Essay on To what extent is experience necessary for face processing?

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 this particular case study, an eight year old child named Al, was diagnosed with Prosopagnosia. The analysis cultivated that Al was unable to achieve perceptions of faces for both

In both articles, infants’ gazes are crucial to the experiments conducted. Whether reacting to disappearing objects in Baillargeon's article or identifying with someone of the same skin color as said in Spelke and Kinzler’s article.

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.

In this experiment children between the ages of six and twenty-four months, are placed in front of a mirror with a red dot on their face. The reason a red dot was placed on their face was to see whether the child could recognize themselves in the mirror. Children that were younger than fifteen months never touched the red dot, but children from the ages of eighteen to twenty-four months did touch the dot on their face (Papalia & Martorell, 2015). The reason these children were able to touch the dot on their face is because they were self-aware. After further experiments, psychologist found that children by the ages of twenty to twenty-four months were able to use self pronouns and children by the age of nineteen to thirty months were able to describe themselves in descriptive terms (Papalia & Martorell, 2015). From the Rogue Test it is shown that self-awareness is formed between fifteen and eighteen months and self-awareness is is shown through the acknowledgment of self-understanding or the knowing an object is your’s or someone else’s (Papalia & Martorell,

Part III tested one of these alternative accounts for faces compared with another human object e.g hands. In these tests the data that was collected displayed higher intensity reactions in the ROI when parts of the face were compared to viewing human

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.

Prosopagnosia is a condition where a person cannot recognise familiar faces, but only the features, not the whole face. The condition contradicts the model as it suggests that the process are most likely not separate. As most patients had severe problems with facial expression as well as facial identity, this suggests they are processed separately. The model can also be seen as reductionist, as it only gives a vague description of what the cognitive system does. However, there is research that does support the concept that there are two are separate paths for processing face recognition and facial expression. One being Humphreys, Avidan, and Behrmann (2007) who studied three participants with developmental prosopagnosia. All three had poor ability to recognise faces, but their ability to recognise facial expressions was similar to that of healthy

This implies that bilateral and unilateral hippocampus does not contribute majorly to familiarity and recollection of unknown human’s faces.

This stage lasts from birth to twelve months. In this stage, infants gain knowledge about their surrounding by using their senses. (Clarke-Stewart, Gruber, & Fitzgerald, 2007, p. 154). They recognize the faces of their caregivers and may respond to smiles. At these stage infants are generally attracted to bright colors, and show response to sound by turning towards the direction of the sound. Studies have indicated that infants between the ages of three and seven weeks have the ability to recognize shapes and pictures of human faces (Goswami, 1994, p. 376).

Overly, the model provides coherent explanation of many kind of information about faces and how they relate to each other. It provides evidence about significant differences in processing of familiar and unfamiliar faces. Nonetheless there are limitations. For instance, there is not enough information about processing unfamiliar faces. Burton et al. (1999)

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.

Although infant perception differs in terms of acuity, infant perception on size and shape constancy requires less development. Adults understand that objects have a constant shape and size, regardless of their distance, and the angle of perception. The developmental question lies on whether size and shape principles guide infant perception, or whether constancies are developed through experience. This argument is one of many in exploring whether infants learn through cognitive adaptations, or whether they learn through experience and what the environment offers them. Previous assumptions by Piaget, state that these principles were not present at birth, but developed towards the end of the first year. This

Agnosia is defined as the inability to recognize objects through the processing of sensory information, which means there is no deficit in semantic memory or problems with naming objects. An individual suffering from agnosia still possesses all the relevant semantic information tied to a precept, but they cannot recognize the precept when it is presented to them and therefore trigger the recall of said information. There are many types of agnosia, but this essay will focus on visual object agnosia and prosopagnosia. The former is the inability to recognise objects: patients suffering from visual object agnosia do not have impaired vision, and in some cases can even copy the object they are seeing (patient H.J.A., Humphreys & Riddoch, 1987) or draw it from memory (patient D.F., Milner & Goodale, 1992), but are unable to recognize it when they see it. In the latter, prosopagnosia, patients cannot recognise faces of familiar individuals, and have to rely on other characteristics such as their voice or clothing to recognize them. Patients suffering from prosopagnosia can either acquire it through a lesion in relevant brain areas (acquired prosopagnosia) or for less understood reasons have it from birth, in which case it is termed developmental prosopagnosia. The study of patients with agnosia is integral to the field of visual recognition, as the specifics of their deficits can provide great insight into the ways our brain processes information; for example, the location of

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.