Week 10 - Face Perception and Prospagnosia

Question 1

What is the first order relations?

Answer 1

the basic configuration of faces such as two eyes above a nose above a mouth etc

Question 2

What is the second order relation?

Answer 2

the spacing among the various features, over above and between

Question 3

What is Bruce and Young’s early model of face recognition?

Answer 3

• a modular model in that different sub-functions are processed independently
• distinct pathways for recognising familiar faces vs recognising expressions
• parallel pathways dealing with facial expression, facial speech, and visually derived semantic information such as sex, age, race.
• see photo of model

Question 4

What are FRUs?

Answer 4

face recognition units

Question 5

What are PINs

Answer 5

personal identity nodes

Question 6

What are name recognition units?

Answer 6

the idea that taking input from the PINs ultimately generate the name of the individual

Question 7

What are some examples of early evidence for Bruce and Young’s model?

Answer 7

• memory loss diary study (person not recognised/blanked, feeling of familiarity without identity/person recognised but no name retrieved, person misidentified)
• repetition priming found for familiarity decisions but not gender expression decisions

Question 8

What is the neuropsychological support for parallelism?

Answer 8

double dissociation between the processing of facial expression and face recognition. some have a deficit in identity but not expression and vice versa

Question 9

What is the neuro-imaging support for parallelism?

Answer 9

different cortical sites are active in the processing identity versus emotion

Question 10

What is the challenge of semantic priming?

Answer 10

semantic priming is a where a face is recognised more quickly if it is shown following a face that is closely related (e.g. price Charles and Diana)
this is not accounted for by Bruce and Young’s model

Question 11

What is the Interactive Activation and Competition model (IAC) model?

Answer 11

• idea that semantic information is ‘pooled’
• knowledge is represented in pools
• relationships between different bits of knowledge are represented in the connections between the pools
• connection within a pool are mutually inhibitory
• connections between pools are mutually facilitatory

Question 12

What are Face Selective Neurons?

Answer 12

locations of face- elective neurons in the superior temporal sulcus and the inferior temporal cortex have been identified by using single unit electrodes in macaques.
(look at photo on slide)

Question 13

what is the logic of Gnostic neurons

Answer 13

• cells in the inferior temporal cortex are selective to complex stimuli giving credence to hierarchal theories of object perception
• according to this view early visual cortex codes elementary features such as line orientation and colour. outputs are combined to form detectors of higher-order features such as corners of T-junctions. cells at the highest level in the hierarchy code specified shapes such as hands or faces

Question 14

What are ‘Grandmother Cells’?

Answer 14

the notion of the existence of a separate neutron to detect and represent a single object (such as one’s grandmother).

Question 15

What is agnosia?

Answer 15

when object recognition fails

- typically occurs after damage to the occipital or inferior temporal cortex

Question 16

What is apperceptive agnosia?

Answer 16

• Mr. S
• able to move about and negotiate obstacles without difficulty
• their grasp reveals knowledge of size an shape
• low-level binding of feature appears to be absent
• unable to perform basic copying and matching tasks

Question 17

What is prosopagnosia?

Answer 17

• loss in the ability to recognise faces usually due to a right inferotemporal lesion
• view lecture slide