Exploring Recognition with Interchanged Facial Features

Abstract

Any attempt to unravel the mechanism underlying the process of human face recognition must begin with experiments that explore human sensitivity to differences between a perceived image and an original memory trace. A set of three consecutive experiments are reported that were collectively designed to measure the relative importance of different facial features. The method involved the use of image-processing equipment to interchange cardinal features among frontally viewed target faces. Observers were required to indicate which of the original target faces most resembled the modified faces. The results clearly establish the dominant influence of the head outline as the major recognition feature. Next in importance is the eye/eyebrow combination, followed by the mouth, and then the nose. As a recognition feature in a frontally presented face, the nose is hardly noticed. The number of apparently random responses to some faces indicates that a surprisingly different face can sometimes arise from a fortuitous combination of the old features.

A study in facial regions saliency: a fuzzy measure approach

“…It was shown by O'Donnell and Bruce (2001) that people are highly sensitive to changes in the eye region when they are familiarized with. Other results confirm the significance of the upper half of face (Haig 1986) and eyebrows. In experiment described by Sadr et al (2003), subjects recognized the faces of celebrities with removed eyebrows significantly worse than the faces without eyes (with the mean difference of 9.5 %).…”

“…Changes of foreheads, eyes and mouths caused the lowest error rates made by subjects. Similar results were presented in Haig (1986) and Matthews (1978) where the observers indicated that eye/eyebrows followed by mouth and then nose were the most dominant regions as the recognition features (taking into account internal features only). It was shown by O'Donnell and Bruce (2001) that people are highly sensitive to changes in the eye region when they are familiarized with.…”

Relative Contributions of Internal and External Features to Face Recognition

“…By measuring reaction-time changes caused by the omission or substitution of facial features in schematic linedrawn faces, Fraser et al (1) reproduced previous findings by Haig (2) with photographic images that certain features are more important to face recognition than others. In particular, a feature hierarchy was observed with the head outline as the most significant, followed by the eyes, mouth and then nose.…”

Deficits in face perception in the amnestic form of mild cognitive impairment

“…Adult humans can recognize and remember faces from the eyes alone and experiments assessing the relative importance of different features for face recognition have consistently shown the dominance of the eye/eyebrow combination [43][44][45][46][47]. This may reflect several factors.…”