W2L1 - Face perception, disorders of face recognition, and super-recognisers

Question 1

What are paradoxical image effects?

Answer 1

• Tiny image difference may change emotion and identity
• Big image difference have no effect on identity

Question 2

What are some models of face-processing

(3 questions we can ask when we process faces)

Answer 2

• Figural
  
  • Face / non-face
• Semantic
  
  • General (Gender)
  • Specific (Familiar)
• Learnt/Innate

Question 3

What is viewpoint dependency

Answer 3

Recognition drops with face inversion

Question 4

What is image volatility?

Answer 4

Recognition drops with reversed contrast

Question 5

What is Identity stability

Answer 5

Caricatured faces are often more identifiable than veridical photographs

Question 6

Evidence that face recognition is consistent across visual arrangements

Answer 6

Recognition

• Occurs in extreme deformation
• Depend on external features
  
  • (e.g. prosopagnosics)

Question 7

Behavioural evidence for a specialised face pathway

Answer 7

1. ) Face inversion effect
2. ) Holistic processing

• The composite effect
• The whole-part effect

3.) Neuropsychological evidence

• Prosopagnosia
• Visual object agnostic with intact face-processing: CK

Question 8

Behavioural evidence for face-inversion effect. Upright vs invered

Answer 8

• Configural processing for upright faces
• Featural processing for inverted faces

Question 9

Behavioural evidence for holistic processing. Composite effect

Answer 9

Composite

• Slow to identify half of a chimeric face aligned with an inconsistent other half-face
  
  • Interference from the other parts of the face
• Easier to identify the top half-face when it’s misaligned with the bottom one than when the two halves are fitted smoothly together
• Suggest mandatory processing of whole face

Question 10

Behavioural evidence for holistic processing. Part-whole. What does it not occur for?

Answer 10

• Better at distinguishing two face parts in the context of a whole face than in isolation
• Does not occur for controls
  
  • inverted
  • scrambled
  • house

Question 11

Evidences for expertise in face-inversion

Answer 11

Diamond and Carey (1986)

• Inversion for houses
• Inversion for landscapes
  
  • Not as much as faces, but the statment that “only faces show inversion effect” is not true
• Comparative inversion for dog experts (Not novices)

Rossion and Curran (2010)

• Greater inversion effect correlates with self-declared car-expertise

Question 12

Why are greebles good controls?

Answer 12

Face-like properties.

• Small number of parts in common configuration
• Hard to identify based on single feature
• Identification is best by using all features and relationships between them

Question 13

Gauthier and Tarr (1997). Results. What does it suggest.

Answer 13

Results

• Experts - Defined as someone who could recognise a Greeble’s “gender”, “family”, “name”
  
  • Faster
  • Accurate
  • More sensitive to configural changes (Transformed)
  • RT to upright Greebles slower in the Transformed Configuration relative to the Studied Configuration condition

Argued for qualitative change in recognition - Understanding the rules of greebles

Question 14

What did Farah (1990) argue in terms of cases of visual agnosia

Answer 14

Argued for two independent recognition systems

• Structural/Part-Based mechanisms
  
  • Associated with “normal” object recognition
• Holistic mechanisms
  
  • Associated with face recognition

Question 15

Is there evidence of a double dissociation for Farah (1990)

Answer 15

Separate modules for face and object recognition

(a) Prosopagnosia

• Normal object with poor face recognition
• Usually damage to fusiform gyrus
• Pure prosopagnosia is rare

(b) Visual Object Agnosia

• Poor Object with normal face recognition
• Only CK

Question 16

How do we measure facial recognition

Answer 16

• Before They Were Famous
• Cambridge Face Memory Test
• Cambridge Face Perception Test

Question 17

BTWF Test on Facial Recognition. What does correct identification require? Flaw?

Answer 17

• 59 pictures of celebrities (as children)
• Correct identification requires generalization across substantial change in the appearance of the face
• Flaw
  
  • Does depend somewhat on prior exposure

Question 18

CFMT on Facial Recognition. Flaw?

Answer 18

• 6 male faces
  
  • 3 trained view
    
    • Different perpsectives
  • 3 alt forced choice
    
    • Which of this faces have you seen before
    • Recognise picture from non-trained views
  • 4 difficulty levels
• Flaw
  
  • Might be reliant on memory

Question 19

CFPT on Facial Recognition.

Answer 19

• Test images at ¾ view
• 6 frontal non-target faces morphed with target (different %)
  
  • Can do for upright and inverted faces
• Rank from most to least similar

Question 20

Greeble learning in a prosopagnosic

Answer 20

• Edward
  
  • Poor face inversion, no face-inversion effect
  • Normal Greeble recognition performance
• Suggests face deficits do not involve brain processes used to acquire Greeble expertise

Question 21

What are some properties of congenital or developmental prosopagnosia. What are 2 notions on face recognition ability.

Answer 21

• Poor facial recognition
  
  • Absence of brain damage or other cognitive deficits
  • note: prosopagnosic is usually FFA damage
• 2%–2.5% population

1. ) Healthy/Pathological
2. ) Broad (normal) distribution of face recognition ability, with developmental prosopagnosia on lower tail and superrecognisor on upper tail

Question 22

How do superrecognisors display the face-inversion effect. What does it suggest?

Answer 22

• Perform well on facial recognition task (CFMT and CFPT with upright)
• Larger face inversion effect (CFPT with inverted)
  
  • Supports normative idea that inversion effect is not qualitative different processing compared to normals.