What represents a face? A computational approach for the integration of physiological and psychological data.
Empirical studies of face recognition suggest that faces might be stored in memory by means of a few canonical representations. The nature of these canonical representations is, however, unclear. Although psychological data show a three-quarter-view advantage, physiological studies suggest profile and frontal views are stored in memory. A computational approach to reconcile these findings is proposed. The pattern of results obtained when different views, or combinations of views, are used as the internal representation of a two-stage identification network consisting of an autoassociative memory followed by a radial-basis-function network are compared. Results show that (i) a frontal and a profile view are sufficient to reach the optimal network performance; and (ii) all the different representations produce a three-quarter view advantage, similar to that generally described for human subjects. These results indicate that although three-quarter views yield better recognition than other views, they need not be stored in memory to show this advantage.
Valentin
D
D
School of Human Development, University of Texas at Dallas, Richardson 75083-0688, USA.
Abdi
H
H
Edelman
B
B
D003198:Computer Simulation; D005145:Face; D005556:Form Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D006801:Humans; D007091:Image Processing, Computer-Assisted; D008568:Memory / Q000502:physiology*