Development of Recognition of Face Parts from Unfamiliar Faces

Eye movement differences when recognising and learning moving and static faces

Seeing a face in motion can help subsequent face recognition. Several explanations have been proposed for this "motion advantage," but other factors that might play a role have received less attention. For example, facial movement might enhance recognition by attracting attention to the internal facial features, thereby facilitating identification. However, there is no direct evidence that motion increases attention to regions of the face that facilitate identification (i.e., internal features) compared with static faces. We tested this hypothesis by recording participants' eye movements while they completed the famous face recognition (Experiment 1, N = 32), and face-learning (Experiment 2, N = 60, Experiment 3, N = 68) tasks, with presentation style manipulated (moving or static). Across all three experiments, a motion advantage was found, and participants directed a higher proportion of fixations to the internal features (i.e., eyes, nose, and mouth) of moving faces versus static. Conversely, the proportion of fixations to the internal non-feature area (i.e., cheeks, forehead, chin) and external area (Experiment 3) was significantly reduced for moving compared with static faces (all ps < .05). Results suggest that during both familiar and unfamiliar face recognition, facial motion is associated with increased attention to internal facial features, but only during familiar face recognition is the magnitude of the motion advantage significantly related functionally to the proportion of fixations directed to the internal features.

The importance of internal and external features in recognizing faces that vary in familiarity and race

Familiar and unfamiliar faces are recognized in fundamentally different ways. One way in which recognition differs is in terms of the features that facilitate recognition: previous studies have shown that familiar face recognition depends more on internal facial features (i.e., eyes, nose and mouth), whereas unfamiliar face recognition depends more on external facial features (i.e., hair, ears and contour). However, very few studies have examined the recognition of faces that vary in both familiarity and race, and the reliance on different facial features, whilst also using faces that incorporate natural within-person variability. In the current study, we used an online version of the card sorting task to assess adults’ (n = 258) recognition of faces that varied in familiarity and race when presented with either the whole face, internal features only, or external features only. Adults better recognized familiar faces than unfamiliar faces in both the whole face and the internal features only conditions, but not in the external features only condition. Reasons why adults did not show an own-race advantage in recognition are discussed.

Neural mechanisms of face emotion processing in youths and adults with bipolar disorder

OBJECTIVES

Little is known about potential differences in the pathophysiology of bipolar disorder (BD) across development. The present study aimed to characterize age-related neural mechanisms of BD.

METHODS

Youths and adults with and without BD (N = 108, age range = 9.8-55.9 years) completed an emotional face labeling task during fMRI acquisition. We leveraged three different fMRI analytic tools to identify age-related neural mechanisms of BD, investigating (a) change in neural responses over the course of the task, (b) neural activation averaged across the entire task, and (c) amygdala functional connectivity.

RESULTS

We found converging Age Group × Diagnosis patterns across all three analytic methods. Compared to healthy youths vs adults, youths vs adults with BD show an altered pattern in response to repeated presentation of emotional faces in medial prefrontal, amygdala, and temporoparietal regions, as well as amygdala-temporoparietal connectivity. Specifically, medial prefrontal and lingual activation decreases over the course of repeated emotional face presentations in healthy youths vs adults but increases in youths with BD compared to adults with BD. Moreover, youths vs adults with BD show less medial prefrontal activation and amygdala-temporoparietal junction connectivity averaged over the task, but this difference is not found for healthy youths vs adults.

CONCLUSION

Although longitudinal confirmation and replication will be necessary, these findings suggest that neural development may be aberrant in BD and that some neural mechanisms mediating BD may differ in adults vs children with the illness.

Functional development of the brain's face-processing system

In the first 20 years of life, the human brain undergoes tremendous growth in size, weight, and synaptic connectedness. Over the same time period, a person achieves remarkable transformations in perception, thought, and behavior. One important area of development is face processing ability, or the ability to quickly and accurately extract extensive information about a person's identity, emotional state, attractiveness, intention, and numerous other types of information that are crucial to everyday social interaction and communication. Associating particular brain changes with specific behavioral and intellectual developments has historically been a serious challenge for researchers. Fortunately, modern neuroimaging is dramatically advancing our ability to make associations between morphological and behavioral developments. In this article, we demonstrate how neuroimaging has revolutionized our understanding of the development of face processing ability to show that this essential perceptual and cognitive skill matures consistently yet slowly over the first two decades of life. In this manner, face processing is a model system of many areas of complex cognitive development. WIREs Cogn Sci 2017, 8:e1423. doi: 10.1002/wcs.1423 For further resources related to this article, please visit the WIREs website.

Developmental changes in face visual scanning in autism spectrum disorder as assessed by data-based analysis

Individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) present reduced visual attention to faces. However, contradictory conclusions have been drawn about the strategies involved in visual face scanning due to the various methodologies implemented in the study of facial screening. Here, we used a data-driven approach to compare children and adults with ASD subjected to the same free viewing task and to address developmental aspects of face scanning, including its temporal patterning, in healthy children, and adults. Four groups (54 subjects) were included in the study: typical adults, typically developing children, and adults and children with ASD. Eye tracking was performed on subjects viewing unfamiliar faces. Fixations were analyzed using a data-driven approach that employed spatial statistics to provide an objective, unbiased definition of the areas of interest. Typical adults expressed a spatial and temporal strategy for visual scanning that differed from the three other groups, involving a sequential fixation of the right eye (RE), left eye (LE), and mouth. Typically developing children, adults and children with autism exhibited similar fixation patterns and they always started by looking at the RE. Children (typical or with ASD) subsequently looked at the LE or the mouth. Based on the present results, the patterns of fixation for static faces that mature from childhood to adulthood in typical subjects are not found in adults with ASD. The atypical patterns found after developmental progression and experience in ASD groups appear to remain blocked in an immature state that cannot be differentiated from typical developmental child patterns of fixation.

Development of behavioral parameters and ERPs in a novel-target visual detection paradigm in children, adolescents and young adults

BACKGROUND

The present study analyzes the development of ERPs related to the process of selecting targets based on their novelty.

METHODS

One hundred and sixty-seven subjects from 6 to 26 years old were recorded with 30 electrodes during a visual target novelty paradigm.

RESULTS

Behavioral results showed good performance in children that improved with age: a decrease in RTs and errors and an increase in the d' sensitivity parameter with age were obtained. In addition, the C response bias parameter evolved from a conservative to a neutral bias with age. Fronto-polar Selection Positivity (FSP) was statistically significant in all the age groups when standards and targets were compared. There was a statistically significant difference in the posterior Selection Negativity (SN) between the target and standard conditions in all age groups. The P3a component obtained was statistically significant in the emergent adult (18-21 years) and young adult (22-26 years) groups. The modulation of the P3b component by novel targets was statistically significant in all the age groups, but it decreased in amplitude with age. Peak latencies of the FSP and P3b components decreased with age.

CONCLUSIONS

The results reveal differences in the ERP indexes for the cognitive evaluation of the stimuli presented, depending on the age of the subjects. The ability of the target condition to induce the modulation of the studied components would depend on the posterior-anterior gradient of cortex maturation and on the gradient of maturation of the low to higher order association areas.

Face processing in Williams syndrome is already atypical in infancy

Face processing is a crucial socio-cognitive ability. Is it acquired progressively or does it constitute an innately-specified, face-processing module? The latter would be supported if some individuals with seriously impaired intelligence nonetheless showed intact face-processing abilities. Some theorists claim that Williams syndrome (WS) provides such evidence since, despite IQs in the 50s, adolescents/adults with WS score in the normal range on standardized face-processing tests. Others argue that atypical neural and cognitive processes underlie WS face-processing proficiencies. But what about infants with WS? Do they start with typical face-processing abilities, with atypicality developing later, or are atypicalities already evident in infancy? We used an infant familiarization/novelty design and compared infants with WS to typically developing controls as well as to a group of infants with Down syndrome matched on both mental and chronological age. Participants were familiarized with a schematic face, after which they saw a novel face in which either the features (eye shape) were changed or just the configuration of the original features. Configural changes were processed successfully by controls, but not by infants with WS who were only sensitive to featural changes and who showed syndrome-specific profiles different from infants with the other neurodevelopmental disorder. Our findings indicate that theorists can no longer use the case of WS to support claims that evolution has endowed the human brain with an independent face-processing module.

Differential age-related changes in N170 responses to upright faces, inverted faces, and eyes in Japanese children

The main objectives of this study were to investigate the development of face perception in Japanese children, focusing on the changes in face processing strategies (holistic and/or configural vs. feature-based) that occur during childhood. To achieve this, we analyzed the face-related N170 component, evoked by upright face, inverted face, and eyes stimuli in 82 Japanese children aged between 8- and 13-years-old. During the experiment, the children were asked to perform a target detection task in which they were told to press a button when they saw images of faces or kettles with mustaches, glasses, and fake noses; i.e., an implicit face perception task. The N170 signals observed after the presentation of the upright face stimuli were longer in duration and/or had at least two peaks in the 8–11-year-old children, whereas those seen in the 12–13-year-old children were sharp and only had a single peak. N170 latency was significantly longer after the presentation of the eyes stimuli than after the presentation of the upright face stimuli in the 10- and 12-year-old children. In addition, significant differences in N170 latency were observed among all three stimulus types in the 13-year-old children. N170 amplitude was significantly greater after the presentation of the eyes stimuli than after the presentation of the upright face stimuli in the 8–10- and 12-year-old children. The results of the present study indicate that the upright face stimuli were processed using holistic and/or configural processing by the 13-year-old children.

An other-race effect for configural and featural processing of faces: upper and lower face regions play different roles

We examined whether Asian individuals would show differential sensitivity to configural vs. featural changes to own- and other-race faces and whether such sensitivity would depend on whether the changes occurred in the upper vs. lower regions of the faces. We systematically varied the size of key facial features (eyes and mouth) of own-race Asian faces and other-race Caucasian faces, and the configuration (spacing) between the eyes and between the nose and mouth of the two types of faces. Results revealed that the other-race effect (ORE) is more pronounced when featural and configural spacing changes are in the upper region than in the lower region of the face. These findings reveal that information from the upper vs. lower region of the face contributes differentially to the ORE in face processing, and that processing of face race is influenced more by information location (i.e., upper vs. lower) than by information type (i.e., configural vs. featural).

Experience with headwear influences the other-race effect in 4-year-old children

The other-race effect (ORE) implies the better recognition of faces of one's own race compared with faces of a different race. It demonstrates that face recognition is shaped by daily experience with human faces. Such experience mainly includes structural information of own-race faces and also information on the way faces are usually seen, as a whole or partly covered by scarves or other headwear. In two experiments, we investigated how this mode of presentation is related to the occurrence of the ORE during childhood. In Experiment 1, 4-year-old German children (N = 104), accustomed to seeing faces without headwear in daily life, were asked to recognize female Caucasian or African faces, presented either as a whole or wearing a woolen hat, in a forced choice paradigm. In Experiment 2, 4-year-olds from rural Cameroon (N = 70), accustomed to seeing faces with and without headwear in daily life, participated in the same task. In both groups, the ORE was present in the familiar mode of presentation, that is, in whole faces in German children and in whole and partly covered faces in Cameroonian children. The results are discussed in relation to the role of experience for face recognition processes.

Development of holistic vs. featural processing in face recognition

According to a classic view developed by Carey and Diamond (1977), young children process faces in a piecemeal fashion before adult-like holistic processing starts to emerge at the age of around 10 years. This is known as the encoding switch hypothesis. Since then, a growing body of studies have challenged the theory. This article will provide a critical appraisal of this literature, followed by an analysis of some more recent developments. We will conclude, quite contrary to the classical view, that holistic processing is not only present in early child development, but could even precede the development of part-based processing.

The effects of information type (features vs. configuration) and location (eyes vs. mouth) on the development of face perception

The goal of the current study was to investigate the development of face processing strategies in a perceptual discrimination task. Children (7-12 years of age) and young adults were administered the Face Dimensions Task. In the Face Dimensions Task, participants were asked to judge whether two simultaneously presented faces were the "same" or "different". For the "same" trials, the two faces were identical. For the "different" trials, the faces differed in either the spacing between the eyes, the spacing between the nose and the mouth, the size of the eyes, or the size of the mouth. The main finding was that 7- to 10-year-old children showed no difference in their ability to discriminate differences in eye size and eye spacing but showed a poor ability to discriminate differences in nose and mouth spacing and, to a lesser extent, mouth size. The developmental lag between nose-mouth discriminations and the other featural and configural discriminations was reduced in older children and eliminated by young adulthood. These results indicate that the type of face information (i.e., configural vs. featural) and its location (i.e., eye vs. mouth) jointly contribute to the development of face perception abilities.

Are Faces Special to Infants? An Investigation of Configural and Featural Processing for the Upper and Lower Regions of Houses in 3- to 7-month-olds

Three- to 7-month-olds were administered a house version of the Face Dimensions Test in which the featural and configural information of the upper and lower windows were systematically varied. The Dimensions Test has previously been used to study the processing of face features and their configurations by infants (Quinn & Tanaka, 2009). Just as was the case with faces, infants were shown to be sensitive to configural change in the upper and lower regions and to featural change in the upper region, but not to featural change in the lower region. The outcomes reflect either a face processing system that can generalize broadly to stimuli that are as different from faces as houses or a more general processing system with perceptual operations that can apply to both faces and houses.