Activity 4.1: Facial Perception

In undergrad, I was lucky enough to conduct an independent research project as part of a class. My professor was really interested in perception and encouraged us to complete our experiment in this vein. My experiment was designed around my hypotheses of facial perception based on sex and expression. It was my thought that humans would be quicker to point out a face on a facial grid if it was displaying a threatening facial expression (in this case an angry face). I further hypothesized that individuals would also be faster based on the sex of the person making the facial expression, with males being recognized faster than females. I based these hypotheses on both evolutionary factors and societal upbringing; it would make sense that we are able to pick out threatening faces quicker for our own safety. Further, based on our upbringing people typically are taught to fear males more than females.

The very old poster from my undergraduate experiment.

Here are the videos for my source of information:



This is a BBC Documentary called The Human Face. John Cleese is the host if anyone loves Monty Python (I do!). These are just 2 of the episodes (there are another 2 online). As these episodes are both long instead of watching them I'll just summarize some of the most interesting and relevant points. The videos elucidate several interesting factoids relating to facial perception. One that really stood out for me was the story of a man with Asperger's syndrome who struggled with understanding peoples' facial expressions; an ability that so many of us take for granted. The first part also discusses how in other cultures displaying facial expressions such as smiling are never really taught. This is connected to how at very young ages babies learn to emulate facial expressions from those around them. Part 2 is more related to facial recognition, but again is related to facial perception and our memory for faces. A particularly thought provoking anecdotal story was about a man who because of an accident was no longer able to recognize faces, even of his own children. From this video I also learned that we learn to recognize individuals by looking for features that differentiate them from the norm. Therefore, frequently we are better able to recognize caricatures than simple line drawings. It was also discussed how emotions are tied to our facial memories and how this tie can be both a helpful and complicating factor. A particularly distressing story was shared about a woman who was raped.  The individual she identified as having committed the rape was then incarcerated for many years before DNA testing was developed and then revealed that another man had in fact raped this woman. This video brought up the fact that memory is complicated and we are not computer-like in our ability to remember facts. Everytime we think about a memory we reconstruct it potentially changing it (something the radiolab podcast talks about as well). This video also discussed our greater ability to recognize those within our own race; another potential explanation for this woman's tragic mistake (for both her and the man who was wrongfully incarcerated).  

I first connected facial perception with the content for this week after watching the PBS video about magic in which they were discussing how the brain decides what to pay attention to and how even during a magic trick in which we are trying watch someone's hands we are still paying attention to that person's face. I also associated human facial recognition and perception with our evolutionary heritage to survive and adapt to our environment. 

"The human brain equips us to thrive in a world of objects, living things, and other people. Those entities have a large impact on our well being, and one would expect the brain to be well suited to detecting them and their powers" (Pinker, 2002, p. 197).

"Our perceptual systems are designed to register aspects of the external world were important to our survival" (Pinker, 2002, p. 199). 

There are many types of learning and learning to recognize the faces of individuals you know and understanding the emotions on someone's face; these are abilities that are essential to our ability to thrive.

This last link is unrelated to facial perception but is a fascinating link about memory. I also find Radiolab to be incredibly engrossing so if you get chance you should really listen to their podcasts.

http://www.radiolab.org/2007/jun/07/