Understanding face recognition with an interactive activation model

Abstract

In this paper we describe how the microstructure of the Bruce & Young (1986) functional model of face recognition may be explored and extended using an interactive activation implementation. A simulation of the recognition of familiarity of individuals is developed which accounts for a range of published findings on the effects of semantic priming, repetition priming and distinctiveness. Finally, we offer some speculative predictions made by the model, and point to an empirical programme of research which it suggests.

N200, N250r, and N400 Event-Related Brain Potentials Reveal Three Loci of Repetition Priming for Familiar Names.

“…The present data do not suggest differences between N400 responses for cross-modality and within-modality priming. This result appears to be in some contrast to the findings mentioned above and seems to support the idea that semantic information about people is stored independent of the precise perceptual input (Burton et al, 1990;Schweinberger, 1996). However, a different pattern of results for objects and common names as compared with faces and personal names is not necessarily in strong contradiction, because evidence exists for a neuropsychological dissociation of semantic memory for common words and objects versus semantic memory for unique items (e.g., faces, personal names, or famous landmarks; Kartsounis & Shallice, 1996) or people (Hanley, Young, & Pearson, 1989).…”

“…Through the second experiment, we have been able to isolate this correlate of semantic memory retrieval from ERP effects that we suggest are related to form-specific and abstractive priming. The IAC model of person recognition (Burton et al, 1990(Burton et al, , 1999 proposes that modality-specific representations (e.g., FRUs or NRUs) must be activated before semantic information about a person is accessed (via a common route). Consistent with this model, we have found ERP evidence for a modalityspecific processing stage that is qualitatively different from later semantic processes.…”

Robust representations for face recognition: The power of averages

“…Such units were intended as analogous to logogens (Morton, 1969), and were present in many precursors of the Bruce & Young model (e.g. Hay & Young, 1982;Ellis, 1986), as well as descendents of it (Brédart, Valentine, Calder & Gassi, 1995;Burton, Bruce & Johnston, 1990;Hanley, 1995. These units have been recruited in explanations of a very wide range of phenomena, for example patterns of priming (Ellis, Young & Flude, 1990;Ellis, Flude, Young & Burton, 1996;Schweinberger, 1996;Young, Hellawell & de Haan, 1988), cross modal person recognition (Hanley & Turner, 2000;Schweinberger, Herholz & Stief, 1997) and certain characteristics of prosopagnosia (Burton, Young, Bruce, Johnston & Ellis, 1991;de Haan, Young & Newcombe, 1987;Young & Burton, 1999).…”

The Neuropsychology of Familiar Person Recognition from Face and Voice

“…This review (Gainotti, 2007) has been conducted making reference, on one hand to the cognitive model of face recognition, proposed by Bruce & Young (1986), and, on the other hand, to the Interaction Activation and Competition (IAC) model of people recognition proposed by Burton, Bruce & Johnston (1990) and developed by Bredart, Valentine, Caldor & Gassi (1995), Valentine, Brennen & Bredart (1996) and Burton, Bruce & Hancock (1999), because these models make different predictions with respect to the locus of generation of familiarity feelings and to the module where personal semantic knowledge is stored. In the Bruce & Young (1986), model (a) familiarity feelings are generated in the Recognition Units and (b) personal semantic is stored in PINs, considered as specific semantic archives, whereas in the IAC model, familiarity feelings are linked to the PINs, considered as a modality-free gateway, allowing access to a unitary semantic system, where person-specific semantic information is stored in an abstract and amodal format.…”