scholarly journals Configurational Factors in the Perception of Unfamiliar Faces

Perception ◽  
1994 ◽  
Vol 23 (1) ◽  
pp. 65-74 ◽  
Author(s):  
Graham J Hole
Keyword(s):  
Face Recognition ◽  
Face Inversion ◽  
Processing Mechanisms ◽  
Unfamiliar Faces ◽  
The Way

Young et al (1987) have demonstrated that the juxtaposition of top and bottom halves of different faces produces a powerful impression of a novel face. It is difficult to isolate perceptually either half of the ‘new’ face. Inversion of the stimulus, however, makes this task easier. Upright chimeric faces appear to evoke strong and automatic configurational processing mechanisms which interfere with selective piecemeal processing. In this paper three experiments are described in which a matching paradigm was used to show that Young et al's findings apply to unfamiliar as well as to familiar faces. The results highlight the way in which minor procedural differences may alter the way in which subjects perform face-recognition tasks.

Face Inversion Effect Emerges Under Critical Configural Discrepancy

2010 ◽  
Vol 69 (3) ◽  
pp. 161-167 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jisien Yang ◽  
Adrian Schwaninger
Keyword(s):  
Face Recognition ◽  
Face Processing ◽  
Underlying Mechanism ◽  
Inversion Effect ◽  
Configural Processing ◽  
Major Contributor ◽  
Face Inversion Effect ◽  
Configural Information ◽  
Face Inversion ◽  
The Face

Configural processing has been considered the major contributor to the face inversion effect (FIE) in face recognition. However, most researchers have only obtained the FIE with one specific ratio of configural alteration. It remains unclear whether the ratio of configural alteration itself can mediate the occurrence of the FIE. We aimed to clarify this issue by manipulating the configural information parametrically using six different ratios, ranging from 4% to 24%. Participants were asked to judge whether a pair of faces were entirely identical or different. The paired faces that were to be compared were presented either simultaneously (Experiment 1) or sequentially (Experiment 2). Both experiments revealed that the FIE was observed only when the ratio of configural alteration was in the intermediate range. These results indicate that even though the FIE has been frequently adopted as an index to examine the underlying mechanism of face processing, the emergence of the FIE is not robust with any configural alteration but dependent on the ratio of configural alteration.

What role do the emotions play in cognition?

2003 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 81-100 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jason L. Megill
Keyword(s):  
Face Recognition ◽  
Selective Attention ◽  
Research Program ◽  
Affective Computing ◽  
Higher Order ◽  
Brain Disorders ◽  
Frame Problem ◽  
Cognitive Theories ◽  
The Frame Problem ◽  
The Way

This paper has two aims: (1) to point the way towards a novel alternative to cognitive theories of emotion, and (2) to delineate a number of different functions that the emotions play in cognition, functions that become visible from outside the framework of cognitive theories. First, I hold that the Higher Order Representational (HOR) theories of consciousness — as generally formulated — are inadequate insofar as they fail to account for selective attention. After posing this dilemma, I resolve it in such a manner that the following thesis arises: the emotions play a key role in shaping selective attention. This thesis is in accord with A. Damasio’s (1994) noteworthy neuroscientific work on emotion. I then begin to formulate an alternative to cognitive theories of emotion, and I show how this new account has implications for the following issues: face recognition, two brain disorders (Capgras’ and Fregoli syndrome), the frame problem in A.I., and the research program of affective computing.

Visual metaphor in extended conceptual metaphor theory

2020 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 13-30
Author(s):  
Zoltán Kövecses
Keyword(s):  
Visual Experience ◽  
Conceptual Metaphor ◽  
Natural Scenes ◽  
Visual Metaphor ◽  
Conceptual Metaphor Theory ◽  
Visual Metaphors ◽  
Metaphor Theory ◽  
New Challenges ◽  
Processing Mechanisms ◽  
The Way

Abstract My goal in the paper is to examine a variety of visual experiences that appear to evoke visual metaphors. This is a range of experience types that extends from “sign-like” visual experiences to “non-sign-like” visual experiences. I propose that visual metaphors are evoked by paintings through winner’s podiums all the way to cityscapes and scenes in nature. The latter two (non-sign-like) cases, cityscapes and natural scenes, are not commonly subjected to serious examination from a CMT perspective. However, they provide us with new challenges in the study of visual metaphors, since they greatly extend the range of visual experience that might give rise to visual metaphors. I suggest, further, that the comprehension or interpretation of all of these visual experiences, including sign-like and non-sign-like alike, makes use of the same metaphorical processing mechanisms. The visual metaphors that are evoked by visual experiences can be based either on correlations or resemblance.

Self- or familiar-face recognition advantage? New insight using ambient images

2018 ◽  
Vol 71 (6) ◽  
pp. 1396-1404 ◽  
Author(s):  
Catherine Bortolon ◽  
Siméon Lorieux ◽  
Stéphane Raffard
Keyword(s):  
Face Recognition ◽  
Graduate Students ◽  
Matching Task ◽  
Healthy Individuals ◽  
Familiarity Effect ◽  
Familiar Face ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Face ◽  
First Time ◽  
Unfamiliar Faces

Self-face recognition has been widely explored in the past few years. Nevertheless, the current literature relies on the use of standardized photographs which do not represent daily-life face recognition. Therefore, we aim for the first time to evaluate self-face processing in healthy individuals using natural/ambient images which contain variations in the environment and in the face itself. In total, 40 undergraduate and graduate students performed a forced delayed-matching task, including images of one’s own face, friend, famous and unknown individuals. For both reaction time and accuracy, results showed that participants were faster and more accurate when matching different images of their own face compared to both famous and unfamiliar faces. Nevertheless, no significant differences were found between self-face and friend-face and between friend-face and famous-face. They were also faster and more accurate when matching friend and famous faces compared to unfamiliar faces. Our results suggest that faster and more accurate responses to self-face might be better explained by a familiarity effect – that is, (1) the result of frequent exposition to one’s own image through mirror and photos, (2) a more robust mental representation of one’s own face and (3) strong face recognition units as for other familiar faces.

scholarly journals Familiar and unfamiliar face recognition in crested macaques ( Macaca nigra )

2015 ◽  
Vol 2 (5) ◽  
pp. 150109 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jérôme Micheletta ◽  
Jamie Whitehouse ◽  
Lisa A. Parr ◽  
Paul Marshman ◽  
Antje Engelhardt ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Face Recognition ◽  
Social Factors ◽  
Novel Species ◽  
Primate Species ◽  
Pictorial Representation ◽  
Facial Features ◽  
Dominance Hierarchies ◽  
Macaca Nigra ◽  
Unfamiliar Face ◽  
Unfamiliar Faces

Many species use facial features to identify conspecifics, which is necessary to navigate a complex social environment. The fundamental mechanisms underlying face processing are starting to be well understood in a variety of primate species. However, most studies focus on a limited subset of species tested with unfamiliar faces. As well as limiting our understanding of how widely distributed across species these skills are, this also limits our understanding of how primates process faces of individuals they know, and whether social factors (e.g. dominance and social bonds) influence how readily they recognize others. In this study, socially housed crested macaques voluntarily participated in a series of computerized matching-to-sample tasks investigating their ability to discriminate (i) unfamiliar individuals and (ii) members of their own social group. The macaques performed above chance on all tasks. Familiar faces were not easier to discriminate than unfamiliar faces. However, the subjects were better at discriminating higher ranking familiar individuals, but not unfamiliar ones. This suggests that our subjects applied their knowledge of their dominance hierarchies to the pictorial representation of their group mates. Faces of high-ranking individuals garner more social attention, and therefore might be more deeply encoded than other individuals. Our results extend the study of face recognition to a novel species, and consequently provide valuable data for future comparative studies.

scholarly journals Priming Visual Face-Processing Mechanisms: Electrophysiological Evidence

2002 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 190-193 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shlomo Bentin ◽  
Noam Sagiv ◽  
Axel Mecklinger ◽  
Angela Friederici ◽  
Yves D. von Cramon
Keyword(s):  
Face Recognition ◽  
Face Perception ◽  
Face Processing ◽  
Specific Activity ◽  
Brain Activity ◽  
Perceptual Representation ◽  
Contextual Influences ◽  
Brain Potentials ◽  
Processing Mechanisms ◽  
Perceptual Mechanism

Accumulated evidence from electrophysiology and neuroimaging suggests that face perception involves extrastriate visual mechanisms specialized in processing physiognomic features and building a perceptual representation that is categorically distinct and can be identified by face-recognition units. In the present experiment, we recorded event-related brain potentials in order to explore possible contextual influences on the activity of this perceptual mechanism. Subjects were first exposed to pairs of small shapes, which did not elicit any face-specific brain activity. The same stimuli, however, elicited face-specific brain activity after subjects saw them embedded in schematic faces, which probably primed the subjects to interpret the shapes as schematic eyes. No face-specific activity was observed when objects rather than faces were used to form the context. We conclude that the activity of face-specific extrastriate perceptual mechanisms can be modulated by contextual constraints that determine the significance of the visual input.

Identification of Familiar and Unfamiliar Faces from Internal and External Features: Some Implications for Theories of Face Recognition

Perception ◽  
1979 ◽  
Vol 8 (4) ◽  
pp. 431-439 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hadyn D Ellis ◽  
John W Shepherd ◽  
Graham M Davies
Keyword(s):  
Face Recognition ◽  
Face Perception ◽  
Recognition Test ◽  
Internal Representation ◽  
Famous People ◽  
Feature Saliency ◽  
Face Perception And Recognition ◽  
Unfamiliar Faces

Three experiments are reported in which recognition of faces from whole faces or internal or external features was compared. In the first experiment, where the faces were of famous people, an advantage was found for identification from internal features. In the second experiment involving unfamiliar faces, however, no difference was found in recognition rates when subjects were given the internal or the external features. In a third experiment famous faces were presented and mixed with other famous faces for a recognition test. As in experiment 1, better recognition occurred from internal as compared with external features. It is argued that the internal representation for familiar faces may be qualitatively different from that for faces seen just once. In particular some advantage in feature saliency may accrue to the internal or ‘expressive’ features of familiar faces. The implications of these results are considered in relation to general theories of face perception and recognition.

Recognizing faces

1983 ◽  
Vol 302 (1110) ◽  
pp. 423-436 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Face Recognition ◽  
Visual Search ◽  
Word Recognition ◽  
Episodic Memory ◽  
Lexical Decision ◽  
Functional Model ◽  
Theoretical Progress ◽  
Unfamiliar Faces

Face recognition is an area where research has increased considerably in recent years, yet theoretical progress has been slow. Here it is argued that by considering the perception and recognition of familiar faces, as well as episodic memory for unfamiliar faces, a functional framework for face recognition can be developed. Experiments using faces, that include tasks analogous to ‘visual search’ and ‘lexical decision’ are described, and the processes in operation are compared with those occurring in word recognition. The results allow us to distinguish a number of possible subcomponents for a functional model of face recognition.

scholarly journals How Familiarity Warps Representation in Face Space

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vassiki Chauhan ◽  
M. Ida Gobbini
Keyword(s):  
Face Recognition ◽  
Structural Features ◽  
Image Distortion ◽  
Face Space ◽  
Familiar Face ◽  
Unfamiliar Faces

AbstractRecognition of familiar as compared to unfamiliar faces is robust and resistant to marked image distortion or degradation. Here we tested the flexibility of familiar face recognition with a morphing paradigm where the appearance of a personally familiar face was mixed with the appearance of a stranger. The aim was to assess how categorical boundaries for recognition of identity are affected by familiarity. We found a narrower categorical boundary for the identity of personally familiar faces when they were mixed with unfamiliar identities as compared to the control condition, in which the appearance of two unfamiliar faces were mixed. Our results suggest that familiarity warps the representational geometry of face space, amplifying perceptual distances for small changes in the appearance of familiar faces that are inconsistent with the structural features that define their identities.

scholarly journals Critical Features for Face Recognition

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Naphtali Abudarham ◽  
Lior Shkiller ◽  
Galit Yovel
Keyword(s):  
Neural Network ◽  
Face Recognition ◽  
Deep Neural Network ◽  
Recognition Algorithm ◽  
Facial Features ◽  
Perceptual Representation ◽  
Familiar Face ◽  
Perceptual Representations ◽  
Unfamiliar Faces ◽  
New Framework

Face recognition is a computationally challenging task that humans perform effortlessly. Nonetheless, this remarkable ability is limited to familiar faces and does not generalize to unfamiliar faces. To account for humans’ superior ability to recognize familiar faces, current theories suggest that familiar and unfamiliar faces have different perceptual representations. In the current study, we applied a reverse engineering approach to reveal which facial features are critical for familiar face recognition. In contrast to current views, we discovered that the same subset of features that are used for matching unfamiliar faces, are also used for matching as well as recognition of familiar faces. We further show that these features are also used by a deep neural network face recognition algorithm. We therefore propose a new framework that assumes similar perceptual representation for all faces and integrates cognition and perception to account for humans’ superior recognition of familiar faces.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document