Face Processing

Question 1

What are four reasons why we study faces?

Answer 1

1. available and rich source of information
2. developmental disabilities
3. insight into agents that drive social behavior
4. important to humans

Question 2

What happened with the woman who had visual prosopagnosia in the video shown in class?

Answer 2

she was unable to recognize faces after her brain injury

Question 3

Tottenham et al.’s study showed that:
Humans have a better perception for (faces/houses) than (faces/houses).

Answer 3

faces; houses

Question 4

True or False:
Face processing isn’t important to the human experience.

Answer 4

False
Humans learn a lot of information about others from their face.

Question 5

What is the Fusiform Face Area (FFA)?

Answer 5

an area in the brain (the ventral occipitotemporal cortex) that is thought to light up when humans see faces

Question 6

What is the Parahippocampal Place Area?

Answer 6

an area in the brain (the parahippocampal gyrus) that is thought to light up when humans see houses

Question 7

What is the modular view on the organization of the brain?

Answer 7

The brain is mapped in a way where every stimulus (faces, specific objects, etc.) has its own area in the brain

Question 8

The modular view on brain organization supports a ____ theory.

Answer 8

nativist

Question 9

What did Bowlby’s study suggest about why infants prefer to look at faces?

Answer 9

infants show a visual preference for faces vs. non-faces because it wants to recognize their caregiver

Question 10

True or False:
Infants prefer faces over non-faces.

Answer 10

False
Infants do not necessarily prefer face-like stimuli because of “facedness,” but because of higher spatial frequency in the arrangement of perceptual elements in visual stimuli within face-like images

Question 11

True or False:
The preference for face-like stimuli increases linearly from birth.

Answer 11

False
Declines from 1-4 months of age
Rebounds from 3-5 months of age

Question 12

What experiment explained why the preference for face-like stimuli rebounded at around 3-5 months?

Answer 12

Sticky Mittens experiment

Question 13

What did the Sticky Mittens experiment show about infants’ preference to face-like stimuli?

Answer 13

• by 5 months, children are able to recognize that they are able to do something by themselves and now realize that others are also self-directed agents
• look back at their caregiver and realize that they, too, are also self-directed
• realization of the human experience

Question 14

The outcomes of the Sticky Mittens experiment shows support for the ____ theory of development.

Answer 14

dynamic systems

Question 15

How do the concepts of acquired distinctiveness and acquired similarity apply to face processing?

Answer 15

• face processing is an experience expectant process of recognizing all faces
• this eventually narrows down to only being able to differentiate human faces

Question 16

____-month old infants are able to differentiate between primate faces, but they lose this ability at ____-months old.

Answer 16

6; 9

Question 17

What did the other-species effect between adults, 9 month olds, and 6 month olds show?

Answer 17

• adults and 9 month olds looked longer at novel human faces, but looked equally long at monkey novel and familiar faces
• 6 month olds showed novelty preferences in both the human and monkey conditions

Question 18

What does the own-race bias show?

Answer 18

people are better able to differentiate faces of their own race than of other races

Question 19

What did the FFA experiment with cars and birds show?

Answer 19

• car experts’ FFA lit up when shown cars, but not birds
• bird experts’ FFA lit up when shown birds, but not cars
• both groups’ FFA lit up when shown faces

Question 20

Why did both groups’ FFA light up when shown faces?

Answer 20

all humans are face experts

Question 21

True or False:
The FFA is only active when processing faces.

Answer 21

False
It is active for anything you’re an expert at

Question 22

What did the Greeble experiment show?

Answer 22

• subjects randomly assigned to become an expert of Greebles
• FFA lit up once they become an expert of Greebles, compared to those who had never seen Greebles before

Question 23

Face processing skills (increase/decrease) with age and experience.

Answer 23

increase