teaching Unit 1 which highlights that most questions in cognitive psychology cannot be answered using a single method, and therefore rely on a multi-methods approach.  When evaluating your evidence try to think about the advantages and disadvantages of each of these approaches.

Essential readings

You are strongly encouraged to consult further resources before starting to write your essay. The text book chapters provide you with a good overview, but you are expected to consult the relevant references that are cited where applicable. In addition, you are expected to run literature searches on PsycInfo to identify more relevant journal articles and publications.

We can remember name and faces of old school friends over long period of time (35years) (Bahrick et al., 1975) Ability of college teachers to remember faces of students taught over 10 week course (Bahrick etal., 1984).

Face that you have only encounter in encoding stage Immediate recall extremely high (93% correct) but when viewpoint changed or change in expression, recognition drops dramatically (e.g. Bruce, 1982) Misidentification in eyewitness identification extremely high – recognition for unfamiliar faces very poor (Kemp et al., 1997).

1. How many different individuals are there? (Jenkins et al., 2011). Study investigating the ease with which video images can be matched with photo- graphic stills (Bruce et al., 2000) Poor performance is found even when the task is made simpler. Participants simply have to choose which one is the match. Even in this case, the error rate is ~20% on average (Hancock et al., 2000) Passport matching problem – White et al., 2014).

2. How can we solve the passport matching problem?

3.  Psychological and Technological solutions  Read Groome and Eysenck (2016) Applied Cognitive

Familiar faces:

Visual system searches for simple yet characteristic features of the object which is sufficient for its recognition. Nature of the feature depends on the object ( e.g. nose, mouth and eye features indicate presence of a face) + Model is flexible (recognition work as long as the feature is present – occlusion, different viewing angle) + Biologically feasible model (Parallel Distributed Processing Neural Network) (Rumelhart, & McClelland, 1987).

Feature Network Model (Rumelhart, & McClelland (1987)+ Biologically feasible model (Parallel Distributed Processing Neural Network)  Rumelhart, & McClelland, 1987) + Brain does indeed encode and process features (e.g. Desimone et al., 1984).

We are better at recognizing caricatured faces (exaggerated features) than normal faces Rhodes et al., 1987). Visual aftereffects in which people perceive opposite of the original face (Webster, & Mc Lin, 1999).

Is Face recognition special?

Faces all look very similar and have similar features. The main visual information that distinguishes different faces is the configuration between these features. It is therefore possible that faces rely on a different cognitive process.

1. Thatcher illusion- distorting spatial relations between features creates grotesque looking faces, but only whenviewed upright (Searcy & Bartlett, 1996). Faces are processed as configurations rather than an assembly of different features – Configural model of object recognition Thatcher Illusion (Thompson, 1980)

Are there Neuroatonomical areas that underlie face processing, and are they qualitatively different from the processing of other types of visual stimuli?

1. Neuropsychology – Double dissociation between object and face recognition impairments.

2. Prosapognosia – Individuals with Prosapognosia have difficulties recognising faces, but have intact object recognition.

3. Alternative explanation is that face recognition is simply much harder than other forms of object recognition.

4. Duchaine & Nakayama (2005) have shown developmental prosapagnosic patients performed significantly worse on face recognition, than difficult within category classifications in other domains (e.g. cars, tools…)

5. Patient CK- Impaired object recognition, but intact face recognition (Moscovitch, Wincour & Behrmann, 1997).

Are there Neuroatonomical areas that underlie face processing, and are they qualitatively different from the processing of other types of visualstimuli? Neuroimaging – fMRI studies showing that faces activate areas in the fusiform gyrus (FFA) and posterior temporal lobe, whilst non-face stimuli activate different areas.

Are there Neuroatonomical areas that underlie face processing, and are they qualitatively different from the processing of other types of visual stimuli? Neuroimaging – fMRI studies showing that faces activate areas in the fusiform gyrus (FFA) and posterior temporal lobe, whilst non-face stimuli activate different areas (Kanwisher & Yovel, 2006, review), But other areas are involved in face processing too. Some evidence to suggest that FFA is activated when non face objects they have learnt to classify (Ghautier, Skudlarski, Gore & Anderson, 2000).

Is face processing innate? Alternative explanation is that we developed a face expertise because of constant exposure to faces. Evidence suggests that there is an innate special mechanism to process faces (Franz, 1961). New-borns are attentive to faces and this innate attentional bias towards faces ensures that face information is prioritized.

Faces all look very similar and have similar features. The main visual information that distinguishes different faces is the configuration between these features. It is therefore possible that faces rely on a different cognitive process.

Inversion Effect (Yin, 1969) – Inverting a photograph of a face disrupts recognition, more so than other objects.

Diamond and Cary (1986) – Inversion effect may result from specialization, rather than unique status of face processing. Dog experts also demonstrate inversion effects for dogs – Inversion effect may be due to domain specific expertise.