Face Processing

Question 1

Why is face processing important?

Answer 1

Faces are central to social interactions. Humans are hardwired to see faces - even in objects where faces aren’t actually there.

Question 2

From what age can we process faces?

Answer 2

Faces are processed preferentially from birth.

Question 3

What does face processing rely on?

Answer 3

Specific cognitive strategies which develop slowly through childhood and adolescence.

Question 4

What are the 3 ways to process face information?

Answer 4

Holistic, Featural, Configural.

Question 5

What is holistic processing?

Answer 5

two eyes, a nose and a mouth in a normal facial configuration - used in face detection - relies of the Gestalt principle.

Question 6

What is featural processing?

Answer 6

we zoom around the face, see if someone is looking at us, their facial expression - featural processing strategies are not specific to faces.

Question 7

What is configural processing?

Answer 7

Composing distances between features of the face - used in identification

Question 8

Evidence for holistic processing:

Answer 8

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

Question 9

Evidence for configural processing:

Answer 9

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)

Question 10

What brain areas are associated with face processing?

Answer 10

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.

Question 11

What areas of the brain are activated when looking at faces v houses?

Answer 11

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.

Question 12

Give some evidence that the fusiform face area is innate.

Answer 12

2 baby macaques who were raised in isolation, saw no faces. When they were first shown faces the FFA was strongly activated.

Question 13

When do infants start identifying faces?

Answer 13

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.

Question 14

When do infants begin to recognise faces in a similar way to adults?

Answer 14

3 months old. there is a delay of about 120ms in the recognition of faces (infants have less myelination so processes are slower).

Question 15

Do children use featural or configural cues to recognise faces?

Answer 15

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.

Question 16

What effect does inversion have on face recognition?

Answer 16

Lessens featural and spacing recognition.

Question 17

What is the sensitive period for configural processing?

Answer 17

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.

Question 18

What is the critical period for configural processing abilities?

Answer 18

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.

Question 19

Are there exceptions to differentiating within-species (not human)?

Answer 19

Experts with different species e.g dog experts, zoo workers - showed significant inversion effect when looking at dogs. - this shows that expertise is crucial.

Question 20

When does the FFA emerge?

Answer 20

age 11 - 14. However there is early evidence of face-responsive areas.

Question 21

Why does the FFA emerge?

Answer 21

It is down to accurate performance and using the right strategies to trigger this performance. Not affected by speed of brain maturation.

Question 22

What is prosopagnosia?

Answer 22

Visual agnosia characterised by inability to recognise previously known faces, or to learn new ones.
Object recognition usually unimpaired.
Difference between acquired and congenital.

Question 23

How does acquired prosopagnosia affect recognition of faces?

Answer 23

Acquired prosopagnosia patient with only 67% accuracy compared with 94% in controls. In another study about 17% error rate.

Question 24

How does congenital prosopagnosia differ from acquired prosopagnosia?

Answer 24

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.

Question 25

How do the face areas work in the brain?

Answer 25

OFA - starts firing when a face is shown but stops firing if face after face after face is shown (even if the face changes identity)
FFA - keeps firing with different identity faces
Superior temporal sulcus - keep firing if faces are dynamic e.g eye/mouth movements.

Question 26

What is the expertise hypothesis?

Answer 26

Face processing is learned and the perceptual effects are a function of perceptual expertise.

Question 27

Can people be trained to process abstract categories as faces?

Answer 27

Yes. Experiment trained participants to identify things called ‘Greebles’.
The participants showed increased activation of FFA when showed a new Greeble. Greeble recognition was sensitive to inversion and negation effect.

Question 28

What evidence supports the expertise hypothesis?

Answer 28

We are not born with face processing - we specialise continually throughout childhood and adolescence
Greeble studies and difference between congenital and acquired prosopagnosia.

Question 29

Why is face processing a double dissociation?

Answer 29

Because there is a difference between differentiating between faces and any other objects in the world.