Three-quarter View Research Articles

The reverse‐caricature effect revisited: Familiarization with frontal facial caricatures improves veridical face recognition

Prior research suggests that recognition of a person's face can be facilitated by exaggerating the distinctive features of the face during training. We tested if this 'reverse-caricature effect' would be robust to procedural variations that created more difficult learning environments. Specifically, we examined whether the effect would emerge with frontal rather than three-quarter views, after very brief exposure to caricatures during the learning phase and after modest rotations of faces during the recognition phase. Results indicate that, even under these difficult training conditions, people are more accurate at recognizing unaltered faces if they are first familiarized with caricatures of the faces, rather than with the unaltered faces. These findings support the development of new training methods to improve face recognition.

Revisional neck surgery

Dr. Pitman: The first patient is a 61-year-old woman who is seeking rejuvenation of her face and neck (Figure 1). Fourteen years ago she underwent a superficial musculoaponeurotic system (SMAS)–platysma face and neck lift and lipoplasty of the neck. Dr. Aston, how would you treat this patient? Figure 1 This 61-year-old woman is seeking rejuvenation of the face and neck. Fourteen years ago she underwent neck lipoplasty and SMAS-platysma face and neck lift. Gerald Pitman, MD Dr. Aston: I see laxity in the lower portion of her face. In the front view, I see prominent labiomandibular folds and platysma laxity under the chin that does not appear to extend down to the first cervical crease. In the three-quarter and profile views, I see some laxity along the jawline and in the jowl area, so she would benefit from a secondary face lift. Sherell J. Aston, MD In the grimace view, there is some weakness of lower lip depressor function on the left evidenced by diminished pull down of the left lower lip and less dental show on the patient's left side. We do not know what work was initially done to her face. However, work on the anterior neck surface with platysma plication, or dissection in that area, could obviously damage the marginal mandibular branch. The damage could have occurred with a lateral platysma SMAS dissection. Dr. Pitman: She had lipoplasty of the anterior neck and lateral SMAS elevation. Dr. Aston: Then I suspect the damage was connected with undermining of the SMAS platysma flap. Dr. Pitman: Would the past injury influence your present approach? Dr. Aston: Not really. I would counsel her, pointing out that she has lower lip weakness along with platysma laxity, making absolutely sure she understood. I would be aware of the weakness when dissecting, but it would …

Matching Faces

Numerous studies have demonstrated an out-group processing deficit for faces of other ethnic groups (“cross-race effect” or “own-race bias”). Most studies have employed Blacks, Asians, and Whites. This study employed a perceptual matching task to investigate the out-group processing deficit with 128 Turkish and 128 Austrian children between the ages of 10 and 15 years studying Turkish and German faces. Participants were required to match a face (in three-quarter view) to the corresponding face in a 2 × 5 matrix of faces (in frontal view). As predicted from Sporer's in-group/out-group model of face processing, there was an asymmetric interaction between ethnicity of participants and ethnicity of faces. Turkish children were faster in matching Turkish faces than were Austrian children, whereas there was no difference for German faces. Older children matched faces faster than younger children. Practical implications for matching of faces to photographs on identification cards or when searching for targets of other ethnic groups are discussed.

Turning the other cheek: the viewpoint dependence of facial expression after-effects

How do we visually encode facial expressions? Is this done by viewpoint-dependent mechanisms representing facial expressions as two-dimensional templates or do we build more complex viewpoint independent three-dimensional representations? Recent facial adaptation techniques offer a powerful way to address these questions. Prolonged viewing of a stimulus (adaptation) changes the perception of subsequently viewed stimuli (an after-effect). Adaptation to a particular attribute is believed to target those neural mechanisms encoding that attribute. We gathered images of facial expressions taken simultaneously from five different viewpoints evenly spread from the three-quarter leftward to the three-quarter rightward facing view. We measured the strength of expression after-effects as a function of the difference between adaptation and test viewpoints. Our data show that, although there is a decrease in after-effect over test viewpoint, there remains a substantial after-effect when adapt and test are at differing three-quarter views. We take these results to indicate that neural systems encoding facial expressions contain a mixture of viewpoint-dependent and viewpoint-independent elements. This accords with evidence from single cell recording studies in macaque and is consonant with a view in which viewpoint-independent expression encoding arises from a combination of view-dependent expression-sensitive responses.

When Faces Are Heads: View-Dependent Recognition of Faces Altered Relationally or Componentially

When faces are viewed from different angles the appearance of facial features undergoes dramatic changes. We investigated two types of 3D-head models in frontal and three-quarter views, varying either in componential information such as different eyes, mouths and noses, or in relational information. Variations of the latter can only be investigated using 3D-head versions. Experiment 1 revealed high costs of transfer in recognition performance when views change, that were similar for both componentially and relationally altered faces. In Experiment 2, whole-to-part superiority was investigated by presenting isolated parts of critical features in addition to the whole face. Recognition of the whole face was only superior when views were identical. The results support the hypothesis of picture-based and view-dependent processing. Thus, there seems to be no efficient view-independent representation, at least for relatively unfamiliar faces.

The 6Th Annual Toronto Breast Surgery Symposium, March 30, 2006, and the 36Th Annual Symposium On: Aesthetic Plastic Surgery, March 31–April 1, 2006

The 6Th Annual Toronto Breast Surgery Symposium, March 30, 2006, and the 36Th Annual Symposium On: Aesthetic Plastic Surgery, March 31–April 1, 2006

Portraits or People? Distinct Representations of Face Identity in the Human Visual Cortex

Humans can identify individual faces under different viewpoints, even after a single encounter. We determined brain regions responsible for processing face identity across view changes after variable delays with several intervening stimuli, using event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging during a long-term repetition priming paradigm. Unfamiliar faces were presented sequentially either in a frontal or three-quarter view. Each face identity was repeated once after an unpredictable lag, with either the same or another viewpoint. Behavioral data showed significant priming in response time, irrespective of view changes. Brain imaging results revealed a reduced response in the lateral occipital and fusiform cortex with face repetition. Bilateral face-selective fusiform areas showed view-sensitive repetition effects, generalizing only from three-quarter to front-views. More medial regions in the left (but not in the right) fusiform showed repetition effects across all types of viewpoint changes. These results reveal that distinct regions within the fusiform cortex hold view-sensitive or view-invariant traces of novel faces, and that face identity is represented in a view-sensitive manner in the functionally defined face-selective areas of both hemispheres. In addition, our finding of a better generalization after exposure to a 3/4-view than to a front-view demonstrates for the first time a neural substrate in the fusiform cortex for the common recognition advantage of three-quarter faces. This pattern provides new insights into the nature of face representation in the human visual system.

Feature processing and superiority of three-quarter views in face recognition

The specificity of face recognition is usually related to the hypothesis that it could be based mainly on global processing of the whole face. However, this does not mean that more analytic processes, like the local processing of some features, could not play a role in the recognition process in some circumstances. An experiment was conducted with 18 normal subjects in order to evaluate the role of analytic processes in the recognition of faces viewed from different angles. Makeup was applied to eyes and lips to enhance local processing (local cue). We found a positive effect of the makeup cue, which could be due to better recognition when the shape of eyes and lips are highlighted. Also, we found better recognition with left-sided views compared to right-sided views. Finally, the makeup effect was significant in left three-quarter views but not in right three-quarter views. If this effect is due to analytic processing of some facial features, it could be related to a left hemisphere operation.

Recognizing unfamiliar faces: the effects of distinctiveness and view.

Three experiments are reported in which the effects of viewpoint on the recognition of distinctive and typical faces were explored. Specifically, we investigated whether generalization across views would be better for distinctive faces than for typical faces. In Experiment 1 the time to match different views of the same typical faces and the same distinctive faces was dependent on the difference between the views shown. In contrast, the accuracy and latency of correct responses on trials in which two different faces were presented were independent of viewpoint if the faces were distinctive but were view-dependent if the faces were typical. In Experiment 2 we tested participants' recognition memory for unfamiliar faces that had been studied at a single three-quarter view. Participants were presented with all face views during test. Finally, in Experiment 3, participants' were tested on their recognition of unfamiliar faces that had been studied at all views. In both Experiments 2 and 3 we found an effect of distinctiveness and viewpoint but no interaction between these factors. The results are discussed in terms of a model of face representation based on an inter-item similarity in which the representations are view specific.

Visual cues to female physical attractiveness.

Evolutionary psychology suggests that a woman's sexual attractiveness is based on cues of health and reproductive potential. In recent years, research has focused on the ratio of the width of the waist to the width of the hips (the waist-to-hip ratio (WHR). A low WHR (i.e. a curvaceous body) is believed to correspond to the optimal fat distribution for high fertility, and so this shape should be highly attractive. In this paper we present evidence that weight scaled for height (the body mass index (BMI)) is the primary determinant of sexual attractiveness rather than WHR. BMI is also strongly linked to health and reproductive potential. Furthermore, we show how covariation of apparent BMI and WHR in previous studies led to the overestimation of the importance of WHR in the perception of female attractiveness. Finally, we show how visual cues, such as the perimeter-area ratio (PAR), can provide an accurate and reliable index of an individual's BMI and could be used by an observer to differentiate between potential partners.

What represents a face? A computational approach for the integration of physiological and psychological data.

Empirical studies of face recognition suggest that faces might be stored in memory by means of a few canonical representations. The nature of these canonical representations is, however, unclear. Although psychological data show a three-quarter-view advantage, physiological studies suggest profile and frontal views are stored in memory. A computational approach to reconcile these findings is proposed. The pattern of results obtained when different views, or combinations of views, are used as the internal representation of a two-stage identification network consisting of an autoassociative memory followed by a radial-basis-function network are compared. Results show that (i) a frontal and a profile view are sufficient to reach the optimal network performance; and (ii) all the different representations produce a three-quarter view advantage, similar to that generally described for human subjects. These results indicate that although three-quarter views yield better recognition than other views, they need not be stored in memory to show this advantage.

Information and viewpoint dependence in face recognition

How we recognize faces despite rotations in depth is of great interest to psychologists, computer scientists and neurophysiologists because of the accuracy of human performance despite the intrinsic difficulty of the task. Three experiments are reported here which used three-dimensional facial surface representations to investigate the effects of rotations in depth on a face recognition task. Experiment 1, using “shape only” representations, showed that all the views used (full-face, three-quarter and profile) were equally well recognized when all had been learned. Performance was better when the same views were presented in an animated sequence, rather than at random, suggesting that structure-from-motion provides useful information for recognition. When stimuli were presented inverted, performance was worse and there were differences in the recognizability of views, demonstrating that the familiarity of upright faces affects generalization across views. Experiments 2 and 3 investigated generalization from single views and found performance to be dependent on learned view. In both experiments, generalization from learned full-face fell off with increasing angle of rotation. With shape only stimuli, three-quarter views generalized well to each other, even when inverted, but for profiles generalization was equally bad to all unlearned views. This difference may be explained because of the particular relationship of the profile to the axis of symmetry. In Experiment 3, addition of information about superficial properties including color and texture facilitated performance, but patterns of generalization remained substantially the same, emphasizing the importance of underlying shape information. However, generalization from the three-quarter view became viewpoint invariant and there was some evidence for better generalization between profiles. The results are interpreted as showing that three-dimensional shape information is fundamental for recognition across rotations in depth, although superficial information may also be used to reduce viewpoint dependence. © 1997 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.

You Can Tell by the Nose—Judging Sex from an Isolated Facial Feature

Measurements taken from the nose are among the most important physical variables which discriminate statistically between male and female faces, yet several investigators have claimed that it is difficult to judge sex on the basis of noses presented in isolation. Previous work on the isolated nose has, however, involved the use of frontal views only, which may have obscured important physical differences between the noses of males and females. An investigation of the accuracy of judgments of the sex of isolated noses observed in frontal, profile, and three-quarter views by male and female subjects is reported. Judgment of sex was performed significantly more accurately than chance in all cases except for frontal views of female noses, where judgment was significantly less accurate than chance. Analysis of variance demonstrated a significant interaction of sex of nose and view of nose, such that male noses were identified better in frontal and in profile views, but female noses better in the three-quarter view. It is suggested that one possible reason for the seemingly contradictory role of the nose in previous studies of sex judgment is that all noses look more male in frontal views. For a nose to be perceived as female, its distinctive shape must be made available to the perceiver; this is most likely from the three-quarter view.

Face recognition in preschool children: effects of familiarity, facial expression and angle of view

The purpose of this study was to investigate the face recognition processes in preschool children. Two experiments were carried out to examine the effects, on face recognition, of familiarity, facial expression and angle of view of faces as well as changes or no changes in facial expression and/or angle of view occurring between the first presentation and the subsequent recognition test. The subjects were 188 five- and six-year old children. In Experiments 1 and 2, half of the faces were highly familiar to the subjects, and the remaining half unfamiliar to them. In Experiment 1, the facial expressions (e.g., smiling or serious) were either changed or unchanged. In Experiment 2, the facial expressions or angles of view (e.g., full-face views or three-quarter views of faces) were either changed or unchanged. The major findings were that the familiar faces and the smiling faces were recognized more correctly than the unfamiliar faces and the serious faces respectively. The results were discussed in terms of 'identity-specific semantic codes' and 'visually-derived semantic codes'.

Vanitas and the Historian's Vocation

Twenty-five years ago, when I started graduate study (with special concentration in early American history), to read the weighty works of Charles McLean Andrews was de rigueur. Before taking our general examinations, my fellow students and I staggered through the colossal Colonial Period of American (1934-38: four volumes; 1,651 pages), The Colonial Background of the American Revolution (1924), and more-much more. Following my generals, when I began to explore a dissertation topic concerning Anglo-American history on the eve of the Revolution, I became acquainted with Andrews's great Guides to manuscript materials for the history of the United States before 1783 (located in The British Library, The Public Record Office, and other English archives), published in three volumes (1908-14). Subsequently I read the Festschrift published in 1931 to honor Andrews, plus his posthumous testament, entitled On the Writing of Colonial History (1944), and the fine biographical study by A. S. Eisenstadt (1956). To a young and impressionable graduate student, lacking much confidence that he could ever complete a doctoral program, Charles McLean Andrews seemed legendary, an intellectual giant no longer living yet larger than life nonetheless-academic or otherwise. Merely to gaze at his photograph, published as the frontispiece in Eisenstadt's study, was rather daunting: a three-quarter view of Andrews's handsome face, with dark and deep-set eyes glowering imperiously upon my ignorance of the field he had charted. The picture summed up so much. Here, surely, was a self-assured historian, proud of his staggering achievements: the man himself every bit as magisterial as his work.

A New Cup by the Villa Giulia Painter in Oxford

The Ashmolean Museum has recently acquired a fragmentary, but none the less attractive Attic cup. The interior is decorated in the white-ground technique, but the artist has used red-figure on the exterior. The internal and external decoration do not differ merely in technique, however, but also in mood: the central tondo bears a cool, restrained scene of a girl pouring a libation, whereas outside we have a mildly drunken rout—a komos.The interior (Plate XVIIa) is mostly white. There is a broad black band around the edge, at some distance in from which is a dilute brown line which circumscribes the tondo itself. This is decorated with a scene of a girl standing between two altars, over one of which she pours a libation. She faces towards the left and much of her body is seen in three-quarter view. Unfortunately her face is damaged, but enough remains to show that it was once pretty and appealing. On her head she wears a broad cloth band through which her back-hair emerges in a kind of chignon. She wears earrings. A himation edged in red is thrown loosely over her left shoulder and hangs down to well below her knees. Beneath, she wears a flimsy chiton which is pulled revealingly tight over her right breast and is buttoned at the elbow. Bracelets in the form of snakes adorn her wrists, and in her right hand she holds an oinochoe. This last, in common with the bracelets, buttons and earrings, is rendered plastically (i.e. is in relief), and was perhaps originally gilded. To her left, a rod or sceptre leans independently, while on either side can be seen parts of two altars, which, if identical, consisted of two plain, swelling mouldings, somewhat archaic in character, above a row of ovolos, and beneath on the sides, a metope between two dark strips. Some preliminary sketch is visible. Much of the detailed drawing is done in relief line, reinforced around the edges of the garment and on the altar with applied red. Dilute paint is used for the hair, the hem of the chiton and the decoration immediately above it, and for the triglyphs (if that is what they are) of the altars.

A Skyphos by the Pan Painter

Plate VIII and fig. 1 are from a red-figured vase in the Wisbech Museum and Literary Institution, Wisbech, Cambs. It is a skyphos, shape B, 8·45 cm. high and 11·3 broad (17·65 with handles). It was given to the Museum on October 7th, 1836, by William Peckover. Its provenance is unknown.A narrow reserved line runs all round the vase below the pictures.On the front is a warrior crouching to left, no doubt in ambush. He wears a Corinthian helmet with a horse-tail plume pushed back on his head, and carries a shield shewn in three-quarter view, but with the device, a facing bull's head, shewn as though the shield were seen in profile. He has a patterned garment round his waist, and holds a spear horizontally. On the other side is an archer moving to the left and shooting. He has an Eastern cap and bow, a garment round his waist and a quiver on his left thigh.