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Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University's objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide.

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Print Price: $119.99

Format:
Paperback
317 pp.
165 b/w illustrations, 189 mm x 246 mm

ISBN-13:
9780199235704

Copyright Year:
2011

Imprint: OUP UK


Face Processing

Psychological, Neuropsychological, and Applied Perspectives

Dr. Graham Hole and Dr. Victoria Bourne

How do we recognise familiar faces?
What factors determine facial attractiveness?
How does face processing develop in infants and children?
Why do face reconstruction systems, such as Photofit and E-Fit, produce such poor likenesses of the original face?

Face Processing: psychological, neuropsychological and applied perspectives is the first major textbook for 20 years that seeks to answer questions like these. Drawing on the most recent research in the field, and organised around the three main research perspectives - psychological, neuropsychological, and applied - it provides insights on issues of relevance to students from a wide range of disciplines.

Face recognition and expression perception have generated a large amount of research over the last decade, and with high profile media coverage of related issues, such as the misidentification of Brazilian student, Jean Charles de Menezes, face processing is a hot topic within the study of psychology. Face Processing captures the excitement in the field, and with reference to a wealth of studies and real-world phenomena, it reveals how our understanding of face processing has developed over the years.

The first section of the book, on the psychological perspectives of face processing, considers how we are able to recognise familiar faces; how we can extract information such as emotion, sex and age from a face; and how face processing abilities develop.

The second section covers the neuropsychological perspectives, and examines the disorders of face recognition that arise following brain injury, and asks whether faces are a 'special' class of visual stimuli.

Finally, a section on the applied perspectives of face processing describes face reconstruction systems, such as Identikit and Photofit, and their limitations; it discusses methods of constructing facial composites, and the phenomenon of 'verbal overshadowing', whereby verbal descriptions of visual stimuli subsequently leads to a temporary impairment in people's ability to recognise those stimuli.

Assuming no prior knowledge of the subject, this book is the perfect resource for students studying face processing as part of a psychology degree, and the breadth of its coverage makes it of relevance to computer science students, medical students with an interest in neurology, and students of forensic science, too.

The Online Resource Centre to accompany Face Processing: psychological, neuropsychological, and applied perspectives features the following resources for lecturers and students.

For registered adopters
* Figures from the book available to download

For students
* Hyperlinks to primary literature articles
* Web link library

Readership : Upper level undergraduates studying face processing as part of a psychology or neuroscience degree, and beginning graduate psychology students. The breadth of topics covered also makes the material of relevance to students on computer science degree programmes; medical students with an interest in neurology; and students of forensic science.

Reviews

  • "I don't believe there is a text that is comparable."

    --Dr Melissa A. Lea, Millsaps College, US
  • "This book provides the most comprehensive and clearly written coverage of face perception that I have read to date."

    --Dr Graham Pike, Department of Psychology,The Open University
  • "Contains one of the most complete and understandable chapters on eye witness that I am aware of."

    --Dr Olivier Pascalis, Department of Psychology, University of Sheffield

Introduction
I: Psychological Perspectives
1. Models of human face processing
2. The nature of facial representations
3. Processing emotional expression
4. Faces as social stimuli
5. The development of face processing - part i, infants
6. The development of face processing - part ii, childhood
6. Clinical neuropsychology of face recognition
7. Clinical neuropsychology of face recognition
8. Developmental neuropsychological disorders of face processing
9. The cognitive neuroscience of face processing
10. Are faces special?
10. Technology and face processing
11. Eyewitness identification evidence, and recognition of unfamiliar faces
12. Own-group biases in face recognition
13. Technology and facial identification
Discussion

Online Resource Centre

Graham Hole is a senior lecturer at the University of Sussex. He has been researching face processing since 1994, and is the author or co-author of numerous journal articles on the topic. Most of his work has centred around investigating the nature of the 'configural' processing that we routinely use in order to recognize faces. Other interests include the development of face processing in children; the neuropsychology of face recognition; and how we estimate a person's age on the basis of their face. Victoria Bourne has been a lecturer at the University of Dundee since 2005. Her research interests centre around the development and determinants of cerebral hemispheric differences in cognitive processing, with particular expertise in the neural lateralisation of face recognition and the perception of emotional expression. Recently she was the guest editor of a special issue of the journal Laterality, on changes in emotional lateralisation throughout childhood.

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Special Features

  • The first definitive textbook on face processing for 20 years, published due to strong demand.
  • Unique combination of psychological, neuropsychological and applied perspectives gives the book a truly balanced feel.
  • Clear, accessible style that will appeal to students from a variety of disciplines.
  • Key point summaries and suggested further reading for each chapter helps consolidate and support students' learning.
  • Extensive use of figures illustrate key points and findings throughout.