Facial recognition

Question 1

Pareidolia

Answer 1

Seeing faces or other stimuli that are familiar where they are not

Question 2

Face areas

Answer 2

• fusiform face area
• occipital face area
• superior temporal sulcus

More lateralised to right hemisphere in humans

Question 3

Place area

Answer 3

Parahippocampal place area

Question 4

Face selective negativity

Answer 4

N170 wave
- also occurs with illusory faces, although not as strong
- does not occur when looking at objects

Question 5

Double dissociation (prosopagnosia and …)

Answer 5

Prosopagnosia - patients cannot identify faces, but they can objects
Integrative agnosia - patients cannot identify objects, but they can faces

Question 6

Face inversion effect

Answer 6

Faces are more easily recognised and discriminated when right side up, when they are upside down, they are treated as ordinary objects

Prosopagnosic patients are better at recognising these inverted faces than normal faces&raquo_space; faces are processed differently than objects

Question 7

What are two consequences of the differential processing of faces?

Answer 7

There is a strong memory for faces in the brain that is not dependent on how many faces ago it was seen

Faces are analysed holistically instead of in separated parts - you won’t remember as easily individual features of someone’s face but their face in general

Question 8

Why do we have a fusiform face area?

Answer 8

It could be that this area is more likely linked to