Module 3 Face Processing and Face Recognition Problems

Prosopagnosia - define

inability to recognise familiar faces

can know they are looking at a face, but can't recognise who it is. and inability to learn new faces

prosopagnosia- Bodamer (1947)

coined the term- & potentially the 1st report of distinct face recognition impairment

prosopagnosia- Charcot (1883) and Wilbrand (1882)

reported pts with face recognition problems , but pts also had widespread perceptual problems and memory difficulties

what do people with prosopagnosia use to help them recognise people

other cues like gait, clothing, voice and context

prosopagnosia- brain damage

no clear location of brain damage that leads to it. occurs after different types of damage (bilateral hemis lesions and unilateral hemis lesions)

what might prosopagnosia be related to

might be related to impairments in holistic face processing

its hard to study- it oft co-occurs with other deficits

what other deficitis might prosopagnosia co-occur with

visual object agnosia, or cerebral achromatopsia

cognitive evidence for a specialist face processing module (system): Visual illusions with faces

face inversion effect

thompson or thatcher illusion

composite face effect

face inversion effect (Yin, 1969)

recognition more difficult for inverted comp to upright face.

evidence for face inversion

upright faces = holistic analysis

inverted faces = analysis by parts (cannot use face systems)

Thatcher Illusion (Thompson 1980)

An upside down face of Margaret Thatcher with inverted eyes and mouth appears normal, but when this face is then turned the right way up it appears grotesque.

Composite Face Effect (Young, Hellawell & Hay, 1987)

subjects found it more difficult to name the target half of a familiar face when it was paired with a distractor half taken from a different face

pt cognitive evidence for specialist face processing system (Farah 1990)

acquired alexia, reading problems, visual confusions between words, left hemisphere lesion, temporal lobe, specific visual agnosia, deficit, impairment in object recog

difference in processing object and face recognition

object- decompose stim into parts

face- overall configuration (holistic)

evidence to dissociate prosopagnosia from other forms of agnosia (eg. object)- sheep farmer (sheep farmer suffered multiple strokes)

pick famous faces from choices- couldn't do faces but could tell difference between his sheep

evidence to dissociate prosopagnosia from other forms of agnosia (eg. object)- Patient LH (prosopagnosia after diffuse brain damage from an accident)

2 recognition tests (face stim & eye glasses)

healthy ptp cog evidence for specialist face processing system (Takana & Farah 1993)

comp recognising a part of a face comp to recognising a part of an object - evidence for specialist face proc and holistic proc over parts

neural evidence for specialist face processing system

often co-occurrance of object and face recognition impairments. associated with multiple lesions. bilateral lesions- multi strokes, head trauma, encephalitis, poisoning

neural evidence for specialist face processing system -- single cell recordings in primates

superior temporal sulcus cells in monkeys - sulci and gyri of temporal lobe

found cells that selectively respond but cannot conclude it is purely for face processing

neural evidence for specialist face proc system in humans

fusiform face area

evidence for a genetic basis for prosopagnosia in normal infants

recognise difference between face-like patterns & patterns with same features (but is random after birth)

newborns distinguish between mother and other women at 2 days

babies @2mths recognise familiar faces

evidence for a genetic basis for prosopagnosia: developmental prosopagnosia

includes indivs with congenital prosopagnosia and indivs who have sustained brain damage either before birth or in early childhood

evidence for a genetic basis for prosopagnosia: congential (developmental) prosopagnosia

impairment in face processing that is present from birth, in absence of brain damage.

normal intellect and sensory

what might developmental (congenital) prosopagnosia be caused by

might be caused by generalised deficit in configural processing

evidence of it running in families

the rapid development of facial recognition in babies suggests

suggests that this skill might be modular

Bruce and Young model of face recognition 1986

hierarchical and parallel model of face recognition

uses stages of proc

allows understanding of types of diff info used when proc/recognising faces

Structural Encoding stage- Bruce and Young model of face recognition

form face percept via parallel extraction of diff types of feature based info from faces

viewer centred description & expression independent descriptions

Structural Encoding stage- viewer centred description

Bruce and Young model of face recognition

viewpoint specific face representation of the face

Structural Encoding stage- viewer centred description: what does this entail

Bruce and Young model of face recognition

provides info relevant to recognition of facial expression, understanding speech, processing similarities/diffs between unfamiliar people by strategic attending to visual appearance of face

Structural Encoding stage- expression independent descriptions

Bruce and Young model of face recognition

encode diff viewpoints of face, inc configural layout of face and specific features

expression analysis

Bruce and Young model of face recognition

determine facial expression indep of face

facial speech analysis

Bruce and Young model of face recognition

info from lip and tongue movements of speaker

directed visual processing

Bruce and Young model of face recognition

attention to face characteristics, learning new faces

Face Recognition Units (FRU)

Bruce and Young model of face recognition

input expression indep descriptions

contains stored structural (visual) descrip of familiar faces

1 FRU per face

FRU activates when

when there is a strong match between the face encoded and a stored structural description

also via semantic info in person identity nodes

FRU responds to

a known face, any given angel but not to other person specific info (eg. voice)

person identity nodes (PIN)

Bruce and Young model of face recognition

post FCU activation, then semantic (bibliographic) info about person is activated (eg job, characteristics etc)

name generation stage

Bruce and Young model of face recognition

activation of the PIN and subsequently semantic info allows you to be able to name the face

cognitive system

Bruce and Young model of face recognition

all other proc that may be involved in or relevant for face recognition

episodic memories, attention and decisional proc's

prosopagnosia types: re. Bruce and Young model of face recognition

2 distinct groups: impaired ability to perceive faces & impaired face recognition

prosopagnosia types: impaired ability to perceive faces

re. Bruce and Young model of face recognition

defect affects structural encoding- model

prosopagnosia types: impaired face recognition

re. Bruce and Young model of face recognition

intact perceptual abilities but cant recognise or proc faces enough. problem with FCU

prosopagnosia: Patient PG (Young et al., 1988) (problem with perceptual proc)

re. Bruce and Young model of face recognition

damage to R side of brain. problem with perceptual proc of faces, cannot diff a face from scrambled image of face

inability to perceive faces, problem during structural encoding

prosopagnosia: Patient PH (De Haan 1987) (problem with face recognition)

re. Bruce and Young model of face recognition

occipitotemporal lesions

could distinguish between non/faces but was at change when rating the familiarity.

count access semantic info from face

can perceive face, but not recognise

prosopagnosia: Patient ME (De Haan 1991) (problem with PIN)

re. Bruce and Young model of face recognition

could distinguish between non/faces.

could rate the familiarity of faces

could match photos from diff viewpoints

couldnt recall semantic info from face

can perceive but not recognise face

prosopagnosia: Flude et al., 1988- Problem with name generation

re. Bruce and Young model of face recognition

EST- removal of left temporal lobe

had anomia

could proc face, rate familiarity, recall semantic info

could not name the face

Burton, Bruce & Johnston (1990) Face Recognition Model

an interactive activation and competition network with 3 primary pools which are each connected to eachother with an inhibitory link

excitatory links connect some related units

3 primary pools- what are they

Burton, Bruce & Johnston (1990) Face Recognition Model

units of face recognition units (FRUs)

person identity nodes (PINs)

semantic information units

Burton, Bruce & Johnston (1990) Face Recognition Model is an implementation of?

implementation of the Bruce and Youngs functional account of face recognition

what do FCUs represent

Burton, Bruce & Johnston (1990) Face Recognition Model

represent view-indep units that become active after presentation of any recognisable view of a familiar face

FCU activation

Burton, Bruce & Johnston (1990) Face Recognition Model

activation is passed by the appropriate excitatory link to the PIN

PIN activation is linked with?

Burton, Bruce & Johnston (1990) Face Recognition Model

linked with semantic info (associated knowledge about a person- eg. movies done by an actor)

Haxby et al., 2000 Model Face Recognition

cognitive model of face perception which overlaps the Bruce and Young- but explores core and extended neural systems

core system

Haxby et al., 2000 Model Face Recognition

VISUAL ANALYSIS

inferior occipital gyri

superior temporal sulcus

lateral fusiform gyrus

extended system

Haxby et al., 2000 Model Face Recognition

FURTHER PROC W/ OTHER NEURAL SYSTEMS

intraparietal sulcus

auditory cortex

amygdala, insula, limbic system

anterior temporal

Covert face recognition physiological evidence - Patient LF (Bauer 1984)-

tas k to select the correct name from 5 alternative to match a photo of a farmiliar face

patient LF performed at chanced to identify the faces

skin conductance responses (SCRs) were greater and more frequent to the correct name compared to distractors

Covert face recognition physiological evidence- Tranel & Damasio 1985 showed pt slides of faces produced?

increased SCRs to familiar faces compared to unfamiliar faces

Covert face recognition physiological evidence- renualt et al., 1989 (ERPs, P300)

ERP P300 amp increased for familiar faces presented in an odd-ball paradigm

Covert face recognition physiological evidence- Rizzo et al., 1987 eye movement data

eye movement data of prosopagnosic similar to controls for familiar faces

Covert face recognition behavioural evidence- De Haan et al., 1987 Patient PH- evidence of covert face recognition on face match, interference paradigm, associative priming tasks

Patient PH cannot recognise familiar faces- performs at chance on forced choice test requiring to choose the familiar face of 2 items

Covert face recognition physiological evidence- De Haan et al., 1987 Patient PH- face matching tasks

showed the effect of faster match for familiar comp to unfamiliar face

Covert face recognition physiological evidence- De Haan et al., 1987 Patient PH- interference experiment/task

showed effect that took longer if name in unrelated to face

Covert face recognition physiological evidence- De Haan et al., 1987 Patient PH- associative priming exp/task

showed effect that faster response when the prime is associated with a target comp to when there is no association between prime and target or if prime is of unfamiliar person

anomia- peoples names: patient GBL (McKenna & Warrington 1980)

pt anomic only for names

could only name 3/20 famous people

but could accurately say who they were 18/20

correctly could name european and english towns

face anosognosia (Young, De Haan, Newcombe 1990)- woman suffered sever R hemis stroke

poor at recognising faces, but unaware and lack acceptance of it, but she recognised her other cog impairments - maybe explained by the auto of face recog

metamorphopsia - perceptual distortion (Bodamer 1947)- 2 pts saw distorted faces

1 pt describes faces as having turned noses, uneven brows, askew mouth, hair shifted

3rd pt metamorphic but could recog faces a bit

face processing patient JS (Heutink et al., 2012)- had a stroke, reported problems in recognising family members visiting her in the hospital

Couldn't recognise daughter she sees regularly but could recognise the one she hadn't seen in years & wouldn't let grandkids sit on her lap because they looked repulsive

face processing patient JS (Heutink et al., 2012)- what did she have trouble with

had a stroke, reported problems in recognising family members visiting her in the hospital

impaired perception of facial expression, impair on benton facial recognition test

reported images of family members had distorted facial proportions but she could not tell which way

SCR arousal was higher for families

face processing patient JS (Heutink et al., 2012)- what did she have (diagnosis)

had a stroke, reported problems in recognising family members visiting her in the hospital

maybe mild metamorphopsia (prosometamorphopsia)- could be due to poor integration between identity and emotion related processing of faces

super-recognisers of faces (Russel, Duchaine & Nakayama 2009): what tests did they use

tested abilities of 4 ptps who never forget a face

before they were famous test

cambridge face memory test

cambridge face perception test

super-recognisers of faces (Russel, Duchaine & Nakayama 2009): what did this provide evidence for

tested abilities of 4 ptps who never forget a face

evidence for a continuum of face recognition skills

super-recognisers of faces (Russel, Duchaine & Nakayama 2009): how did super-recognisers perform

tested abilities of 4 ptps who never forget a face

had better face perception than control and were at the opposuite end of performance comp to prosopagnosics for upright faces

outperformed controls on before famous task