Psychology of Face Recognition Brief Introduction 2ndedition

THE PSYCHOLOGY OF
FACE RECOGNITION: A
BRIEF INTRODUCTION
(2nd Edition)
KEVIN BREWER
ISBN: 978-1-904542-56-8
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Kevin Brewer 2010
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Contents
Page Number
INTRODUCTION 3
CONFIGURAL PROCESSING OF FACE 4
Evidence For 4
Problems With 8
Applying Theories of Pattern
Recognition to Face Recognition 8
FEATURE DETECTION THEORIES 10
Evidence For 10
Evidence Against 10
INFORMATION PROCESSING MODEL 11
Evidence For 12
Problems With 17
PHYSIOLOGICAL STUDIES AND FACE RECOGNITION 18
CULTURE AND FACE RECOGNITION 22
COMPUTER MODELLING AND FACE RECOGNITION 23
APPENDIX A - INTERNAL AND EXTERNAL FEATURES 23
APPENDIX B - PROSOPAGNOSIA 25
APPENDIX C - CAPGRAS DELUSION 26
APPENDIX D - RECOGNISING A FACE 26
REFERENCES 31
The Psychology of Face Recognition: A Brief Introduction (2nd edition)

Kevin Brewer; 2010; ISBN: 978-1-904542-56-8 2
Introduction
In terms of recognition, faces of different people
all have similar features in roughly the same
configuration, yet we are able to distinguish a familiar
face in the crowd. This ability, which takes a fraction
of a second, is far beyond the equivalent perception of
objects and patterns. Most people are not able to
distinguish one tree from a similar group or one penguin
in a massive crowd, for example. So face recognition and
perception are unique types of visual processing. Or is
it the same process of object recognition but more finely
tuned for faces (Bublitz 2008)?
Face recognition is the situation of using the face

to identify a familiar individual. It is different to
face perception, which includes the perception of
emotions from facial expressions, and the perception of
unfamiliar faces (Roth and Bruce 1995). While face
detection is the ability to discriminate a face from
other objects.
There is also face identification (naming the
person) and face recall (describing the face from memory)
(Cohen 1989).
The main question is whether faces are recognised by
features (eg: hair, nose) or in a configural (whole) way.
Bruce and Young (1986) proposed that seven types of

information are derived from seeing a face:
Pictorial - Basic visual information about the face;

eg: lighting, facial expression. A simple yes/no
recognition is possible.
Structural - Information about the face's structure;

eg: head shape, details of features. This allows the
recognition of faces when head angles or facial
expressions change.
Visually derived semantic - Judgments beyond visual

information; eg: age, sex, attributes like honesty.
Identity-specific semantic - Information about familiar

people; eg: occupation, where encountered.
Name - Where this is known as there as acquaintances

(familiar faces) whose name not known.
Expression - Information related to meaning of facial

expressions.
Facial speech - Whether the individual is speaking or

not.
These last two types of information are not

important in face recognition.
There are three main theoretical approaches to

recognition of familiar faces:
i) Configural processing of faces

ii) Feature Detection Theories
iii) Information Processing Model.
Configural Processing of Faces

This approach argues that faces are recognised as a
whole configuration (holistically), and features are not
analysed separately.
A configural way can include the spatial
relationship between features on the face, or how the
features interact (eg: the shape of the mouth affects the
perception of the shape of the nose) (Rakover 2002).
EVIDENCE FOR CONFIGURAL PROCESSING OF FACES
1. Recognition of upside-down faces
Farah et al (1998) observed that "whereas most

objects are somewhat harder to recognise upside down than
rightside up, inversion makes faces dramatically harder
to recognise" (p482).
Researchers have found that faces are harder to
recognise upside-down than other objects, so it cannot be
the features only that are important (Yin 1969). Yin
found that students recognised photographs and drawings
of famous faces better than those of airplanes, houses,
and cartoon figures without distinct faces. But the
opposite was true if the photographs were presented
upside down. This is the face-inversion effect.
Also when a "grotesque" face is presented, the

unusual features are not noticed upside-down (eg:
"Thatcher illusion"; Thompson 1980 1) (figure 1).
The "Thatcher illusion" is a picture of Margaret
Thatcher where the mouth and eyes have been turned
upside-down. Normally this looks "grotesque", but upside-
down there appears to be nothing wrong.
The relationship between the eyes, nose and mouth
1
Also called "Thompson illusion".
(ie: configuration) is harder to perceive in the upside-
down face, and the "grotesque" features are not seen
(Roth and Bruce 1995).
(Source: Anynobody; in public domain)
Figure 1 - The "Thatcher illusion".
Yin (1970) argued that the inverted face is also

harder to recognise because it is more difficult to
recognise the facial expression of such a face.
But Leder and Bruce (1998) altered the spacing

between features in photographs of faces (eg: distance

between eyes) which made them more distinctive. These
faces were easier to recognise than normal faces, but
harder when upside down. Face recognition involves
processing the individual features and their
configuration, which is disrupted when upside down.
Leder and Bruce (2000) asked participants to
identify faces by unique combinations of features or by
distinctive spacing between features. Upside down
photographs were harder to recognise based on spacing
than combination of features or both aspects together.
2. Composite faces
Young et al (1987) combined the top and bottom

halves of two famous faces of the time of the experiment
(politicians - Margaret Thatcher and Shirley Williams).
Participants were asked to name the face by the top half,
and they were unable to do this. If face recognition was
based on features, then this should not be the case. The
researchers argued that the newly-combined face is a new
configuration.
Individuals were slower to recognise the faces of
two different halves together than if the two halves were
misaligned. Trying to recognise one half of the face
together is limited by interference from the other half
as perception of the whole face is automatic.
3. Part-whole effect
Tanaka and Farah (1993) found that individuals were

better at recognising two face parts as one face than in
isolation. This is because the brain is automatically
better at processing whole faces.
4. Experimental evidence
Tanaka and Sengco (1997) taught participants to

recognise a set of faces each given a name (eg: "Bob").
Then parts of the face were presented and participants
were asked to recognise them (eg: Is that Bob's nose?").
The parts of the face were presented in isolation, in the
context of the original face (old configuration
condition), or in the original face that had been changed
(eg: eyes moved further apart) (new configuration
condition). If faces are recognised by individual
features, then there should be little difference in
recognition of face parts between the different contexts.
However, participants were best at recognising face
parts in the original context, then in an altered face,
and lastly, in isolation. There was no difference when

the same procedure used house pictures and recognition of
house parts (table 1).
CONDITION FACIAL FEATURES DIFFERENCES IN HOUSE FEATURES

RECOGNITION
Isolation 65 Mouth best, 84
eyes worse
Old 77 Mouth best, 83
configuration nose worse
New 72 Mouth best, 84
configuration nose worse
Table 1 - Percentage correct recognition of features in

Tanaka and Sengco (1997).
Farah et al (1998) used the same-different matching

paradigm with twenty-four undergraduates, who were
presented with two faces for one second and then asked if
one feature (eye, nose or mouth) or all were similar. Six
faces were used that were similar on one, two or three
(all) features (table 2).
FACES A & B FACES A & B
Relevant feature: Nose = same Nose = same

Irrelevant feature: Mouth = same Eyes = different
Condition: Compatible Incompatible
Table 2 - Examples of design in Farah et al (1998).
If feature detection is used, participants should be

unaffected at rating the similarity of individual
features irrelevant of other features. But if there is
contamination by other features, this is evidence for
holistic face perception.
The results were seen as supporting the latter.
Participants achieved an average rate of 74.6% correct
for similarity or difference of individual features when
irrelevant features were compatible (ie: relevant feature
same/irrelevant feature same, relevant feature
different/irrelevant feature different) and 61.8% for
incompatible (ie: relevant feature same/irrelevant
feature different, relevant feature different/irrelevant
feature same) (table 3). The irrelevant features had
affected perception of the relevant features suggested
face perception as a whole.

Are relevant IRRELEVANT FEATURE IRRELEVANT FEATURE
features: COMPATIBLE INCOMPATIBLE
SAME 91.5 71.6
DIFFERENT 57.6 51.9
(After Farah et al 1998)
Table 3 - Percentage correct relevant feature matching in

Farah et al (1998).
PROBLEMS WITH CONFIGURAL PROCESSING OF FACES
i) Some facial features are more important than

others. For unfamiliar faces, recognition depends on
external features of the face (eg: face outline,
hairstyle), but internal features are more important for
familiar faces (eg: eyes, nose) (Ellis et al 1979)
(appendix A).
The most important internal feature is the area
around the eyes, and the area around the nose is the
least important (Roberts and Bruce 1988).
Sadr et al (2003) showed that the eyebrows were the

most important for familiar faces. Participants were
shown fifty Western celebrity faces (25 of each sex) to
recognise in three conditions - unaltered, with eyes
missing, or with eyebrows lacking. Performance in the
last condition was significantly worse (46.3% correct)
compared to no eyes (55.8% correct) and unaltered (over
60% correct).
ii) Most of the research is based around recognition

of faces in photographs (ie: 2D stimuli), when, in real
life, face recognition is of a 3D stimuli (Eysenck and
Keane 1995).
APPLYING THE THEORIES OF PATTERN RECOGNITION TO FACE

RECOGNITION
The configural processing of faces is similar to how

patterns and objects are recognised by the Template
Matching Hypothesis and Prototype Theories.
Template Matching Hypothesis
One possibility is that individuals store a fixed

set of views of faces they have learnt.

EVIDENCE FOR: EVIDENCE AGAINST:
It is difficult to There would need to be a

recognise the same template for each view of face
that has changed face: front and side, and this
(eg: with/without beard). would require a massive memory
A change in wig reduced face capacity
recognition to 50%, while a
wig and beard change reduced
accuracy to 30%
(Patterson and Baddeley
1997 quoted in Brewer 2000)
Prototype Theories
Prototypes are not individual faces, but a summary

of the main features of faces. General prototypes of the
face are stored in the memory, and individual faces are
linked to them. This is a norm-based system for
processing faces (Bublitz 2008).
The process works in two ways - typical faces are
quicker to recognise as faces compared to other objects,
but distinctive faces (ie: those different to the typical
face) are easier to recognise for individual faces.
Valentine and Bruce (1986) have shown these

processes experimentally. Participants were asked to rate
the familiarity of a famous person, and the reaction time
to answer was measured. The average time taken was 661 ms
for distinctive faces as compared to 707 ms for typical
ones. When participants were shown jumbled faces and
asked if it was a face or a non-face, recognition for
typical faces took 561 ms on average and distinctive
faces 608 ms.
Valentine (1991) sees distinctive faces as stored in

"face space" where few others are stored ("face-space
hypothesis"). Known faces are stored on dimensions of the
space which represent the dimensions used to distinguish
between the faces, and typical faces are clustered close
together at the average. Distinctive faces are at the
extremes of the dimensions. Thus identification is much
easier with less competing information in the memory
store.
While Bruce et al (1994) found that distinct faces
are different in measurements of features, like nose
width, than faces rated as typical. Also caricatures of
famous faces, which exaggerate the person's face, make
them more distinctive, and easier to recognise (Valentine
1996).
Leopold et al (2006) presented an "average" human

face (based on merging different faces) or caricatures to
rhesus monkeys while measuring activity in face-detecting

cells in the inferior temporal cortex. Activity was
greater for the caricatures as the faces became more
distinctive.
Rhodes and Jeffrey (2006) suggested that pairs of
groups of neurons are tuned to above-average and below-
average aspects of the face (eg: hair width, inter-eye
distance) along dimensions in the face space.
The problem with this approach is the inability to

explain the exact nature of prototypes.
Feature Detection Theories

Individuals focus upon features (eg: hair, eyes) of
the face, and build up a picture of the whole face to
recognise.
EVIDENCE FOR FEATURE DETECTION THEORIES
Participants asked to describe unfamiliar faces

shown for a brief period used particular features. Hair
was mentioned most often, then eyes, nose, mouth,
eyebrows, chin and forehead (in that order) (Shepherd et
al 1981).
Bradshaw and Wallace (1971) argue that facial

features are processed independently, and in a particular
sequence. Using Identikit faces, the researchers showed
participants pairs of faces that differed by features
(either on 2,4 or 7 features), and asked them to say if
it was the same person.
The more features that were different, the quicker
were participants to answer as not familiar. With many
differences, the participants would encounter this
quicker in their comparison of the features.
EVIDENCE AGAINST FEATURE DETECTION THEORIES
Sergent (1984) showed that faces with the same

features but combined in different ways will not be
recognised. In other words, the whole of the face must be
taken into account.
This research combined in eight faces, two different
chins, two different eye colours, and two different
arrangements of space on the face (eg: eyes and nose high
or low on face). The more features that differed, the
quicker the "different" response by participants. The
difference in chin produced a quick response, while
different chins and one other feature produced the
quickest response.
Further evidence against Feature Detection Theories
comes from Tanaka and Farah (1993). Their aim was to test
the recall for specific features of the face.
Participants were asked to recognise a particular feature
(Larry's nose) when presented in different faces,
scrambled faces or in isolation.
The Feature Detection Theories predict recognition
of the feature irrelevant of the context. The results of
the research were that recognition was poorer in
isolation or in a different context to learning, and
better in the original context learnt (around 70%
accuracy). Thus face recognition is more than just
the features separately 2.
Rhodes (1988) distinguished between first order

features (eg: eyes, nose) (feature detection) and second
order features (eg: spatial relations between features)
(configuration) as both involved in face perception.
Information Processing Model

Bruce and Young (1986) argued that face recognition
can be seen as involving three stages:
i) The face is compared with a set of stored

descriptions called "face recognition units" (FRU), and
this produces a feeling of familiarity or not;
ii) The memory is activated to recall facts about

the person if familiar;
iii) The retrieval of the name.
This model of face recognition is based upon stages

that progress in a particular order (known as serial
processing). The order of the stages cannot be changed.
This model makes use of different modules in the brain -
visual recognition (ie: FRUs) and semantic memory (figure
2).
2
Police forces are now using with witnesses face reconstruction systems that computer generate whole
face images (eg: EvoFIT; Lander 2002) rather than the individual features of Photofit systems.
FACE
↓
Stage 1
VISUAL ENCODING (ie: seeing face - structurally encoding)
↓
Stage 2
MATCHING PROCESS (to Face Recognition Units - produces
feeling of familiarity)
↓
Stage 3
SEMANTIC INFORMATION (recall facts about person
- person identity nodes)
↓
Stage 4
NAME RETRIEVAL (recall memory - name generation)
Figure 2 - Information Processing Model of face

recognition.
EVIDENCE FOR INFORMATION PROCESSING MODEL
1. Face recognition error studies
This type of study focuses upon situations when face

recognition fails. These are occasions when individuals
cannot recognise a familiar face, or they recognise the
face but cannot recall information about the face (like
the person's name).
Young, Hay and Ellis (1985) asked twenty-two
volunteers (11 male, 11 female) at Lancaster University
to keep a eight-week self-reported diary (table 4) of the
times they could not recognise a famous or familiar face,
or could not remember information or the name of the
person (face recognition errors).
The participants were asked to record, as soon as
possible after it happened, details of any errors or
difficulties in recognising/identifying another person
under the following headings:
Type of incident;
Source - Information, like facial features, available

at the time of the incident;
General details - eg: person in mass media, state of

participant at the time of the incident;
Person involved - How well the person known on a scale

of 1 (unknown) to 5 (very well known);
Way incident ended - ie: able to recognise person

eventually or not;
Person details available - Information that could not

be recalled about the person.
The first week of the study was treated as training

and the 140 records collected were not analysed.
An example of diary event was this error:

I just thought the person looked familiar, as she
waved, and I thought it was at me. I waved back,
then realised I didn't know her. She was waving
at someone else (Young et al 1985 p508).
ADVANTAGES DISADVANTAGES
- Rich data about - Bias in what is recorded

experience eg: forgetting events
- Record at time overcomes - Reaction to knowing someone

memory problems will read it
- Study of areas that - Dependent on level of detail

would be difficult by provided by participants
researcher
- Useful to study - No independent way of

infrequent behaviours verify self-reports
Table 4 - Advantages and disadvantages of self-reported

diary studies.
The study produced 1008 such incidents (922

completed records), which were analysed for the type of
face recognition error.
Table 5 lists the categories of face recognition
errors found by the researchers.
The types of errors can be divided into five groups

(three were evident and two were not found) to support
the Information Processing Model:
i) A failure to recognise familiar faces because,

for example, the appearance has changed (eg: walking past
a person and not recognising them, but told about it
later). This was due to a failure at point A in figure 3.
This could include "highly familiar" faces (42% of these
errors).
ii) Recognition of the face leading to a feeling of

familiarity only (eg: couldn't remember where met
before). This can be seen as problem at point B in figure
3.

1. Person Unrecognised
2. Person Mis-Identified
a. Unfamiliar person mis-identified as familiar person
(usually viewing conditions poor)
b. One familiar person mis-identified as another
(usually celebrities)
3. Person seemed familiar only

a. Familiar person successfully identified
(eg: acquaintance seen in unfamiliar context)
b. Familiar person not identified
c. Person found to be unfamiliar (viewing conditions poor)
4. Difficulty of Retrieving Full Details of Person

a. Difficulty successfully resolved
b. Difficulty not resolved
Table 5 - Types of face recognition errors categorised by

Young et al (1985).
FACE
↓
VISUAL ENCODING
↓
A
MATCHING PROCESS
↓
B
SEMANTIC INFORMATION
↓
C
NAME RETRIEVAL
Figure 3 - Blockages or errors in the Information

Processing Model of face recognition.
iii) Recognition of the face, feeling of

familiarity, and only information about the person
recalled, not their name (eg: famous person on
television). This is a blockage at point C in figure 3.
iv) There were no cases of recognition and name

retrieval without semantic information. This supports the
model because individuals cannot go to stage 4 without
passing through stage 3 in figure 2. It is not possible
to recall the name without any information about the
person.
v) There were no cases of name recall without

feelings of familiarity or semantic information about the

person. Again this supports the model.
2. Recognition reaction time studies
This type of study measures the reaction time of

participants answering questions about famous faces.
Three types of questions are asked:
a) Do you recognise the face?

b) What information can you recall about them?
c) What is their name?
Each question will take slightly longer to answer

because of the stages involved in finding the
information. Question (a) involves stages 1 and 2 in
figure 2, question (b) stages 1, 2 and 3, and (c) all 4
stages.
Young et al (1986) found the following average
reaction times to answer the three questions: question
(a) 775 ms, (b) 931 ms, and (c) 1255 ms 3.
3. Case studies of brain-injured patients
Situations will occur where individuals have some

kind of injury (eg: accident or stroke) which leads to
minor brain damage. The abilities that the individuals
lose can help psychologists to understand how the brain
works. However, these are individual cases, and
generalisation of the findings is not possible (table 6).
Brain-injured patients are often studied through the

forced-choice test. The task is to say which one of the
pair of photographs is familiar. One photograph is a
famous face or an individual known to the participant,
and the other photograph is a complete stranger.
Evidence from Case Studies:
a) Damage to FRUs (point A on figure 3)
"PH" (De Haan et al 1987), injured in a car

accident, was able to recognise familiar names, but not
familiar faces. The inability to recognise faces is known
as prosopagnosia 4 (appendix B).
3
Interestingly, recall of names of celebrities is more accurate if the celebrities were associated with a
particular role (eg: James Bond; Roger Moore) (Bredart 1993).
4
The sufferer is unable to recognise familiar famous faces, individuals known to them, or even
themselves in photographs or in the mirror. However, other object and pattern recognition abilities are
ADVANTAGES DISADVANTAGES
- The loss of brain functions - Only unusual individual cases

show how the brain works, and and results may not be
which areas involved generalisable
- Better than deliberately - Usually no record of

damaging brain of animals, behaviour pre-injury for
in terms of ethics, comparison
applicability of animal models
to humans, and the participants - Only shows correlation
can talk about their problems between damaged area of brain
and problems
- Easier to test than with
animals
- Modern brain-scanning
techniques can pinpoint
exact area of brain damaged
Table 6 - Advantages and disadvantages of using brain-

injured patients in research.
"PH" was presented with pairs of names (one

familiar, one not) and was asked which was familiar: "PH"
achieved 118 of 128 correct. Thus there was no damage to
the semantic memory. When presented with pairs of faces,
"PH" got 51% correct (this is the same as guessing).
b) Problems with semantic information retrieval

(point B on figure 3)
"KS" (Ellis et al 1989) sustained damage to his

right temporal lobe during an operation on the brain to
deal with epilepsy. Only the long-term memory for
information about people was impaired, not the general
long-term memory for number and words.
c) Problems with name retrieval (point C on figure

3)
"EST" (Flude et al 1989) was able to recognise

familiar faces and recall semantic information about the
person, but was poor at name retrieval. "EST" was also
poor at naming objects, but had no problems with
familiar name recognition. This suggests that name
recognition is different to name retrieval for faces.
not affected. This suggests that there are different processes in recognising faces and non-faces.
Another brain condition that affects recognition is
the Capgras delusion (first noted in 1923). It involves
the sufferer believing that a familiar person is an
impostor. The sufferer can recognise the face, but it
does not "feel" like that person to them. Joseph (1986)
suggested that the cause was the failure of integration
of visual information from the right and left
hemispheres. While Cutting (1990) explained the delusion
as due to the lack of usual right hemisphere advantage
for face processing (appendix C).
PROBLEMS WITH INFORMATION PROCESSING MODEL
1. The sequences of familiar face recognition are too

rigid.
A direct challenge to the sequences comes from "ME"
(De Haan et al 1991), an amnesiac, who could match faces
and names for famous people to 90% accuracy, but would
recall no semantic information about them. In figure 2,
this is going from stage 2 to 4 and missing out 3.
2. The Information Processing Model is also challenged by

"covert recognition". This is the correct recognition of
faces without any conscious awareness of the recognition
process. Individuals with brain-injury which leads to
prosopagnosia are presented with photographs of faces.
One face is familiar and the other is not. The task is to
say which is the familiar face.
Researchers found that individuals will choose
correctly even though they claim to have no conscious
recognition. In other words, they say that they are
guessing, but they guess right nearly every time. Getting
half right would be predicted by chance.
De Haan et al (1987) showed covert recognition in

prosopagnosia with the interference effect. Individuals
learn the name of a face and occupation together. Then
they are shown the names and faces next to the wrong
occupations. It takes longer to read the name for normal
participants because there is interference from the false
occupation information. Prosopagnosia sufferers also show
interference when they should not (unless covert
recognition has occurred) as they report not conscious
recognition of face.
Some researchers have argued that there are two

routes to face recognition: primary and secondary routes.
The former route is conscious, while the latter is at an
emotional or unconscious level. Secondary processing
links to the idea of the feeling of familiarity. Normally
these two routes match (Hayden Ellis 1997).

3. Recognition of a face is linked to where the face was
encoded. In other words, a person met in one
situation/context is easier to recall in that
situation/context (eg: at school), but harder to recall
in another context (eg: in the street).
4. Face recognition can also be affected by differences

in the situation between the encoding and the recall
situations. For example, research shows that different
lighting can influence face recognition. Participants had
to match the photographs of ten men with video clips in
different lighting. There was a 79% accuracy for the
full-face, and 70% for the head with a 30 degree angle
change (Bruce et al 1999).
5. The exact function and processes of the model are too

vaguely specified (Eysenck and Flanagan 2001).
Burton et al (1990) adapted the Information

Processing Model to accept that the process is bi-
directional between the semantic information store (which
now contains the name of the individual) and the Face
Recognition Units (FRU) (figure 4). The feeling of
familiarity now takes place at the person identity nodes
(PIN); ie: the person is recognised rather than the face.
The new model is called an interactive activation
and competition model (Burton and Bruce 1993).
FACE
↓
VISUAL ENCODING
↓
MATCHING PROCESS (FRUs)

↑
↓
SEMANTIC INFORMATION/NAME GENERATION (PINs)
Figure 4 - Adapted Information Processing Model by Burton

et al (1990).
Physiological Studies and Face Recognition

In terms of physiology, the question is whether a
particular area of the brain is involved in face
perception, and this is because face perception is
different to other forms of visual perception (table 7).

Brain injured patients who have impairment to one ability (eg:
face recognition) but not another (eg: object perception).
Single cell recording in monkeys.
Newborns respond to faces and not other objects (eg: 30-minute
olds track a moving face more than patterns and shapes; Farah et
al 1998).
Face inversion effect.
Table 7 - Evidence for face perception as special

ability.
Electrical recording of brain activity with patients

undergoing brain surgery for relief of epilepsy produced
interesting findings. For example, Allison et al (1994)
found hemispheric differences in N200 waves. The right
hemisphere produced a larger response to upright faces
compared to the left hemisphere, and there were
differences between upright and inverted faces in the
right hemisphere response.
Kreiman et al (2000) implanted electrodes in the
anterior region of the right hemisphere of such patients.
Cells responded to famous faces, but not to emotional
faces of unknown actors 5.
Neuroimaging techniques have shown that a particular

area of the brain is active in face perception - the
fusiform face area (FFA) in the fusiform gyrus 6.
Kanwisher et al (1997) used functional magnetic resonance
imaging (fMRI) on fifteen participants while viewing full
or scrambled faces, full-front views of faces or houses,
and three-quarter views of faces or human hands. The FFA
was active in response to full faces.
Hasson et al (2001) presented a combined image which
showed a face to one eye and a non-face to the other eye.
The FFA was active on the side of the brain responding to
the eye shown the face.
Recently, Parr et al (2009) tested five adult

chimpanzees' ability to recognise photographs of
unfamiliar chimpanzees or non-face images while
undergoing a PET scan. Specific areas of the brain were
active during face processing and recognition that were
not active during non-face image processing and
recognition. The active areas were similar to those in
humans during face recognition tasks, and this provided
5
The idea that a small set of cells fire in response to a particular visual object is called the
"grandmother cell theory" (Barlow 1985). It tends not to be accepted now as a diffuse cortical network
is involved in object recognition (Banich 2004).
6
The inferior occipital gyrus (occipital face area; OFA) is also involved, and both areas are more
active in the right hemisphere (Schiltz et al 2006). Also activity in superior temporal sulcus (Tsao and
Livingstone 2008).
evidence for faces as a special class of visual stimulus.
Jiang et al (2006) designed a computer model based

on feature detection cells in the brain. The researchers
believed that face perception is the same as objection
perception generally, but that more cells are devoted to
it based on learning (expertise). The more cells devoted
to a familiar face means better recognition, but only if
face not inverted.
This idea is supported by physiological evidence
that the FFA is larger in adults relative to the whole
brain than in children (Golari et al 2007).
Individuals can also learn to distinguish objects to
a fine degree, which supports the idea that face and
object perception are the same process. For example,
Diamond and Carey (1986) found that judges at dog shows
could recognise individual dogs, but not if the
photograph inverted.
But physiological studies have shown that such
expertise does not occur in the FFA. Among butterfly
experts, recognition of butterflies produced activity in
an area close, but separate, to the FFA (Rhodes et al
2004). Among individuals taught to distinguish cars,
neurons were active in the lateral occipital cortex
during the recognition task (Jiang et al 2007).
It is disputed as to whether the FFA is only for
face recognition. For example, Gauthier et al (1999)
found activity in the FFA among individuals taught to
distinguish bizarre computer-generated shapes (called
"greebles").
One issue is whether face detection and

identification are carried out by the same set of "face-
selection cells" 7 or involve different cells. Tsao et al
(2003) found evidence for the latter in macaques.
Kobatake and Tanoka (1994) recorded cell activity in
the inferotemporal cortex in monkeys. The cells responded
to the face of a toy monkey, and to simplified face
shapes, but not non-face shapes (figure 5).
Other evidence for face processing as distinct to

non-face processing comes from brain-injured patients.
Moscovitch et al (1997) reported the case of "C.K" who
was severely impaired at object recognition, but
unaffected for face recognition. For example, shown as
picture of a face made up of vegetables, he saw the face
but not the vegetables. However, he does perform worse
than controls for inverted faces. "His pattern of
deficits indicated that face processing is not simply a
7
Also called gnostic units (or grandmother cells) - hypothetical cells that respond exclusively to a
single high-level stimulus (Tsao and Livingstone 2008).
(Numbers in brackets = activity in face cells in response to stimulus. Higher number =
more activity)
(After Tsao and Livingstone 2008)
Figure 5 - Examples of stimuli presented to monkeys by

Kobatake and Tanaka (1994).
final stage tacked onto the end of the non-face object

recognition pathway but rather a completely different
pathway that branches away from object recognition early
in the visual hierarchy, and it is this branching off
that we propose to equate with the detection process"
(Tsao and Livingstone 2008 p420).
Two other interesting examples come from studying

individuals with prosopagnosia. "R.M" (Sergent and
Signoret 1992), who was a car expert, could still
identify accurately information about cars after the
brain injury. 210 pictures of cars were shown and the
task was to identify the car's make, model, and year of
production (to within two years). All three pieces of
information were correct for 172 pictures. Of the
remaining 38, R.M was correct on make for thirty-one and
model for twenty-two pictures.
McNeil and Warrington (1993) reported the case of a
farmer who after prosopagnosia was able to recognise
individual faces of his flock of sheep (and better than
other farmers).
Face processing can appear special (eg: innate) when

it is not for two reasons (Medin et al 2001). Firstly,
humans have greater experience with faces (and their
importance from birth) than other objects. Secondly, face
processing often means one particular face rather than

the general category, which may mean more development in
he brain for it. For example, a desire to drink from a
cup requires perception of any cup, not necessarily a
specific one, but speaking to a close friend requires
perception of that face not just any face.
Culture and Face Recognition

Yarbus (1965) was the first to monitor eye movements
as individuals looked at faces. A systematic triangular
sequence of eye fixations on the eyes (most important)
and the mouth has been found. These findings have been
based on adults in the West.
Blais et al (2008) reported cultural differences in

the extraction of visual information from faces. Fourteen
Western Caucasian (WC) and 14 East Asian (EA) (8 Chinese,
8 Japanese) students at the University of Glasgow,
Scotland were recruited for the experiments. Pictures of
faces from both groups were presented individually, and
the participants' eye movements and fixations were
recorded by a head-mounted eye-tracker. The participants
were asked to memorise fourteen faces and then picked
them out from a choice of 28 as quickly as possible. This
was the face recognition task. In the face categorisation
task, participants were asked to categorised 112 faces as
WC or EA.
The participants were slightly better at recognising
faces of individuals from their own race in the face
recognition task, but there was no differences in the
face categorisation task. The eye fixations varied with
WC students having significantly more fixations on the
eyes (and mouth) and EA students on the nose and central
region of the face.
Blais et al (2008) proposed that this difference was
due to the fact that "direct or excessive eye contact may
be considered rude in East Asian cultures.. and this
social norm might have determined gaze avoidance in East
Asian observers" (pp5-6).
Furthermore, they concluded:
Psychologists and philosophers have long assumed

that while culture impacts on the way we think
about the world, basic perceptual mechanisms are
common among humans... We provide evidence that social
experience and cultural factors shape human eye
movements for processing faces, which contradicts the
view that face processing is universally achieved (p6).

Computer Modelling and Face Recognition
Face detection involves spotting the similarities in
faces as opposed to non-faces, while identification
focuses upon the distinctiveness of individual faces. In
computational modelling terms, a "good detector should be
poor at individual recognition and vice versa" (Tsao and
Livingstone 2008). Yet the human brain can do both.
Artificial face-detection systems designed for face
detection often use template matching, and for face
identification both feature detection and template
matching can be used. Artificial systems using template
matching can be slow, and dependent on the face being
accurately aligned. Humans can recognise faces as in
caricature.
APPENDIX A - INTERNAL AND EXTERNAL FEATURES
Face recognition ability varies between unfamiliar

and familiar faces. Unfamiliar faces are those seen once,
and their memory is fragile being easily influenced by
factors like lighting, viewing angle, and facial
expression. Familiar faces tend not to be affected by
such factors, and misidentification is very low (Frowd et
al 2007).
Ellis et al (1979) reported that familiar faces are
more accurately recognised using internal features (eyes,
brows, nose, and mouth), and unfamiliar faces by external
features (head shape, hair, and ears).
Frowd et al (2007) investigated this finding in
relation to how eye witnesses are required to produce a
memory of a face by the police.
Experiment 1
Thirty staff and students at the University of

Stirling, Scotland were asked to view ten facial
photographs of celebrities (six actors/four pop singers),
and then had to match the faces with forty composites.
The target photographs were always present as this
experiment was testing the perceived accuracy of the
composites and not memory.
The composites were constructed in three different
ways and participants were randomly allocated to one set.
i) Complete composites constructed using techniques

common to police work. For example, E-Fit (a computerised
version of Photo-FIT) where individual features of the
faces (eg: different eyebrows) are combined on a
template.

ii) Internal composites highlighting the internal
features (ie: external features like hair removed).
iii) External composites containing no internal features.
The whole and external composites were matched

better than the internal composites (mean accuracy of
33%, 32.8% and 19.5% respectively).
Experiment 2
Forty-eight undergraduates from the same university

were asked to match celebrity faces to composites of
external or internal features, but distractor faces were
added (ie: celebrities not in the target photographs).
The distractor faces were either similar to targets (hard
condition) or dis-similar (easy condition). The aim was
to replicate the police line-up.
Matching based on external features was more
accurate, and in the easy condition (ie: when distractor
faces dis-similar to targets) (figure 6).
50
40
30
20
10
0
Easy Hard
External Internal
Figure 6 - Mean accuracy (%) in matching target faces and

composites.
Experiment 3
This experiment varied the familiarity of the target

faces by using photographs of staff at the university
from the Computer Science and Psychology departments.
Participants of a wide age range were recruited from
within and outside the University of Stirling. The
composites were as in experiment 1. Complete and external
composites were matched more accurately. Individuals
familiar with the faces did not use internal features.

The researchers felt that the construction of
composites as used by the police emphasised external
features at the expense of internal ones.
APPENDIX B - PROSOPAGNOSIA
Schiltz et al (2006) presented the case of "P.S" who

had acquired prosopagnosia after damage to the right
hemisphere (inferior occipital cortex). She was 42 years
old at the time of a closed head injury in 1992.
Her performance on certain tasks was compared to
seven age-matched women. The tasks involved the reaction
time to answer and accuracy in recognising pictures of
either faces, cars, chairs, boats, or birds. P.S's scores
were similar to the controls for identification of items
in the between-category condition. This is where a
photograph of a car, for example, just shown for 1000ms
is presented with a photograph of a bird (not seen
before). In the within-category condition, P.S took
longer and made more errors with faces than controls.
This condition involved the pairing of a face (or nay
category) just seen with another from the same category
(table 8). So P.S was able to detect a face, but not
identify it.
CONDITION PROCEDURE ABILITY TESTED P.S

Between- Shown category A Face detection Comparable to
category picture (eg: face), controls
then A paired with
category B picture
(eg: bird)
Within- Shown category A Face Significantly
category picture 1 (eg: face identification/ slower reaction
1), then A1 paired recognition time (mean
with another A (eg; 794ms);
face 2) significantly
more errors
(17% vs 4%)
Table 8 - Tasks used with P.S.
Interestingly, individuals with prosopagnosia can do

better than healthy controls at recognising inverted
faces (Farah et al 1995). This can be explained as
individuals with prosopagnosia using the non-face
processing system to recognise faces (because of damage
to the face processing system), and the face processing
system is poor at recognising upside down faces in
healthy controls as it was not "designed" for that (Tsao
and Livingstone 2008).

APPENDIX C - CAPGRAS DELUSION
Ellis et al (1993) tested the two explanations for

Capgras delusion - no integration of visual information
from both hemispheres (Joseph 1986), and no usual right
hemisphere advantage in face processing (Cutting 1990).
Participants were asked to fixate on a small cross
in the centre of the computer screen and two images were
presented for 200 ms. The images varied in presentation
(ie: both in one eye or in separate eyes) to avoid
anticipation. The task was to say if the two images
(either line drawings of common objects or adult male
faces) were the same or different. Reaction times and
errors made were recorded.
The participants were three Greek males with a
history of the Capgras delusion (table 9) and three sex,
age and socio-economic matched sufferers of paranoid
schizophrenia.
For the line drawings of objects, there was no
significant differences between the two groups of
participants in reaction time or number of errors. With
the faces, the schizophrenics showed a right hemisphere
advantage (ie: significantly quicker for faces presented
in the left visual field compared to the right 8), while
the Capgras delusion sufferers showed a left hemisphere
advantage.
The findings suggested that the Capgras delusion is
related to problems in the face processing centres of the
right hemisphere, and provided some support for Cutting
(1990).
Participant 1 - Believed father impostor and that sister was

someone else who looked her.
Participant 2 - Believed mother not his real parent but "hostile

substitute", and that father had been replaced.
Participant 3 - Believed mother substituted by "a hostile person".
(After Ellis et al 1993)
Table 9 - Details of Capgras delusions.
APPENDIX D - RECOGNISING A FACE
Here is a photograph of the actress, Heather

Langenkamp (figure 7) which has been changed in ways used
in face recognition experiments:
8
Information from the left visual field goes to the right hemisphere and vice versa.
Eyes only (figure 8)
Face with no eyes (figure 9)
Scrambled face (figure 10)
Distorted face (figure 11)
Caricature (figure 12)
(Source: Photograph in public domain from http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Main_Page)
Figure 7 - Face of Heather Langenkamp.
(Source: Photograph in public domain from http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Main_Page;

my adaptation using image editor at http://www.pixlr.com/editor)
Figure 8 - Eyes only of Heather Langenkamp.

Figure 9 - Face of Heather Langenkamp with no eyes.

Figure 10 - Scrambled face of Heather Langenkamp.

Figure 11 - Distorted face of Heather Langekamp.

Figure 12 - Caricature face of Heather Langenkamp.

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THE PSYCHOLOGY OF

Orsett Psychological Services,

Kevin Brewer 2010

All rights reserved. Apart from any use for the

CONFIGURAL PROCESSING OF FACE 4

FEATURE DETECTION THEORIES 10

INFORMATION PROCESSING MODEL 11

PHYSIOLOGICAL STUDIES AND FACE RECOGNITION 18

CULTURE AND FACE RECOGNITION 22

COMPUTER MODELLING AND FACE RECOGNITION 23

APPENDIX A - INTERNAL AND EXTERNAL FEATURES 23

APPENDIX C - CAPGRAS DELUSION 26

APPENDIX D - RECOGNISING A FACE 26

The Psychology of Face Recognition: A Brief Introduction (2nd edition)

Face recognition is the situation of using the face

Bruce and Young (1986) proposed that seven types of

Pictorial - Basic visual information about the face;

Structural - Information about the face's structure;

Visually derived semantic - Judgments beyond visual

Identity-specific semantic - Information about familiar

Name - Where this is known as there as acquaintances

Expression - Information related to meaning of facial

Facial speech - Whether the individual is speaking or

The Psychology of Face Recognition: A Brief Introduction (2nd edition)

These last two types of information are not

There are three main theoretical approaches to

i) Configural processing of faces

Configural Processing of Faces

EVIDENCE FOR CONFIGURAL PROCESSING OF FACES

1. Recognition of upside-down faces

Farah et al (1998) observed that "whereas most

Also when a "grotesque" face is presented, the

(Source: Anynobody; in public domain)

Figure 1 - The "Thatcher illusion".

Yin (1970) argued that the inverted face is also

But Leder and Bruce (1998) altered the spacing

The Psychology of Face Recognition: A Brief Introduction (2nd edition)

Young et al (1987) combined the top and bottom

Tanaka and Farah (1993) found that individuals were

Tanaka and Sengco (1997) taught participants to

The Psychology of Face Recognition: A Brief Introduction (2nd edition)

CONDITION FACIAL FEATURES DIFFERENCES IN HOUSE FEATURES

Table 1 - Percentage correct recognition of features in

Farah et al (1998) used the same-different matching

FACES A & B FACES A & B

Relevant feature: Nose = same Nose = same

Condition: Compatible Incompatible

Table 2 - Examples of design in Farah et al (1998).

If feature detection is used, participants should be

The Psychology of Face Recognition: A Brief Introduction (2nd edition)

(After Farah et al 1998)

Table 3 - Percentage correct relevant feature matching in

PROBLEMS WITH CONFIGURAL PROCESSING OF FACES

i) Some facial features are more important than

Sadr et al (2003) showed that the eyebrows were the

ii) Most of the research is based around recognition

APPLYING THE THEORIES OF PATTERN RECOGNITION TO FACE

The configural processing of faces is similar to how

Template Matching Hypothesis

One possibility is that individuals store a fixed

The Psychology of Face Recognition: A Brief Introduction (2nd edition)

It is difficult to There would need to be a

Prototypes are not individual faces, but a summary

Valentine and Bruce (1986) have shown these