Face Perception Flashcards
What is the difference between sensation and perception?
Sensation: info about environment picked up by sensory receptors and transmitted to brain
Perception: interpretation by the brain of this input
What is visual acuity?
The ability to look at things and look at fine grain detail
When does visual acuity develop?
Poor at birth, rapid increase in first 6 months
What does visual scanning look like at around 1-2 months old?
- 1 month: Focus on limited features of shapes, particularly outer edges
- Less than 2 months: Cannot track moving objects smoothly
- At 2 months: Start to focus on internal features
Describe colour vision in newborns (at 1 and 4 months)
- Newborns can distinguish between white and red, but not other colours
- 1 month: Look longer at brighter, bold colours
- 4 months: Close to adult ability
How do we test perceptual abilities?
- Preference tests
- Habituation tests
- Conditioning
Explain the mechanism of preference tests
- You present two stimuli at the same time
- Measure how long infants look at each
- Does the infant look at one more than the other? Can they discriminate between stimuli?
Explain the mechanism of habituation tests
- Habituation refers to the losing of interest due to repeated presentation of a certain stimuli
- You show an interesting stimulus repeatedly, until habituation occurs
- Change to a different stimulus; If the infant shows renewed interest and looks again, this shows dishabituation
- If so, the infant can tell the difference
Explain the mechanism of conditioning
- Repeatedly reward target behaviour
- Infant becomes habituated to stimulus
- Stimulus is altered (If the target behaviour is not affected, infant treats 2 stimuli as the same; if target behaviour is affected, infant distinguishes between 2 stimuli)
Why are faces useful?
We can tell many things from seeing faces:
- Species
- Sex
- Race
- Identity
- Mood/emotional state
- Intent/truthfulness
Explain the ‘Nature vs Nurture’ in face perception
- Nature/Nativism: abilities from birth (innate, inborn)
- Nurture/Empiricism: acquire overtime through experience (learned)
Explain the theoretical approach of ‘Are faces special?’
- Special perceptual process: organized at birth
- Perceive faces as they perceive other objects: becomes specialised after experience
Explain Johnson and Morton’s (1991) 2 Process Model
- CONSPEC: Early system (subcortical structures) biases infants to orient towards faces
- CONLEARN: Later taken over by more mature system (visual cortex) and more precise recognition
Other than face perception, what else can newborns do?
- Recognise identity of novel individuals
- Recognise eye-gaze
- Recognise expressions
- Prefer attractive faces
- Discriminate mother’s face
Explain the Face Specific Perceptual Development Theory
- Ongoing development of face-specific perception mechanisms; Continue to develop into late child and adolescence
- Face perception gets better because of increased exposure/experience with faces
Explain the General Cognitive Development Theory
- Face perception matures early (4-5 yo)
- Performance increases later as general cognitive mechanisms improve
When does face perception mature?
- Early research suggested qualitative change later in childhood/adolescence
- More recent research suggests adult-like mechanisms might be in place much earlier (4-5yo; suggests that increase in face perception reflect development of other cogn abilities such as concentration, attention, memory)
Explain the disproportionate inversion effect
- Face perception is more accurate when faces are upright
- The inversion has a larger effect for faces versus non-face objects
Explain the holistic/configural processing of adult face perception
- Integration of info from all regions of face
- Code spacing between face and features
Explain neurodivergent face perception in autism
Differences in:
- Recognising familiar people
- Remembering faces
- Interpreting eye-gaze and emotions
Explain neurodivergent face perception in William’s Syndrome
- Processing unfamiliar faces atypically
- Prolonged face gaze
Explain prosopagnosia
- Defined as ‘face blindness’
- Could be caused by:
*Damage or abnormalities in right fusiform gyrus (stroke, brain injury)
*Congenital prosopagnosia – from birth, appears to run in families - Different degrees of severity (one might not even recognise their own face)
Show evidence for face perception’s visual acuity (inner and outer features) through literature
Pascalis et al. (1995)
- Preference for mother’s face disappeared when outside of face and hairline masked
- Newborns use outer features to identify
Turati et al. (2006)
- Could use both outer and inner features
What findings from Pascalis et al. (2002) supports the nativist view of face perception?
This study suggests that infants as young as a few days old show a preference for face-like stimuli, supporting the idea that there may be innate mechanisms or predispositions for face perception.
What findings from Farroni et al. (2005) supports the nativist view of face perception?
This study investigates newborns’ ability to detect and respond to eye contact, suggesting that there may be an early, biologically driven sensitivity to faces.
What findings from Quinn et al. (2002) supports the empiricist view of face perception?
- Infants show a preference for female faces.
- The researchers interpret this preference as potentially influenced by early exposure to female faces, either through maternal interactions, caregiver faces, or other social stimuli in the infants’ environment.
Pascalis et al. (2011): Development of Face Processing
- Early competence in face-processing abilities
- Infants presenting a preference for face stimuli and facial discrimination using featural, configural, and holistic cues
- Evidences show that the early face-perception competence is later refined by general cognitive development and also face-specific.
