Self priming in face recognition

Recently Burton, Bruce and Johnston (1990) have presented an interactive activation and competition model of face recognition. They have shown that this IAC model presents a parsimonious account of semantic and repetition priming effects with faces. In addition, a number of new predictions are evident from the model's structure. One such prediction is highlighted by Burton et al. themselves - that for short prime-target stimulus onset asynchronies (SOAs) a face should prime the recognition of a target name (or vice versa), 'self priming'. This thesis examined this prediction and found that it held for a design in which items were repeated across prime type conditions (same, associated, neutral and unrelated). Further, cross (face prime/name target) and within-domain (name prime/name target) designs were found to produce equivalent degrees of self and semantic priming (Experiments 1 and 2). Closer examination of the Burton et al. model suggested that the effect of domain equivalence for self priming should not hold for a design in which the stimulus items are not repeated across prime type conditions (i.e. subjects are presented with each item only once). This prediction was confirmed in Experiments 3, 4, 5 and 6.The time courses of self and semantic priming were investigated in two experiments where the interstimulus interval (ISI) between prime and target, and prime presentation times were varied. The results proved difficult to accommodate within the Burton et al. model, but it is argued that they did not provide a sufficient basis on which to reject the model. Finally, the self priming paradigm was applied to the study of distinctiveness effects. Faces judged to be distinctive in appearance were found to produce more facilitation than faces judged to be typical in appearance. Similarly, caricatured representation of faces were found to produce more facilitation than veridical or anticaricatured representations. The results of the distinctiveness studies are discussed in terms of the Valentine's (1991a; 1991b) exemplar-based coding model and Burton, Bruce and Johnston's (1990) IAC implementation. It is concluded that the results of these experiments lend support to the Burton et al. model

Recognizing Own- and Other-race Faces: Cognitive Mechanisms Underlying the Other-Race Effect

Other-race faces are discriminated and recognized less accurately than own-race faces. The other-race effect (ORE) emerges during infancy and is robust across different participant populations and a variety of methodologies (Meissner & Brigham, 2001). Decades of research has been successful in characterizing the roots of the ORE, however certain aspects regarding the nature of own- and other-race face representations remain unspecified. The present dissertation attempts to find the commonalities and differences in the processing of own- vs. other-race faces so as to develop an integrative understanding of the ORE in face recognition. In Study 1, I demonstrated that the ORE is attributable to an impaired ability to recognize other-race faces despite variability in appearance. In Study 2, I further examined whether this ability is influenced by familiarity. The ORE disappears for familiar faces, suggesting a fundamental difference in the familiar and unfamiliar other-race face recognition. Study 3 was designed to directly test whether the ORE is attributable to a less refined representation of other-race faces in face space. Adults are more sensitive to deviations from normality in own- than other-race faces, and between-rater variability in attractiveness rating of individual faces is higher for other- than own-race faces. In Study 4, I investigated whether the ORE is driven by the different use of shape and texture cues. Despite an overall ORE, the transition from idiosyncratic shape to texture cues was comparable for own- and other-race faces, suggesting that the different utilization of shape and texture cues does not contribute to the ORE. In Study 5, applying a novel continuous-response paradigm, I investigated how the representations of own- and other-race face are stored in visual working memory (VWM). Following ample encoding time, the ORE is attributable to differences in the probability of a face being maintained in VWM. Reducing encoding time caused a loss of precision of VWM for other- but not own-race faces. Collectively, the results of this dissertation help elucidate the nature of representations of own- and other-race faces and clarify the role of perceptual experience in shaping our ability to recognize own- and other-race faces

Computational Mechanisms of Face Perception

The intertwined history of artificial intelligence and neuroscience has significantly impacted their development, with AI arising from and evolving alongside neuroscience. The remarkable performance of deep learning has inspired neuroscientists to investigate and utilize artificial neural networks as computational models to address biological issues. Studying the brain and its operational mechanisms can greatly enhance our understanding of neural networks, which has crucial implications for developing efficient AI algorithms. Many of the advanced perceptual and cognitive skills of biological systems are now possible to achieve through artificial intelligence systems, which is transforming our knowledge of brain function. Thus, the need for collaboration between the two disciplines demands emphasis. It\u27s both intriguing and challenging to study the brain using computer science approaches, and this dissertation centers on exploring computational mechanisms related to face perception. Face recognition, being the most active artificial intelligence research area, offers a wealth of data resources as well as a mature algorithm framework. From the perspective of neuroscience, face recognition is an important indicator of social cognitive formation and neural development. The ability to recognize faces is one of the most important cognitive functions. We first discuss the problem of how the brain encodes different face identities. By using DNNs to extract features from complex natural face images and project them into the feature space constructed by dimension reduction, we reveal a new face code in the human medial temporal lobe (MTL), where neurons encode visually similar identities. On this basis, we discover a subset of DNN units that are selective for facial identity. These identity-selective units exhibit a general ability to discriminate novel faces. By establishing coding similarities with real primate neurons, our study provides an important approach to understanding primate facial coding. Lastly, we discuss the impact of face learning during the critical period. We identify a critical period during DNN training and systematically discuss the use of facial information by the neural network both inside and outside the critical period. We further provide a computational explanation for the critical period influencing face learning through learning rate changes. In addition, we show an alternative method to partially recover the model outside the critical period by knowledge refinement and attention shifting. Our current research not only highlights the importance of training orientation and visual experience in shaping neural responses to face features and reveals potential mechanisms for face recognition but also provides a practical set of ideas to test hypotheses and reconcile previous findings in neuroscience using computer methods

Age of acquisition and familiar face recognition

EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo

Description-based visualisation of ethnic facial types

This study reports on the design and evaluation of a tool to assist in the description and visualisation of the human face and variations in facial shape and proportions characteristic of different ethnicities. A comprehensive set of local shape features (sulci, folds, prominences, slopes, fossae, etc.) which constitute a visually-discernible ‘vocabulary’ for facial description. Each such feature has one or more continuous-valued attributes, some of which are dimensional and correspond directly to conventional anthropometric distance measurements between facial landmarks, while other attributes capture the shape or topography of that given feature. These attributes, distributed over six facial regions (eyes, nose, etc.), control a morphable model of facial shape that can approximate individual faces as well as the averaged faces of various ethnotypes. Clues to ethnic origin are often more effectively conveyed by shape attributes than through differences in anthropometric measurements due to large individual differences in facial dimensions within each ethnicity. Individual faces of representative ethnicities (European, East Asian, etc.) can then be modelled to establish the range of variation of the attributes (each represented by a corresponding three-dimensional ‘basis shape’). These attributes are designed to be quasi-orthogonal, in that the model can assume attribute values in arbitrary combination with minimal undesired interaction. They thus can serve as the basis of a set of dimensions or degrees of freedom. The space of variation in facial shape defines an ethnicity face space (EFS), suitable for the human appreciation of facial variation across ethnicities, in contrast to a conventional identity face space (IFS) intended for automated detection of individual faces out of a sample set of faces from a single, homogeneous population. The dimensions comprising an IFS are based on holistic measurements and are usually not interpretable in terms of local facial dimensions or shape (i.e., they are not ‘semantic’). In contrast, for an EFS to facilitate our understanding of ethnic variation across faces (as opposed to ethnicity recognition) the underlying dimensions should correspond to visibly-discernible attributes. A shift from quantitative landmark-based anthropometric comparisons to local shape comparisons is demonstrated. Ethnic variation can be visually appreciated by observing the changes in a model through animation. These changes can be tracked at different levels of complexity: across the whole face, by selected facial region, by isolated feature, and by isolated attribute of a given feature. This study demonstrates that an intuitive feature set, derived by artistically-informed visual observation, can provide a workable descriptive basis. While neither mathematically-complete nor strictly orthogonal, the feature space permits close surface fits between the morphable model and face scan data. This study is intended for the human visual appreciation of facial shape, the characteristics of differing ethnicities, and the quantification of those differences. It presumes a basic understanding of the standard practices in digital facial animation

Skin surface and subjectivity: the self-representational photography of Frances Woodman.

This thesis examines Francesca Woodman's self-representational photography, not as a project of self-portraiture, but a means of exploring the relationship between self and objectified image through a re-staging of the drama of the photographic medium's process on her own skin. I re-situate Woodman's work within 1970s art practice by examining her relationship to performance, body art and photography, in order to disrupt the strictures of existing psycho-biographical interpretations. I also address the ways in which Woodman stages photographic dialogues with a diversity of historical precedents, from photographic contemporaries of the period, from the nineteenth-century, Surrealist photography, and from American modernist practice. The first chapter concentrates on Woodman's best known photographs, addressing the problems of the existing literature, and how in this series Woodman uses the technique of blurring to make reference to archaic photographic practice, as a haunting of the medium staged through an artful `stretching' of the print's surface and temporal fabric. The second chapter considers Woodman's description of `skin' in her photography, and the ways in which she performs a subject in the process of formation or breakdown. The third chapter concentrates on Woodman's reconfiguration of the photographic `crop' as she re-situates the process in the moment of framing, excising her own face and subjectivity in a kind of `self-cutting' which dramatises the medium's own language of implicit violence. The fourth chapter discusses an unpublished artist's book, in which Woodman's own skin is the support for a sequential act of disappearance. By re-enacting the photographic moment of the negative, the series alludes to the process of self-absenting on which representation depends. The final chapter examines Woodman's use of masking and repetition to re-enact within the single shot the photograph's status as copy, and the ways in which the imaged subject is always split and doubled in representation

Aubrey Beardsley, Salome and satire.

This thesis proposes that the illustrations produced by Aubrey Beardsley for the first English edition of Oscar Wilde's play Salome are primarily motivated by a strong satirical agenda. Whilst it has usually been acknowledged that this group of illustrations harbours some satirical elements, these have never before been regarded as anything other than isolated occurrences. The iconography of Beardsley's Salome illustrations has rarely been subjected to close visual analysis or lengthy explication. All early studies of Beardsley's work and the pioneering and monumental cataloguing work carried out in the 1960s inevitably contain a number of misconstructions and lacunae. Recent critical accounts of the Salomi illustrations, mostly theory-led and written from outside the discipline of art history, have on the one hand relied upon these interpretations, yet have on the other hand espoused various degrees of epistemological scepticism and historical relativism not calculated to provide new interpretations of these images in the light of their historical contexts. Countering this tendency, this thesis sets out to establish these contexts and to identify and explain the jokes which run throughout this sequence of illustrations. As a preliminary step to this analysis, my first chapter narrates a production history of the illustrations, and unravels the complex sequence of events relating to the commission. A second chapter surveys late nineteenth-century conventions of satire and literary and visual caricatures of Beardsley's principal target, Wilde. Following this, the body of the thesis is devoted to a detailed account of each image. These accounts explore the range of meanings at work within a broad context of contemporary visual culture, and offer a radical reinterpretation of the Salome illustrations

Activity in area V3A predicts positions of moving objects

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