How we save face

How we save face

There has been a lot of research on the importance of face recognition in survival of a species. One of the main thing that is crucial for evolution of a species is was being able to recognize faces of one’s own kind and being able differentiate between their parents and other humans. This helps the species survive by staying close to the organisms that can keep them safe. Same phenomenon applies to human beings. As Dr. guy mentions in her research that “Faces are processed in a manner distinct from other objects due to their social significance and ubiquity in our daily lives” (Guy). Even as a human being it is important to recognize the face of a person that can keep you safe as an infant.

The study done by Maggie Guy on facial recognition claims that we start recognizing faces as infants. She did her research on forty-eight 4.5-7.5 months old infants. In her study she studies both N290 and P400 in babies which are ERPs related to facial recognition. In her study she found that N290 and P400 both peaked when the baby was shown a human face as compared to an non-human face(objects/toys). Moreover, they had an ever higher of a peak when shown a familiar face instead of a non-familiar face. This shows that even at that age infants prefer to look at human face rather than a face of an object and they also prefer to look at familiar face of like a parent rather than non-familiar face. As we grow older the facial recognition becomes more distinct and also become more detailed. One ERP that is studied over the years for facial recognition in adults is N170. The peaks of N170 suggest that human prefer to look at pictures of other human faces rather than looking at a picture of a house, car or animal faces. With facial recognition, as we grow older we are able to remember faces of people.

As an adult it is very complicated process on how we are able to recognize familiar faces in a huge crowd of people. we are able to recognize a person that we know just by a glimpse of them. Sometimes we do not even need to look at their face, we are able to recognize them just by their eyes nose and their other facial features. This is possible because we have evolved to be able to remember faces. In the article by Knvul Sheikh it says that a tiny region known by “face patches” in temporal lobe is responsible for responding to faces, but there is no evidence how the cells in this region interact to help us identify faces. Presently, by utilizing a mix of cerebrum imaging and single-neuron recording in macaques, scientist Doris Tsao and her associates at Caltech have out the neural code for facial recognition. It was found through this research that each face cell fires at different facial features. It can be connected to a set of dials. “Like a set of dials, the cells are fine-tuned to bits of information, which they can then channel together in different combinations to create an image of every possible face.” (Sheikh) This is what helps us recognize a familiar just by a feature. When we see that feature it makes every possible combination of faces and we recognize the one we are familiar with. When recognizing a face if both people have same feature than that the cell that are for that feature do not fire at all and we recognize person using a different feature. Cells in the faces patches encode in different facial feature and fire when we see that feature. This whole process enables us to recognize familiar faces. Thus, being a crucial part of survival.

Sheikh, Knvul. “How We Save Face--Researchers Crack the Brain's Facial-Recognition Code.” Scientific American, Scientific American, 1 June 2017, www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-we-save-face-researchers-crack-the-brains-facial-recognition-code/.

Guy, M., Zieber, N., & Richards, J. (2016). The Cortical Development of Specialized Face Processing in Infancy. Child Development, 87(5), 1581-1600.