The process of recognizing faces

Running head: WEEK 4 DISCUSSION PHD 2

 

WEEK 4 DISCUSSION PHD 2

 

 

 

 

 

Week 4 Discussion Phd

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The process of recognizing faces

Fae recognition is a procedure of identifying and confirming people’s identities through their faces. Face recognition is made possible through a region known as the brain’s temporal lobe. The temporal lobe can recognize faces. The neurons in the temporal lobe respond to specific features of the ace. Individuals suffering from a condition that damages the temporal lobe lose the ability to recognize and identify familiar faces (Freberg, 2019). The individuals suffer from prosopagnosia or face blindness. Face blindness affects people from birth, and there is a high chance that individuals might have them for the rest of their life.

Face recognition is also linked to consciousness, making it possible to recollect and identify visual information. However, for individuals with face blindsight, unconscious residual visual abilities affect the ability to recollect and identify visual information consciously. Consciousness is linked to the ability to describe color and shape successfully (Fendrich et al., 2001). However, blindsight affects this ability, making it impossible to describe the movement and recognize facial emotions.

Blindsight is considered a residual visual function when conscious awareness is lacking. It is common in the scotomas of clients with lesions to the primary visual cortex. Blindsight is common within the smaller island of the residual visual function (Fendrich et al., 2001). Therefore, the ability to recognize faces by the vestiges of the geniculostriate function.

How to test individuals complaining of not remembering people to see the type of challenge they have

Individuals the facial blindness experiences the challenge of recognizing people’s faces and even that of their families. Therefore, sometimes they get blamed for their lack of attention to other people. It is a challenge to discover losing the ability to recognize yourself even in the mirror, like in the video case evidence provided (CBS News, 2012). Therefore, to ensure that these people are assisted and to confirm their claims, suitable test procedures can be relied on in ruling out or confirming such claims.

The test for the individuals on whether they are correct when complaining of having forgotten some people can be achieved by using various faces in an experiment targeting their ability to recognize faces (Freberg, 2019). In this procedure, famous faces can be used, making them recognize them. The faces can then be turned down to determine their face recognition abilities.

During such a procedure, when the appearance of the faces is changed, the neurons in the temporal lobe produce less activity. Changing the faces of people upside down is sometimes difficult to recognize, even for individuals with no facial blindness. The above procedures are always performed by neurologists who help assess and evaluate the individual’s ability to recognize facial features. The evaluation activities assess the ability of the individual to recognize faces they have never seen or the faces of the family (Freberg, 2019). The person is made to recognize the differences and similarities of the facial features in all the sets of faces provided. They are evaluated based on the ability to detect the emotional cues from the face and assess the information, such as age or gender, from the set of faces provided.

The test can also be performed using other procedures such as Warrington Recognition Memory of Face (RMF). These are two critical tests that physicians utilize to assess possible facial blindness. The scores from the evaluation using these tests might not entirely be reliable in the diagnosis of facial blindness outright.

 

 

References

CBS News. (2012, March 19). Face Blindness, part 1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dxqsBk7Wn-Y

Fendrich, R., Wessinger, C. M., & Gazzaniga, M. S. (2001). Speculations on the neural basis of islands of blindsight.  Progress in brain research,  134, 353-366.

Freberg, L. (2019). Discovering Behavioral Neuroscience: An Introduction to Biological Psychology (4th ed.). Boston, MA: Cengage Learning, Inc.