Teachable Tidbit: Face Perception

1. Teachable Tidbit: Face Perception Iris Balodis Scientific Teaching Fellows Course

2. Students • Cognitive Neuroscience Course • 3rd or 4th year Undergraduates • Majors in Psychology • Previous Courses: Psyc100, Brain & Behaviour, Perception • Have prepared for class by reading the relevant chapter ahead of time

3. Textbook • Gazzaniga, M., Ivry, R.B. & Mangun, G.R. Cognitive Neuroscience: The Biology of the Mind, 3rd Edition, WW Norton & Company: New York. • Chapter 6 Object Recognition Face Recognition

4. Learning Goals Learning Objectives Understand neural systems underlying cognitive functions in the brain Use and apply knowledge of brain systems flexibly To gain experience reading/understanding original papers in cognitive neuroscience To describe key perspectives in cognitive neuroscience Be able to critically think about the evidence Understand how the visual system processes complex information Be able to apply knowledge to particular case studies Discuss recent studies in visual perception Discuss/Debate evidence for key perspectives in cognitive neuroscience To bridge material between different areas (e.g. chapters from basic sensation/perception to higher cognitive processes).

5. 2 Visual Processing Streams

6. Failures of Object Recognition • Visual Agnosias: • Damage to “where” pathway • Damage to “what” pathway • Prosopagnosia

7. Learning Goals Learning Objectives Understand neural systems underlying cognitive functions in the brain Use and apply knowledge of brain systems flexibly To gain experience reading/understanding original papers in cognitive neuroscience To describe key perspectives in cognitive neuroscience Be able to critically think about the evidence Understand how the visual system processes complex information Be able to apply knowledge to particular case studies Discuss recent studies in visual perception Discuss/Debate evidence for key perspectives in cognitive neuroscience To bridge material between different areas (e.g. chapters from basic sensation/perception to higher cognitive processes).

8. Case Study • Purpose: apply information learned in the text to a specific example. • Think-Pair-Share technique • Discuss with one or two other classmates • Call on 2 or 3 groups to share answers with the class

9. Case Study • You are a neurologist and Jim is your patient who recently suffered a stroke. Even though you just saw him in your clinic 2 days ago, he doesn’t recognize you when he walks into the room. • What condition(s) might he have? • What types of tests might you run? • What brain networks and areas might be affected by the stroke?

10. May have prosopagnosia • Test basic vision, basic memory tests, test perceptual categorization (e.g. Unusual Views Object Test), prosopagnosia tests • Damage to ‘What’ Pathway – Ventral Stream • Particularly in inferior temporal lobe and fusiformgyrus

11. ‘Grandmother’ Cells • Refers to a neuron that responds to highly specific, complex and meaningful stimuli i.e. a single percept or concept.

12. What’s in a face?

13. Quiroga et al., 2005

14. Learning Goals Learning Objectives Understand neural systems underlying cognitive functions in the brain Use and apply knowledge of brain systems flexibly To gain experience reading/understanding original papers in cognitive neuroscience To describe key perspectives in cognitive neuroscience Be able to critically think about the evidence Understand how the visual system processes complex information Be able to apply knowledge to particular case studies Discuss recent studies in visual perception Discuss/Debate evidence for key perspectives in cognitive neuroscience To bridge material between different areas (e.g. chapters from basic sensation/perception to higher cognitive processes).

15. Debate Team • As part of a debating team, defend the argument that the brain has evolved a specialized system for perceiving faces. Defend the argument that face perception reflects the operation of a highly experienced system that is good at making fine discriminations.

16. Gets at fundamental debate in visual processing research • Whether brain systems are equipped with: • a general intelligence or capability to perform functions • ‘Distributed’ cognitive & neural processing • a developed specificity in particular cortical regions for a high-level cognitive function (e.g. face perception). • Swiss-Army Knife Analogy

17. Learning Goals Learning Objectives Understand neural systems underlying cognitive functions in the brain Use and apply knowledge of brain systems flexibly To gain experience reading/understanding original papers in cognitive neuroscience To describe key perspectives in cognitive neuroscience Be able to critically think about the evidence Understand how the visual system processes complex information Be able to apply knowledge to particular case studies Discuss recent studies in visual perception Discuss/Debate evidence for key perspectives in cognitive neuroscience To bridge material between different areas (e.g. chapters from basic sensation/perception to higher cognitive processes).

18. Group Activity • Describe the neural cascade of events that would occur from perceiving a visual stimulus, to recognizing it as Halle Berry’s face.