(Press-News.org) A team of researchers that includes a USC scientist has methodically demonstrated that a face's features or constituents – more than the face per se – are the key to recognizing a person.
Their study, which goes against the common belief that brains process faces "holistically," appears this month in Psychological Science.
In addition to shedding light on the way the brain functions, these results may help scientists understand rare facial recognition disorders.
Humans are great at recognizing faces. There are even regions in the brain that are specifically associated with face perception – the most well-known one is the fusiform gyrus in the temporal lobe.
Common wisdom has it that humans recognize the face "holistically," meaning that there is something about the picture created by the entire face – the particular arrangement of a face's eyes, nose, and mouth and not just these features themselves – that makes it easier for the human brain to make a positive ID.
That common wisdom appears to be wrong.
"There is this belief that faces are special," said the study's coauthor Bosco Tjan, associate professor of psychology at the USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences. "But why? How is the face special?"
To use an automotive metaphor, would it be easier for a car aficionado to identify a '58 Corvette by its distinctive quad headlights, chunky chrome grille and swoop on the side – or if shown the car that all these pieces make when added together?
Tjan and collaborators Jason M. Gold, associate professor of psychology at Indiana University, Bloomington and IU undergraduate student Patrick J. Mundy tested participants on how accurately they were able to identify a set of faces by the parts of those faces – the nose, left eye, right eye or mouth.
Then, using a well-established formula that Tjan developed in an earlier study, the researchers extrapolated how accurately each participant should be able to identify an entire face.
If humans were better at face recognition than nose or eye recognition, one would expect each participant to do a better job of identification when the features are all arranged together into a face. But in fact, the participants did a little worse than predicted by Tjan's formula.
Facial recognition, it appears, hinges on recognizing the face's features more than the "holistic" picture they add up to create.
INFORMATION:
This research was funded by the National Institutes of Health.
END
The effect of population aging on the number of admissions to hospital for inpatient treatment is examined by epidemiologist Enno Nowossadeck in the latest issue of Deutsches Ärzteblatt International (Dtsch Arztebl Int 2012; 109[9]: 151-7.
Germany's population is steadily growing older, and the number of hospital admissions is increasing. By taking nationwide statistics on hospital treatment in the years 2000 and 2009 and classifying the patients by year of birth, sex, and diagnosis, the author investigates whether these two trends are connected.
His analysis reveals, ...
Zug, Switzerland and San Diego, CA – Cytori Therapeutics (NASDAQ: CYTX) announced today the publication of RESTORE-2 trial results in the peer-reviewed European Journal of Surgical Oncology.
RESTORE-2 is a 71 patient multi-center, prospective clinical trial using autologous adipose-derived regenerative cell (ADRC)-enriched fat grafting for reconstruction of the breast after cancer surgery. The majority of patients underwent radiation prior to the procedure, creating an unfavorable ischemic environment for which breast reconstruction with ADRC-enriched fat grafting appears ...
DURHAM, N.H. –– Space scientists from the University of New Hampshire and multi-institutional colleagues report they have quantified levels of radiation on the moon's surface from galactic cosmic ray (GCR) bombardment that over time causes chemical changes in water ice and can create complex carbon chains similar to those that help form the foundations of biological structures. In addition, the radiation process causes the lunar soil, or regolith, to darken over time, which is important in understanding the geologic history of the moon.
The scientists present their findings ...
More than 400 years after Galileo's discovery of Io, the innermost of Jupiter's largest moons, a team of scientists led by Arizona State University (ASU) has produced the first complete global geologic map of the Jovian satellite. The map, published by the U. S. Geological Survey, depicts the characteristics and relative ages of some of the most geologically unique and active volcanoes and lava flows ever documented in the Solar System.
Following its discovery by Galileo in January 1610, Io has been the focus of repeated telescopic and satellite scientific observation. ...
With 30 years of management under our belt, Omega Janitorial Service is proud to announce the opening of our second office in the Houston Area. In order to accommodate a growing demand, we have expanded into a brand new facility located off of Beltway 8 North by the International Airport. Our spacious new office and large warehouse offers Omega expanded abilities to receive and house bulk shipments. With increased abilities to house greater amounts of the best products possible, we are continuing to strive to achieve the greatest savings for our customers as our main focus ...
A new study by University of Notre Dame biologist Michael Pfrender and a team of researchers from the University of Nevada-Reno, Utah State University and the University of Virginia suggests that snakes from different regions of the world have evolved a similar, remarkable resistance to a deadly neurotoxin.
The finding, which appeared in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, greatly increases scientists' understanding of the genetic basis of adaptation and is a model for understanding the limits to adaptation and the degree to which evolutionary responses ...
"Anyone who has been admitted into a hospital or undergone a procedure, even if cared for in the most appropriate way, can feel as though they were treated like an animal or object," says Harvard University psychologist and physician Omar Sultan Haque. Health care workers enter their professions to help people; research shows that empathic, humane care improves outcomes. Yet dehumanization is endemic. The results can be disastrous: neglect of necessary treatments or prescription of excessive, painful procedures or dangerous drugs.
What are the causes and effects of dehumanization ...
University of Alberta led research may have discovered how memories are encoded in our brains.
Scientists understand memory to exist as strengthened synaptic connections among neurons. However components of synaptic membranes are relatively short-lived and frequently re-cycled while memories can last a lifetime. Based on this information, U of A physicist and lead researcher Jack Tuszynski, his graduate student Travis Craddock and University of Arizona professor Stuart Hameroff investigated the molecular mechanism of memory encoding in neurons.
The team looked into structures ...
Montreal, March 19, 2012 – Parents should think twice before brushing off their child's calls to "look at me!" A Concordia study published in the journal Child Development is the first to show that toddlers' expectations of how their parent will respond to their needs and bids for attention relate to how eager they are to collaborate and learn.
Collaboration in toddlers has been linked to the acquisition of social rules and norms later in childhood.
Understanding what contributes to more collaboration can help improve conscience development in children.
Marie-Pierre ...
Investigators at Nationwide Children's Hospital, working with the DNA Sequencing Core Facility at the University of Utah, have developed an approach to newborn screening (NBS) for the life-threatening genetic disorder, Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) and potentially other muscular dystrophies. As a model for NBS, the approach published online in January in the Annals of Neurology provides evidence that this approach could be implemented if approved by regulatory bodies at a state level or alternatively through the Secretary's Advisory Committee on Heritable Disorders ...
