The Evolution of Holistic Processing of Faces (original) (raw)

The Origins of Face Processing in Humans: Phylogeny and Ontogeny

Perspectives on Psychological Science, 2009

Faces are crucial for nonverbal communication in humans and related species. From the first moments of life, newborn infants prefer to look at human faces over almost any other form of stimuli. Since this finding was first observed, there has been much debate regarding the ''special'' nature of face processing. Researchers have put forward numerous developmental models that attempt to account for this early preference and subsequent maturation of the face processing system. In this article, we review these models and their supporting evidence drawing on literature from developmental, evolutionary, and comparative psychology. We conclude that converging data from these fields strongly suggests that face processing is conducted by a dedicated and complex neural system, is not human specific, and is unlikely to have emerged recently in evolutionary history.

The psychology of face construction: Giving evolution a helping hand

Applied Cognitive Psychology, 2010

Face construction by selecting individual facial features rarely produces recognisable images. We have been developing a system called EvoFIT that works by the repeated selection and breeding of complete faces. Here, we explored two techniques. The first blurred the external parts of the face, to help users focus on the important central facial region. The second, manipulated an evolved face using psychologically-useful ‘holistic’ scales: age, masculinity, honesty, etc. Using face construction procedures that mirrored police work, a large benefit emerged for the holistic scales; the benefit of blurring accumulated over the construction process. Performance was best using both techniques: EvoFITs were correctly named 24.5% on average compared to 4.2% for faces constructed using a typical ‘feature’ system. It is now possible, therefore, to evolve a fairly recognisable composite from a 2 day memory of a face, the norm for real witnesses. A plausible model to account for the findings is introduced. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Evolutionary psychology of facial attractiveness

Current Directions in Psychological Science, 2002

The human face communicates an impressive number of visual signals. Although adults' ratings of facial attractiveness are consistent across studies, even cross-culturally, there has been considerable controversy surrounding attempts to identify the facial features that cause faces to be judged attractive or unattractive. Studies of physical attractiveness have attempted to identify the features that contribute to attractiveness by studying the relationships between attractiveness and (a) symmetry,(b) averageness, and (c) ...

The origins of face perception: specific versus non-specific mechanisms

Infant and Child Development, 2001

Many studies have demonstrated that newborns prefer upright faces over upside-down faces. Based on this evidence, some have suggested that faces represent a special class of stimuli for newborns and there is a qualitative difference between the processes involved in perception of facelike and non-facelike patterns (i.e. structural hypothesis). Others suggest that there is no reason to suppose that faces are different from other patterns, because faces, like any other class of visual stimuli, are subject to filtering by the properties of the visual system (i.e. sensory hypothesis). The core question that will be addressed in the present paper is whether, to manifest itself, face preference requires the unique structure of the face, represented by the relative spatial location of its internal features, or rather some more general properties that other stimuli may also possess. Evidence will be presented supporting the idea that newborns do not respond to facelike stimuli by 'facedness' but, rather, by some general structural characteristics that best satisfy the constraints of the immature visual system.

Over, H. & Cook, R. (in press). Where do spontaneous first impressions of faces come from? Cognition

Humans spontaneously attribute a wide range of traits to strangers based solely on their facial features. These first impressions are known to exert striking effects on our choices and behaviours. In this paper, we provide a theoretical account of the origins of these spontaneous trait inferences. We describe a novel framework (‘Trait Inference Mapping’) in which trait inferences are products of mappings between locations in ‘face space’ and ‘trait space’. These mappings are acquired during ontogeny and allow excitation of face representations to propagate automatically to associated trait representations. This conceptualization provides a framework within which the relative contribution of ontogenetic experience and genetic inheritance can be considered. Contrary to many existing ideas about the origins of trait inferences, we propose only a limited role for innate mechanisms and natural selection. Instead, our model explains inter-observer consistency by appealing to cultural learning and physiological responses that facilitate or ‘canalise’ particular face-trait mappings. Our TIM framework has both theoretical and substantive implications, and can be extended to trait inferences from non-facial cues to provide a unified account of first impressions.

Development of face processing

Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Cognitive Science, 2011

This article reviews the development of the face-processing system from birth, during infancy and through childhood, until it becomes the sophisticated system observed in adults. We begin by discussing the following major theoretical issues concerning the development of face expertise: (1) nature versus nurture or the role of experience in face processing, (2) level of processing (i.e., global, basic, subordinate, individual) and expertise, and (3) type of processing (i.e., holistic, configural, featural). This general overview will be followed by a closer examination of individual studies that investigate the development of face processing. These studies will include a review of (1) development of differential processing of faces and objects, (2) development of differential processing of faces of different species, (3) developmental changes in processing facial identity, and (4) developmental changes in the categorization of faces. Our review of the developmental literature reveals early competence in face-processing abilities with infants presenting a preference for face stimuli and facial discrimination using featural, configural, and holistic cues. This early competence is then later refined as evidenced by age-related changes throughout childhood. Some of the refinements are likely due to the development of general cognitive abilities, whereas some others may be face-specific.

Assessing facial attractiveness: individual decisions and evolutionary constraints

Socioaffective Neuroscience & Psychology, 2013

Background: Several studies showed that facial attractiveness, as a highly salient social cue, influences behavioral responses. It has also been found that attractive faces evoke distinctive neural activation compared to unattractive or neutral faces. Objectives: Our aim was to design a face recognition task where individual preferences for facial cues are controlled for, and to create conditions that are more similar to natural circumstances in terms of decision making. Design: In an event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) experiment, subjects were shown attractive and unattractive faces, categorized on the basis of their own individual ratings. Results: Statistical analysis of all subjects showed elevated brain activation for attractive opposite-sex faces in contrast to less attractive ones in regions that previously have been reported to show enhanced activation with increasing attractiveness level (e.g. the medial and superior occipital gyri, fusiform gyrus, precentral gyrus, and anterior cingular cortex). Besides these, females showed additional brain activation in areas thought to be involved in basic emotions and desires (insula), detection of facial emotions (superior temporal gyrus), and memory retrieval (hippocampus). Conclusions: From these data, we speculate that because of the risks involving mate choice faced by women during evolutionary times, selection might have preferred the development of an elaborated neural system in females to assess the attractiveness and social value of male faces.

Is all face processing holistic? The view from UCSD

… geometric, and process …, 2000

There has been a great deal of progress, as well as controversy, in understanding how complex objects, in particular, human faces, are processed by the cortex. At the same time, sophisticated neural network models have been developed that do many of the same tasks required by these cortical areas. Such simplifying models allow us to explore hypotheses concerning relatively complex domains such as face processing.