Verified Document

Recognizing Faces Research Paper

¶ … Head Recognizing Faces

There is a region in the brain, called the fusiform face area or FFA, which is vital in recognizing and distinguishing faces (Andrews et al., 2010). Brain scientists have been acquiring an understanding of the mechanisms, which distinguish faces. A baby's brain processes faces at four months as distinct objects. Faces tell a baby a lot of things, such as the person's identity, gender, race, emotion and truthfulness. The loss of that ability to recognize and distinguish faces is called proposophagnosia or face blindness. It often follows a stroke or brain injury. A person who suffers from this damage, even with normal vision, cannot recognize the faces he already knows very well, such as spouse and children. The damage is often on the fusiform gyrus, which is located in the underside of the brain and other areas (Andrews et al.).

Face Processing and Other Discoveries

A lot has been revealed by science about the general cognitive process involved in this function (Andrews et al., 2010). Faces are holistically processed rather than in parts. Focus is not made only on specific face parts, such as the eyes, nose or mouth. The entire information about these parts and their configuration are processed in creating a general model or concept of the face. This holistic procedure enables the brain to distinguish a specific face from many variations according to the individual encounter. A face recognition software today is not able to match the inherent capability of the human brain in this feat (Andrews et al.).

Imaging techniques have helped scientists more discoveries. One such discovery was that face-processing areas in the brain interact with memory networks (Andrews et al., 2010). This interaction enables the person to identify the one he is talking with or recall something of the past with this other person. Emotion has a particularly important role too. Some brain scientists believe that a defective connection with some emotional...

This disorder enables the recognition of loved ones but that impostors have replaced them. Experience is likewise important. A child commits more face recognition misses than adults. And research found that face processing is like language in that faces less often recognized are more easily forgotten (Andrews et al.).
Face Recognition, Identification and Classification

Basic-level categorization is the common entry-point recognition for faces but not enough to identify them (Tarr & Cheng, 2003). The entry point is at the individual level. It would be later understood that faces can be recognized only holistically as opposed to the parts of an object. An object is recognized and discriminated according to their parts. Recent evidence shows that the fusiform face area lights up when objects are viewed in the same way as faces. It was originally thought that the area lights up only when faces are recognized (Tarr & Cheng).

Long-Term Memory and Face Recognition

Encoding and the retrieval process are essential to face recognition (Tarr & Cheng, 2003). The encoding process inputs the face features in long-term memory and helps in storing images permanently as well as for ease of retrieval later. The encoding must be correct or it can be lost. The stored information becomes like a databank, which is later used in recognizing or distinguishing faces. Encoding consists of a view-centered description process and an expression-independent description process. The view-centered description process is later used to represent the person's primary facial features or information, such as contrast or light intensity. This is influenced by the representation of the face, which includes the size, orientation, and the intensity of light. The expression-independent description process, on the other hand, is the abstract representation of the person's facial features and then the whole face for facial recognition. The description…

Sources used in this document:
BIBLIOGRAPHY

Andrews, T. et al. (2010). About face: how the brain recognizes and processes faces.

Brain Briefings: Society for Neurosciences. Retrieved on March 30, 2012 from http://www.sfn.org/index.aspx?pagenome=brainBriefings._10_aboutface

Haxby et al. (1996). Face encoding and recognition in the human brain. Vol 93

Proceedings of the National Academy of Science of the United States: National
Academy of Science. Retrieved on March 31, 2012 from http://www.pnas.org/content/93/922.full.pdf
Rapcsak, S.Z. et al. (1994). False recognition and misidentification of faces following right hemisphere damage. 30 (4) Cortex: PubMed. Retrieved on March 31, 2012 from http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/7697985
in Cognitive Sciences: Elsevier. Retrieved on March 31, 2012 from http://www.tarrlab.cnbc.cmu.edu/~tarr/TaCh03.pdf
Cite this Document:
Copy Bibliography Citation

Related Documents

Face Recognition
Words: 942 Length: 3 Document Type: Term Paper

Recognition Cognitive Process of Facial Recognition We see so many faces each day. How does the mind keep track of them all? Something that seems so simple is actually quite complex. There are a number of cognitive processes that help the mind recognize facial features in general but also familiar faces that represent known associates. The brain categorizes and codes facial features and relationships between those features that allow for a

Schizophrenic Perception of Faces Schizophrenia
Words: 1289 Length: 4 Document Type: Thesis

28 subjects comprised the normal control group. They were recruited through a newspaper ad and had no histories of Axis I psychiatric disorders. The subjects were shown images on a computer screen for 13, 26, 52, or 104 ms, sometimes upright and sometimes inverted, and were asked to indicate, by pressing one of two keys on a keyboard, whether the image of a face or a tree was located on

Medical Disorders: Face Recognition
Words: 1892 Length: 6 Document Type: Essay

Prosopagnosia According to A.J. Larner's book, "A Dictionary of Neurological signs," prosopagnosia is a neurological condition, "a form of visual agnosia characterized by an inability to recognize previously known human faces or equivalent stimuli (hence a retrograde defect) and to learn new ones (anterograde defect)" (Larner, 2010). Larner further distinguishes between two forms of prosopagnosia: apperceptive and associative agnosia. This "category-specific recognition disorder," as G, Neil Martin calls it in his

Recognizing Revenue and Expenses in Legal Service Business
Words: 2711 Length: 10 Document Type: Term Paper

GAAP is a set of specific common guidelines, provided by the institutions such as the Financial Accounting Standards Board, the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants and the Securities and Exchange Commission, about "acceptable accounting practices" These acceptable practices should not necessarily be regarded as a set of ground rules. In fact, it is a common denominator, useful when foreign firms, especially auditing companies, proceed to financial verifications. The GAAP provide

Hero With 1,000 Faces the Classic Hero
Words: 1460 Length: 4 Document Type: Essay

Hero with 1,000 Faces The classic hero seems to teach us the value of humanity, while helping us strive for excellence by understanding the value of the experiences rendered through intuition, emotions, and often feelings that are special to the hero -- often rather than logical reasoning. The paradigm of heroism transcends genre, chronology and has become so common in the human collective consciousness that it is easily recognized and repeated

Challenges Europe Faced After WWII
Words: 823 Length: 3 Document Type: Essay

Europe Faced After World War II The objective of this work in writing is to examine the challenges that Europe faced following World War II. This work will examine the fall of communism in 1991 and answer the question of how Europe has managed to transition away from communism. World War II ending in Europe officially in May 1945 and although the war did come to an end the challenges faced

Sign Up for Unlimited Study Help

Our semester plans gives you unlimited, unrestricted access to our entire library of resources —writing tools, guides, example essays, tutorials, class notes, and more.

Get Started Now