The Fusiform Face Area, Human Image of Face - Research Proposal Example

The Fusiform Face Area: Our Brain’s Face Detector The purpose of this study is to find out if the fusiform area of the brain is responsible for facial recognition. Underpinning this study is the article that suggests that face perception has been strongly linked to a particular functionality specificity implying that it is a process that takes place through neuro-mechanisms and specialized cognitive mechanisms that are solely dedicated to taking part in facial perception (Kanwisher, McDermott & Chun, 1997). The study will involve manipulation of human images of faces and houses. The house pictures used here will act as the control experiment. The study subjects will be asked to press button in recognition of both the face and house images. It is, therefore, predictable that the study subjects will be more responsive to face stimuli than house stimuli thus confirming that the Fusiform area of the brain is responsible for facial recognition. Rationale for the research Various studies have been carried out in a bid to found out the part of brain that recognises faces and many are focusing in substantiating that the fusiform area of the brain performs such functions. Therefore, the focus of this study will be to find out if the fusiform region of the brain is actually responsible for facial recognition. The importance of this study stems from the fact that face perception has been strongly linked to a particular functionality specificity implying that it is a process that takes place through neuro-mechanisms and specialized cognitive mechanisms that are solely dedicated to taking part in facial perception (Kanwisher, McDermott & Chun, 1997). On the other hand, the research is important because facial perception is crucial in peoples daily lives. Besides, there have been computation challenges in face recognition because scientists and other experts are considering developing some neural-like hardware that will be dedicated to such functions. Therefore, the research seeks to shade some light on the issue to add to the existing research on the possibility of using the brains fusiform mechanism to recognize faces. Underpinning this study is the literature that suggests that faces are undoubtedly the most crucial aspect of the visual stimuli that enable humans to perceive and also inform then not only of people’s identity but also their sex, mood, age, and direction of their gaze (Kanwisher, McDermott & Chun, 1997). On the other hand, the ability to extract the facial information within seconds is imperative for the normal social interactions and has also played a significant role in the survival of other primates. Nonetheless, the study draws from a considerable evidence of neurophysiological, behavioral and neuropsychological that supports that humans have specialized neural and cognitive mechanisms that are actually dedicated to face perception (Kanwisher, McDermott & Chun, 1997). Therefore, the aim of the research will be to find out if indeed the region of the brain, fusiform area, plays the role of face recognition. One of the most debatable issues in neuroscience is the extent to which the brain possesses certain cognitive functions that are embedded in discrete regions and are specialized for specific tasks. The current debate was discussed in a literature that presumed that modern researchers have recognized that there is a single region in the brain that may participate in one or more functions (Gauthier, Skudlarski, Gore JC, Anderson, 2000). According to Gauthier, Skudlarski, Gore and Anderson (2000), despite the widespread viewpoint that the all the complex cognitive functions take places through overlapping and distributed neural networks, there is enough evidence to substantiate that the complex cognitive function of the brain, face perception, occurs the brain’s specialized cortical network. Therefore, the literature supports the hypothesis that the fusiform face area is the region in the brain that is solely responsible for facial recognition. In this regard, the evidence from the few literature of reference is enough to substantiate the need to carry out a research that will try to determine if the fusiform face area is actually responsible for human’s facial recognition. To carry out the experiment, participants, mainly students in this case, will be presented with house and face stimuli so as to test the hypothesis that the FFA is responsible for facial recognition. The use of house pictures will act to different if the participants respond differently to non-human faces and the differences will form the basis for concluding that the FFA region is more receptive to human faces and can recognize even the expressions. The study will construct the house stimuli the same as the facial stimuli. In this case, the faces and houses will differ in parts, mouth and eyes for faces and doors and windows for the houses. The participants will, therefore, perform discrimination tasks on the pairs of houses and faces to get the difference in parts. In effect, the facial and house discrimination is much similar to the perceptual discrimination that the research anticipates achieving. The study predicts that there will be higher FFA response for the face materials or tasks than for the house materials or tasks. Therefore, the findings will provide the strong support for the hypothesis that FFA conducts domain-general processing of the facial configuration, as supported by to Gauthier, Skudlarski, Gore and Anderson (2000). Method Participants As part of a research methodology, sampling is a method that entails assigning tasks to the participants thus the study will rely on random sampling. The implication is that random sampling technique presents least biases issues since the population has equal chances of being selected for the study. Therefore, the study will entirely use students as the standard participants, and all of them will be undergraduate students who must be enrolled in the Cognitive Lab that as the focus of the experiment. Besides, the study will use both female and males to run the study conditions where they will be presented with face and house pictures. In each condition, a participant will be asked to press a button if an image of a face is either a male or female and also identify the expression. Each condition will run for 4 minutes where the participants are given 5 seconds to press a button in recognition of a face or a picture. To get valid and reliable results for analysis, the study seeks to recruit around 23 participants taking part in 4 conditions of face and house recognition. In this case, the participants will have to press the button to identify 60 pictures of faces of 30 males and females and also 60 pictures of houses, each with different locations for windows and distances separating them. In each of the conditions, there will be 30 pictures per condition with both the controlled and uncontrolled experiment conditions. The experiment will expose the participants to each condition where the five groups of the participants will handle each condition for both the experiment and the controls. Controls, in this case, are the house pictures that will help in determining if the independent variable, facial recognition, changes with human faces or the house pictures. Materials As explained above, the study will use two stimuli; the face pictures and pictures of the houses. The face pictures will contain both male and female but with different expressions. However, to get the pictures, the participants will be asked, for each condition, for their pictures to be taken while being instructed to make faces for each identified expression. On the other hand, the experiment will use pictures of the houses as the control stimuli. In this regard, the same number of house pictures, 60 pictures, will be used so as to provide the exact control for the dependent variable, the face recognition. Experiment conditions The experiment will note the changes as the study subjects perform the face perception tasks; by pressing button in response to human faces and also alternating the process with image perception task where they will press the button in response to house pictures. Each and every participant will be given 4 minutes to recognize the thirty pictures for each experiment condition with 15 facial pictures and 15 house pictures. There will be 4 conditions for the experiment. However, to avoid the subject getting tired of the whole process, it will be imperative only to treat them to one experimental condition. Therefore, in total, the face stimuli will be 60 in total and will be non-repeated. On the other hand, the study will treat the subjects to some stimuli, not related to the experiment, before entering the laboratory so as to accustom themselves with the experiment. Procedures After completing a rehearsal of the stimuli recognition before entering the laboratory, the participants will be ushered into the laboratory and instructed accordingly to take part in the stimuli recognition. Each condition will have at least thirty pictures and both equal numbers for faces and houses. The large number used in each condition is to save time as using many conditions will imply that there will be more time required for all the 23 participants to take part in the stimuli recognition. Therefore, after entering the room, the first instruction will entail explaining to the subjects how to press buttons in response to stimuli. For each picture, the respondents will be instructed to take five seconds to recognize the stimuli and press the button for recognition. In this case, the independent variables will be the pictures while the dependent variable will be the face recognition or the face perception. The five seconds will be enough time to measure and record how the study participants react to the pictures given. For the control experiment, the pictures of the houses, it will be imperative to record if the faces are more reactive to the house pictures or if at all are more responsive to human faces than the latter. The experiment will entirely rely on the manipulation of the pictures to note how the participants’ perceptions change. In this regard, the house pictures will be manipulated by changing the distance between them or by changing doors and windows positions so as to ask the participants if at all they notice the changes. On the other hand, the face pictures will be manipulated by introducing different facial expressions and also interchanging the male and female faces. The study will mostly prefer random assigning of the study participants to the experimental conditions as it has the advantage of minimizing bias and also increasing accuracy. Predictions The results will be used to test the hypothesis that the fusiform area of the brain is region responsible for the cognitive function of recognizing faces. To analyze the data, the recordings made by observing how the study participants respond to faces by pressing button will act as the result of the study that will be carefully organized to draw any possible inferences and conclusions. The data will be analyzed by crossing checking the results from the four conditions. However, to test the hypothesis, it will be imperative to note the differences in the responses to both stimuli. The most predictable result is that the participants will be more responsive to human face stimuli than the house stimuli used as the control experiment. Therefore, the result will conclude that the fusiform are of the brain is exclusively responsive to human faces and can recognize facial expressions as evident from the study experiment. References Kanwisher N., McDermott, J., & Chun, M.M. (Jun 1, 1997). The fusiform face area: a module in human extrastriate cortex specialized for face perception. J Neurosci. 17(11), 430211. PMID 9151747. Gauthier I., Skudlarski P., Gore J.C., & Anderson, A.W. (Feb 2000). Expertise for cars and birds recruits brain areas involved in face recognition. Nat Neurosci. 3(2), 1917. doi:10.1038/72140. PMID 10649576. Appendix Face and House Images The predictable outcome Read More