Post by Ace on Dec 12, 2004 19:36:03 GMT -5
Probably too tangential to even be Pierce Emphemera but I thought it was interesting enough to share.
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Blair by name but Brosnan by face?
Most people would be unlikely to confuse Tony Blair and Pierce Brosnan.
After all, one's the Prime Minister, and the other's handsome. But the difference between Blair and Bond is not so easy to spot when their faces are morphed together, scientists revealed.
At different points as the image changes shape it might be seen as a more suave-looking Tony Blair, or a less fetching version of Pierce Brosnan.
That is because however mixed two faces are, the brain attempts to pin a single familiar identity to them.
Researchers at University College London (UCL) demonstrated the phenomenon by showing volunteers pictures of morphed celebrity faces.
The same pattern was seen when footballer David Beckham became Hollywood star Danny DeVito, and when former PM Margaret Thatcher's face was transformed into that of Marilyn Monroe using a computer to blend the images.
Dr Pia Rotshtein, from UCL's Institute of Neurology, said: "Our study shows that the brain tries to force us to pin a single identity on a face, even if it looks like a mix of two people we know.
So a face that is 60% Marilyn Monroe and 40% Margaret Thatcher will be identified as an older version of Marilyn Monroe, while an image which is 40% Marilyn Monroe and 60% Margaret Thatcher will be seen as the sexier side of Margaret Thatcher."
Scans showed that the volunteers used three different parts of their brains in a step-by-step process when analysing faces. If one of these steps break down, as in some forms of dementia, people can lose their ability to identify others.
The findings, reported in the online issue of the journal Nature Neuroscience, may help scientists find new ways of treating people with "face-blindness", who cannot recognise faces.
-------------------------------------------------
Guardian: How we recognise faces
Tim Radford, science editor
Monday December 13, 2004
You'd know that face anywhere? Then thank your right fusiform gyrus. Scientists have identified the bits of the brain that can tell Tony Blair from James Bond, or whether Lady Thatcher has borrowed Marilyn Monroe's hairstyle.
Pia Rotshtein of the institute of neurology at University College London and colleagues used sophisticated scanning equipment to monitor the brains of volunteers while they watched Marilyn Monroe morph into Margaret Thatcher and the current prime minister turn into Pierce Brosnan.
The experiment, reported in the online edition of Nature Neuroscience today, pinpoints the three parts of the brain that light up in face recognition. One bit studies the physical aspects, one identifies the face as known or unknown, and the third retrieves the name or other facts linked to that face. The study helps explain that nagging feeling that you know a face, but cannot place it.
"Recognising people is an essential skill we often take for granted," Ms Rotshtein said. "Most of us are able to recognise someone even if we haven't bumped into them for 10 years."
Humans can remember up to 10,000 faces. In experiments, 35 years after leaving school, people have proved able to identify 90% of their classmates.
Using functional magnetic resonance imaging, the scientists found that the anterior temporal cortex became more active when the volunteers knew their celebrity well, but was hardly active at all in a Polish volunteer who was shown a photograph of John Major, the prime minister from 1990 until 1997.
The right fusiform gyrus, located just behind the ears, lit up when volunteers looked at a somewhat changed face and compared what they saw to stored memories. And the inferior occipital gyri located at the back of the brain were sensitive to slight physical changes in the morphed faces.
Ms Rotshtein worked with morphed studies of familiar faces. The challenge was to see how the brain matched an identity to a significantly changed face.
"Our study shows the brain tries to force us to pin a single identity to a face. So a face that is 60% Marilyn Monroe but 40% Margaret Thatcher will be identified as an older version of Monroe, while an image 40% Monroe and 60% Thatcher will be seen as the sexier side of Thatcher."
Damage to any of the three parts of the brain precipitates a crisis of recognition. Dementia patients with damage to the anterior temporal cortex have a problem finding the name to go with the face, while people with epilepsy triggered by the right fusiform gyrus sometimes believe different faces belong to the same person, says Jon Driver of the institute of cognitive neuroscience at UCL, one of the research team.
=================================
Personality changes show how we put name to face
By Roger Highfield , Science Editor
(Filed: 13/12/2004)
By morphing the faces of Lady Thatcher into Marilyn Monroe, and Tony Blair into the former James Bond actor Pierce Brosnan, scientists have discovered how our brains recognise a face, and how they detect the effects of plastic surgery.
The findings might help scientists treat people with "face-blindness'', who are unable to recognise others.
Margaret Thatcher morphs into Marilyn Monroe: face-recognition is performed by three areas of the brain
People use three different brain regions in a step-by-step process to analyse a face, according to a brain scanner study published yesterday in the journal Nature Neuroscience by Pia Rotshtein and colleagues from University College London.
The first scrutinises its physical aspects, the second forces it into a known or unknown category and the third retrieves facts about a known face, such as a name. If one of these steps breaks down, which can happen in dementia or after a stroke, people can lose their ability to recognise others.
Tony Blair morphs into Pierce Brosnan
As volunteers were presented with a series of images, starting with a face of one famous person that transformed into another, "their behavioural responses indicate that we tend to pin a single identity to a face, even if it looks like a mix of two people we know", said Ms Rotshtein. "Using a brain scan the team demonstrated that this process is mediated by a region called the fusiform gyrus.
"A face that is 60 per cent Marilyn Monroe and 40 per cent Margaret Thatcher will be identified as an older version of Monroe, while an image which is 40 per cent Monroe and 60 per cent Thatcher will be seen as the sexier side of Thatcher."
When shown the faces, volunteers' brains were primarily active in three areas. The inferior occipital gyri, at the back of the brain, sensed slight changes in the morphed faces, and can detect the hand of the cosmetic surgeon.
The right fusiform gyrus, behind the ears, was more active for images where the physical change in the image now also led to a change in perceived identity (for example, when Mr Blair became Brosnan).
"Healthy function of this will guarantee that, even after plastic surgery, our close acquaintance will still recognise us," said Ms Rotshtein. Finally, there was activity in the anterior temporal cortex, which stores facts about known people.
One of the team, Prof Jon Driver, said previous studies had found that damage to these areas of the brain could result in the loss of one's ability to identify people. "Prosopagnosia or 'face-blindness' is a rare condition where the brain is unable to process faces normally, and is linked to damage in these regions," he said.
"Recognising people is an essential social skill that we often take for granted," said Ms Rotshtein.
====================================
Blair by name but Brosnan by face?
Most people would be unlikely to confuse Tony Blair and Pierce Brosnan.
After all, one's the Prime Minister, and the other's handsome. But the difference between Blair and Bond is not so easy to spot when their faces are morphed together, scientists revealed.
At different points as the image changes shape it might be seen as a more suave-looking Tony Blair, or a less fetching version of Pierce Brosnan.
That is because however mixed two faces are, the brain attempts to pin a single familiar identity to them.
Researchers at University College London (UCL) demonstrated the phenomenon by showing volunteers pictures of morphed celebrity faces.
The same pattern was seen when footballer David Beckham became Hollywood star Danny DeVito, and when former PM Margaret Thatcher's face was transformed into that of Marilyn Monroe using a computer to blend the images.
Dr Pia Rotshtein, from UCL's Institute of Neurology, said: "Our study shows that the brain tries to force us to pin a single identity on a face, even if it looks like a mix of two people we know.
So a face that is 60% Marilyn Monroe and 40% Margaret Thatcher will be identified as an older version of Marilyn Monroe, while an image which is 40% Marilyn Monroe and 60% Margaret Thatcher will be seen as the sexier side of Margaret Thatcher."
Scans showed that the volunteers used three different parts of their brains in a step-by-step process when analysing faces. If one of these steps break down, as in some forms of dementia, people can lose their ability to identify others.
The findings, reported in the online issue of the journal Nature Neuroscience, may help scientists find new ways of treating people with "face-blindness", who cannot recognise faces.
-------------------------------------------------
Guardian: How we recognise faces
Tim Radford, science editor
Monday December 13, 2004
You'd know that face anywhere? Then thank your right fusiform gyrus. Scientists have identified the bits of the brain that can tell Tony Blair from James Bond, or whether Lady Thatcher has borrowed Marilyn Monroe's hairstyle.
Pia Rotshtein of the institute of neurology at University College London and colleagues used sophisticated scanning equipment to monitor the brains of volunteers while they watched Marilyn Monroe morph into Margaret Thatcher and the current prime minister turn into Pierce Brosnan.
The experiment, reported in the online edition of Nature Neuroscience today, pinpoints the three parts of the brain that light up in face recognition. One bit studies the physical aspects, one identifies the face as known or unknown, and the third retrieves the name or other facts linked to that face. The study helps explain that nagging feeling that you know a face, but cannot place it.
"Recognising people is an essential skill we often take for granted," Ms Rotshtein said. "Most of us are able to recognise someone even if we haven't bumped into them for 10 years."
Humans can remember up to 10,000 faces. In experiments, 35 years after leaving school, people have proved able to identify 90% of their classmates.
Using functional magnetic resonance imaging, the scientists found that the anterior temporal cortex became more active when the volunteers knew their celebrity well, but was hardly active at all in a Polish volunteer who was shown a photograph of John Major, the prime minister from 1990 until 1997.
The right fusiform gyrus, located just behind the ears, lit up when volunteers looked at a somewhat changed face and compared what they saw to stored memories. And the inferior occipital gyri located at the back of the brain were sensitive to slight physical changes in the morphed faces.
Ms Rotshtein worked with morphed studies of familiar faces. The challenge was to see how the brain matched an identity to a significantly changed face.
"Our study shows the brain tries to force us to pin a single identity to a face. So a face that is 60% Marilyn Monroe but 40% Margaret Thatcher will be identified as an older version of Monroe, while an image 40% Monroe and 60% Thatcher will be seen as the sexier side of Thatcher."
Damage to any of the three parts of the brain precipitates a crisis of recognition. Dementia patients with damage to the anterior temporal cortex have a problem finding the name to go with the face, while people with epilepsy triggered by the right fusiform gyrus sometimes believe different faces belong to the same person, says Jon Driver of the institute of cognitive neuroscience at UCL, one of the research team.
=================================
Personality changes show how we put name to face
By Roger Highfield , Science Editor
(Filed: 13/12/2004)
By morphing the faces of Lady Thatcher into Marilyn Monroe, and Tony Blair into the former James Bond actor Pierce Brosnan, scientists have discovered how our brains recognise a face, and how they detect the effects of plastic surgery.
The findings might help scientists treat people with "face-blindness'', who are unable to recognise others.
Margaret Thatcher morphs into Marilyn Monroe: face-recognition is performed by three areas of the brain
People use three different brain regions in a step-by-step process to analyse a face, according to a brain scanner study published yesterday in the journal Nature Neuroscience by Pia Rotshtein and colleagues from University College London.
The first scrutinises its physical aspects, the second forces it into a known or unknown category and the third retrieves facts about a known face, such as a name. If one of these steps breaks down, which can happen in dementia or after a stroke, people can lose their ability to recognise others.
Tony Blair morphs into Pierce Brosnan
As volunteers were presented with a series of images, starting with a face of one famous person that transformed into another, "their behavioural responses indicate that we tend to pin a single identity to a face, even if it looks like a mix of two people we know", said Ms Rotshtein. "Using a brain scan the team demonstrated that this process is mediated by a region called the fusiform gyrus.
"A face that is 60 per cent Marilyn Monroe and 40 per cent Margaret Thatcher will be identified as an older version of Monroe, while an image which is 40 per cent Monroe and 60 per cent Thatcher will be seen as the sexier side of Thatcher."
When shown the faces, volunteers' brains were primarily active in three areas. The inferior occipital gyri, at the back of the brain, sensed slight changes in the morphed faces, and can detect the hand of the cosmetic surgeon.
The right fusiform gyrus, behind the ears, was more active for images where the physical change in the image now also led to a change in perceived identity (for example, when Mr Blair became Brosnan).
"Healthy function of this will guarantee that, even after plastic surgery, our close acquaintance will still recognise us," said Ms Rotshtein. Finally, there was activity in the anterior temporal cortex, which stores facts about known people.
One of the team, Prof Jon Driver, said previous studies had found that damage to these areas of the brain could result in the loss of one's ability to identify people. "Prosopagnosia or 'face-blindness' is a rare condition where the brain is unable to process faces normally, and is linked to damage in these regions," he said.
"Recognising people is an essential social skill that we often take for granted," said Ms Rotshtein.