Role of eyes in face perception and recognition

眼睛在面部感知和识别中的作用

• 批准号: RGPIN-2017-04638
• 负责人: Itier, Roxane
• 金额: $ 2.84万
• 依托单位: University of Waterloo
• 依托单位国家: 加拿大
• 项目类别: Discovery Grants Program - Individual
• 财政年份: 2019
• 资助国家: 加拿大
• 起止时间: 2019-01-01 至 2020-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nserc-crsng.gc.ca/ase-oro/Details-Detailles_eng.asp?id=687427
• 关键词: Role; eyes; face; perception; recognition

Face processing is one of the most important cognitive functions of the human brain and it is central to social cognition. From faces we can extract numerous information such as the identity of a person, her age, gender, what she might be feeling based on her facial expressions or what she might be attending to based on where she is looking. Although faces are a class of visual objects, accumulating evidence suggests they are processed in a specific way and differently from other objects, with dedicated neural networks specific to the type of information extracted (identity, emotion etc.). It seems effortless to be able to recognise our friends and family members, or to decipher what they could be thinking and feeling by simply looking at their facial expressions. However, these fundamental cognitive abilities rely on very complex neural mechanisms that are still poorly understood. Impairments in these abilities, as seen in certain disorders such as autism, or as the result of brain injury, lead to dysfunctional social interactions, social isolation and lots of suffering. Understanding the neural mechanisms that underlie these cognitive processes in the intact brain is necessary to understand how these abilities go awry or break down in various disorders. My research program investigates the neural mechanisms involved in recognizing faces and facial expressions using eye movement monitoring and neural recordings through electroencephalography. In the short-term, I am focusing on the central role that the eyes play in these mechanisms and whether and how focusing on the eyes can improve the recognition of face identity or the recognition of facial expression of emotion. Project 1 will test the new model of early face perception that we recently developed and will characterize the workings of the neuro-cognitive eye region detector that we showed exists in the human brain. Project 2 will investigate the role of the eyes in the complex processes involved in face recognition while Project 3 will focus on the role of features in the neural processing of facial expressions. This research is important to understand better how these fundamental brain processes go awry in several clinical disorders in which the eyes are often avoided, as in autism. This fundamental research will enhance our current knowledge of brain mechanisms related to face perception, and more broadly vision, and has important clinical implications. Students will receive a multidisciplinary training in Cognitive Neuroscience, spanning the wide fields of perception, cognition and emotion, and will gain unique skills in the use of sophisticated brain and behaviour techniques that they can transfer to industry if they do not continue in academia (e.g. companies specialized in research-oriented devices including EEG and eye-tracking systems, market research companies).

面孔加工是人脑最重要的认知功能之一，是社会认知的核心。从面部我们可以提取大量的信息，如一个人的身份，她的年龄，性别，她可能是基于她的面部表情的感觉，或者她可能是基于她看的地方参加。虽然人脸是一类视觉对象，但越来越多的证据表明，它们是以特定的方式处理的，与其他对象不同，具有特定于提取信息类型（身份，情感等）的专用神经网络。我们似乎毫不费力地就能认出我们的朋友和家人，或者通过简单地观察他们的面部表情来解读他们的想法和感受。然而，这些基本的认知能力依赖于非常复杂的神经机制，这些机制仍然知之甚少。这些能力的损伤，如自闭症等某些疾病，或脑损伤的结果，导致社会互动功能障碍，社会孤立和许多痛苦。了解完整大脑中这些认知过程的神经机制对于了解这些能力如何在各种疾病中出错或崩溃是必要的。我的研究项目是通过眼动监测和脑电图神经记录来研究识别面部和面部表情的神经机制。在短期内，我关注的是眼睛在这些机制中发挥的核心作用，以及关注眼睛是否以及如何提高面部身份识别或面部表情识别。项目1将测试我们最近开发的早期面部感知的新模型，并将描述我们发现存在于人类大脑中的神经认知眼区检测器的工作原理。项目2将研究眼睛在面部识别复杂过程中的作用，而项目3将重点关注面部表情神经处理中特征的作用。这项研究对于更好地理解这些基本的大脑过程是如何在几种临床疾病中出错的非常重要，在这些疾病中，眼睛通常是避免的，比如自闭症。这项基础研究将增强我们目前对与面部感知相关的大脑机制的认识，更广泛地说，视觉，并具有重要的临床意义。学生将接受认知神经科学的多学科培训，涵盖感知，认知和情感的广泛领域，并将获得使用复杂的大脑和行为技术的独特技能，如果他们不继续在学术界（例如专门从事研究型设备的公司，包括EEG和眼动跟踪系统，市场研究公司）。