Face Recognition

Question 1

In what way is Bruce and Young’s early model of face recognition modular?

Answer 1

Different sub-functions are processed independently

Question 2

There are distinct pathways for what in Bruce and Young’s early model of face recognition?

Answer 2

Recognising familiar faces vs recognising expressions

Question 3

Parallel pathways deal with what in Bruce and Young’s early model of face recognition?

Answer 3

Facial expression, facial speech and visually derived semantic information (e.g. sex, age, race)

Question 4

In Bruce and Young’s model, for recognition, a familiar face activates what?

Answer 4

A Face Recognition Unit

Question 5

Face Recognition Units are linked to Personal Identity Nodes. What are these?

Answer 5

Gateways to semantic information about the person

Question 6

Personal Identity Nodes are linked to what?

Answer 6

Name generation

Question 7

What is meant by Bruce and Young’s model being a cereal process?

Answer 7

One thing has to happen before the next, and they can’t happen in another order

Question 8

What were the most common errors in the memory loss diary study?

Answer 8

1. Person not recognised
2. Feeling of familiarity without identity
3. Person recognised but no name retrieved
4. Person misidentified

Question 9

What are the two things familiarity does not influence?

Answer 9

1. Gender decisions
2. Expression analysis

Question 10

What is meant by double dissociation between the processing of facial expression and face recognition?

Answer 10

Some people have a deficit in identity but not expression, others have a deficit in expression but not in identity. The fact people can have damage to one but not the other shows the two recognising must be separate

Question 11

Define semantic priming

Answer 11

A face is responded to faster if it follows a closely related face, compared to an unrelated face

Question 12

Summarise the key points of McCleeland’s Interactive Activation and Competition (IAC) model

Answer 12

1. Parallel distributed networks that have interactive activation and competition built in as basic processes
2. Concepts and category learning via an IAC model
3. Semantic information is “pooled”
4. Relationships between different bits of knowledge are represented in the connections between pools

Question 13

In McCleeland’s IAC model, how do connections within and between pools differ?

Answer 13

Connections within a pool are mutually inhibitory (when one area of pool is activated, other pools are inhibited)
Connections between pools are mutually facilitatory (one member of the pools inhibits the other member in the pool)

Question 14

Personal identity nodes can be partially activated through what?

Answer 14

Shared semantics

Question 15

What are first order relations?

Answer 15

The configuration of the face that everybody shares - the eyes are above the nose, which is above the mouth

Question 16

What are second order relations?

Answer 16

The fine-grained spatial interrelationship between features

Question 17

In what ways has the concept of recognising faces through second order relations been proved wrong?

Answer 17

Stretching, squashing, shearing alter SORs but faces remain easily identifiable. Negative faces very difficult to recognise despite preserving configurable information

Question 18

Face processing in the brain is widely distributed. Where are some core aspects localised?

Answer 18

Superior temporal sulcus and inferior temporal cortex. This is where we see face selective neurons

Question 19

Briefly summarise hierarchical accounts of processing

Answer 19

Cells in inferior temporal cortex are selective to complex stimuli giving credence to hierarchical theories of object perception. Means early visual cortex codes elementary features such as line orientation and colour. Outputs combined to form detectors of higher-order features such as corners or T-junctions. Cells at highest levels in hierarchy code specific shapes such as hands or faces.