May 2012
Beginner
272 pages
6h 8m
English
Imagine that you’re walking down a busy street in a large city when you suddenly see the face of a family member. Even if you were not expecting to see this person, and even if there are dozens or even hundreds of people in your visual field, you will immediately recognize him or her as your relative. You’ll also have an accompanying emotional response, be it love, hate, fear, or otherwise.
Although the visual cortex is huge and takes up significant brain resources, there is an additional part of the brain whose sole purpose is to recognize faces. Identified by Nancy Kanwisher (1997), the fusiform face area (FFA) allows faces to bypass the brain’s usual interpretive channels and ...
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