The Neuroscience of Facial Recognition
When we look at a face, it is not just a special object amongst objects. The face is uniquely perceived and interpreted. The brain has even evolved a dedicated area in the neural landscape, the fusiform face area or FFA (Kanwisher et al, 1997), to specialise in facial recognition. This is part of a complex visual system that can determine a surprising number of things about another person. The information that is found in a face, before a word is uttered or an action taken, lays the foundation for any ensuing interaction. From the safety of distance we are able to determine gender, mood, similarities and differences to the usual, focus of attention (direction of gaze), general state of health and, to some extent, interpersonal intentions (Steeves et al., 2006). All of this just from a f... »
