The aim of this article is to reinterpret the results obtained from the research analyzing the role played by spatial frequencies in face perception. Two main working lines have been explored in this body of research: (a) the critical bandwidth of spatial frequencies that allows face recognition to take place (the masking approach) and (b) the role played by different spatial frequencies while the visual percept is being developed (the microgenetic approach). However, results obtained to date are not satisfactory in that no single explanation accounts for all the data obtained from each of the approaches. We propose that the main factor for understanding the role of spatial frequencies in face perception depends on the interaction between the demands of the task and the information in the image (the diagnostic-recognition approach). Using this new framework, we review the most significant research carried out since the early 1970s to provide a reinterpretation of the data obtained. person/machine interfaces in the near future. The importance of this process has motivated the study of these underlying mechanisms for more than three decades. However, after so much effort, there is still no theory that offers a full explanation of all the results obtained.The research aimed at providing an explanation of the face-recognition process is basically focused on three approaches: cognitive, psychophysical and neurophysiological (see Table 1).The cognitive approach has tried to identify the variables that affect successful perceptual tasks (similarity of stimuli, observation time, level of processing, etc.) and to describe as far as possible the different stages in the process in order to generate a high-level symbolic explanatory model

Research on face recognition and social judgment usually addresses the manipulation of facial features (eyes, nose, mouth, etc.). Using a procedure based on a Stroop-like task, Montepare and Opeyo (J Nonverbal Behav 26(1):43-59, 2002) established a hierarchy of the relative salience of cues based on facial attributes when differentiating faces. Using the same perceptual interference task, we established a hierarchy of facial features. Twenty-three participants (13 men and 10 women) volunteered for the experiment to compare pairs of frontal faces. The participants had to judge if the eyes, nose, mouth and chin in the pair of images were the same or different. The factors manipulated were the target-distractive factor (4 face components 9 3 distractive factors), interference (absent vs. present) and correct answer (the same vs. different). The analysis of reaction times and errors showed that the eyes and mouth were processed before the chin and nose, thus highlighting the critical importance of the eyes and mouth, as shown by previous research.

Language extinction is a widespread social phenomenon affecting several million people throughout the world today. By the end of this century, more than 5100 of the approximately 6000 languages currently spoken around the world will have disappeared. This is mainly because of language shifts, i.e., because a community of speakers stops using their traditional language and speaks a new one in all communication settings. In this study, the authors present the properties of a cellular automaton that incorporates some assumptions from the Gaelic-Arvanitika model of language shifts and the findings on the dynamics of social impacts in the field of social psychology. To assess the cellular automaton, the authors incorporate empirical data from Valencia (a region in Southern Europe), where Catalan speakers are tending to shift towards using Spanish. Running the automaton under different scenarios, the survival or extinction of Catalan in Valencia depends on individuals’ engagement with their language. The authors discuss how a cellular automata theory approach proves to be a useful tool for understanding the language shift.

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