Cognitive Exam Face Recognition Essay

Brittany Burnett Cognitive Psych 310 Research Paper 4/30/15 Prosopagnosia: Facial Blindness Introduction Insight on prosopagnosia Imagine lacking the ability to recognize the familiar face of a loved one or spouse. Or having to rely on voices, clothing, and certain attributes of that individual in order to have some kind of knowledge on who they actually are. This condition is defined as Prosopagnosia; known as face blindness or facial agnostic. According to Barton (2008), it was first described as a consequence of cerebral damage by Quaking and Bordello in 1867. This term comes from the Greek word “face” and “lack of knowledge.” Stated by the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (2007), Prosopagnosia is anticipated to be the result of damages, abnormalities, or destruction in the right fusiform gyrus; part of the brain that controls the perception of faces and the functionality of memory in the neural system. This deficit can be present from birth, the result of a stroke, a traumatic brain injury, or neurodegenerative diseases. In order to help an individual with Prosopagnosia, it is essential to develop compensatory or redeeming strategies, as well as the use of clues or attributes to help them better identify individuals.

The face recognition model developed by Bruce and Young has eight key parts and it suggests how we process familiar and unfamiliar faces, including facial expressions. The diagram below shows how these parts are interconnected. Structural encoding is where facial features and expressions are encoded. This information is translated at

This double dissociation therefore suggests that recognition of faces and common objects is served by different mechanisms that are independent for each other. Although brain cells of face recognition have not been located, some functional models could help us interpret face recognition and prosopagnosia. One of the most influential models was proposed by Bruce and Young (1986). In this model face recognition involves several steps, and three steps more relate to prosopagnosia.

In adults, three variables were used to test the other-race effect on facial recognition: orientation, face type and ethnicity. Adults at least 18 years of age and older (N = 64) were asked to recognize upright and inverted adult and infant faces. Recognition was tested using a forced-choice procedure. 4 slides were shown during a trial to make sure participants understood the instructions. Next, participants viewed 48 slides with faces alternating between adult female and infant faces; first segment each face was upright, second segment faces were inverted. The results of the study found that there was no significance between race and facial recognition. Other research conducted has shown that race does in fact have a significant effect on facial recognition.

PSYC 4210 Assignment 4 Prosopagnosia There are several different types of psychological and neurological phenomena that individuals live with every day. One of most interesting conditions that many individuals might not be aware of is prosopagnosia or face blindness. Prosopagnosia is the inability to recognize and distinguish faces. For example, individuals with this condition could have difficulty recognizing their child’s, spouse’s, parent’s, or friend’s face. Many individuals with prosopagnosia will rely on other features to distinguish between other people, such as hair style or color, voices, or posture. As discussed in Chapter 3, prosopagnosia is thought to affect the Fusiform Face Area.

Experimental Condition 2 Participants were shown each of the cards (a) to (d) in set 2, in order, for three seconds each. Participants were then asked to write down what they saw in each of the pictures, but their responses are not recorded by the experimenter. The purpose of this was to develop a perceptual set for faces based on the participant’s immediate past experience with the four pictures of faces.

Are faces special? Critically evaluate the evidence that we have evolved a specialised neural network dedicated to processing faces. Brian Marron, 11461992, SF TSM.

In this essay descriptions as well as identifications of research evidence for both Bruce and Young’s 1986 cognitive model of face recognition and Burton, Bruce and Johnston’s 1990 cognitive model of face recognition; which are then applied to two separate case studies and an explanation of which better suits each shall be given. For the purposes of this essay, Bruce and Young’s 1986 model shall be theory 1, and Burton, Bruce and Johnston’s 1990 model, shall be theory 2.

Significant Role of Hippocampus Hippocampus is a small, curved region, which exists in both hemispheres of the brain and plays a vital role in emotions, learning and acquisition of new information. It also contributes majorly to long term memory, which is permanent information stored in the brain. Although long term memory

Haxby’s model suggests that the OFA projects information to both the FFA and the pSTS-FA. However, recent studies that explored the connections between the face-selective areas, found that the pSTS-FA is only weakly connected to the FFA and OFA, while the FFA and OFA are highly connected to one another

The hypothesis of the researchers used the abstract would distract participants from the face memory to enhance out group heterogeneity bias. The experiment included grayscale images of forward facing males. The images looked black and white photograph. The image was five inches tall and three point five inches wide. Four images were white men with neutral facial expression. African American men with neutral expression and four image with an angry expression .The participants watched the images which was presented one at a time. The order of the images were random. If the images were in the same order it would make it more memorable. Making the order of faces random prevented order effects from systematic errors could influence the results of the study one group viewed the image for half a second. While the second group viewed the image for one second. The third group viewed the image for four seconds. The researchers gave each group a different amount of time to view the image to vary the cognitive load. Next the participants watched a film of landscapes for five minutes. The film was used as distractions for the faces that was just seen. The distractor prevented the participants from

Predominantly all fMRI studies show reduced activity in amygdala area, area associated with emotional processing, including FER (Ashwin, Baron-Cohen, Wheelwright, O’Riordan & Bullmore, 2007; Pelphrey, Morris, McCarthy & LaBar, 2007) and neutral face processing (Hadjikhani, Joseph, Snyder & Tager-Flusberg, 2007). Reviewed Corbett et al. 2009 findings are consistent with the majority, while Dalton et al. 2005, same as Monk et al., 2010 did found higher activation in amygdala (see table 3). Interestingly, Monk et al. 2010, to insure participants attended to faces, did use an attention-cueing paradigm (Monk et al., 2010). Overall, evidence suggests that there is decreased automatic activation of amygdala when emotional faces are processed, although there is a possibility of this be due to diminished attention to faces (Harms, Martin & Wallace, 2010).

Even compensatory strategies, such as recognising an individual by their hairstyle or gait, may be rendered ineffective, if a known individual appears in a new context or has changed some aspect of their appearance. Despite prosopagnosia being of an obvious disadvantage to the sufferer, it does allow for the investigation of components involved in normal face processing. By comparing the retained perceptual functions in a prosopagnosiac to those of an individual with ordinary face processing, it can be theorised which mechanisms work independently within face processing. Therefore, this essay will comment on three key distinctions which have been made about normal face processing, based on the research into prosopagnosia: the distinction between the systems involved in face and object processing; the distinction between the emotional response and conscious response of recognising faces; the distinction between the areas involved in recognising facial identity and facial

I agree with Stahl’s point of view that this disorder is very difficult to live with and also as difficult who are not born with it and have to adapt.In my view people with this disorder should be helped to learn methods such as Close’s, so it could help them to recognize familiar faces especially their family members. Some might object to the need to take time out to teach people with this disorder, of course, on the grounds that people with prosopagnosia have very poor memory on recognition of faces. Yet I would argue that numerous other well-known people with this disorder whether it be Chuck Close or Oliver Sacks have discovered their own method of learning to remember faces. Overall, I believe that each individual with this disorder could

Individuals who suffer from developmental prosopagnosia have had impairments of face recognition since birth; nonetheless they have no sign of any neurological damage in their brain (Bate, Haslam, Jansari, & Hodgson, 2009, p. 392). Schmalzl, Palermo, Harris, & Coltheart (2009), stated that “the perception and recognition of faces is one of the most important function of our visual system, and given its importances face processing has become one of the more prominent areas of reseach in cognitive neuroscience” (p. 287). Sensory basis for prosopagnosia are important to be looked at, because it tells you what areas of the brain are associated.