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Library | Material Type | Call Number | Child Count | Shelf Location | Status | Item Holds |
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Searching... Science | Book | BF637 .N66 B75 1998 | 1 | Stacks | Searching... Unknown | Searching... Unavailable |
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Summary
Summary
This book, written to accompany an exhibition of the same title at the Scottish National Portrait Gallery, Edinburgh, in Spring 1998, will provide a non-technical introduction to the science of the human face and the psychology of face perception. The human face has many important biological roles, Eyes, ears, and mouth are the source of most of our sensory inputs, We intake air, food, and liquid through our nose and mouth; our eyes and ears are spaced to perceive distance; our jaws are built for chewing and swallowing. Socially, faces more than any other part of the body, provide us with crucial information. A universally important locus of communication, we use our faces for speech, and to express emotions, the most widely investigated social signals. Easier to remember than names, faces are important cues for recognising others; we are adept at distinguising old from young, male from female, or one ethnic group from another on the basis of facial features. We use faces in identikit parades, readily identify faces from grotesque caricatures, detect family resemblances, and judege attractiveness on the basis of facial features. In fact, neurobiologists have shown that there are special areas of the brain dedicated to processing faces and that we are born imprinted with an innate understanding of facial patterns. Vicki Bruce and Andy Young explore all of these diverse aspects of the human face in their fascinating book. Each topic is illustrated using reproductions of portraits from the gallery's extensive collections, as well as state-of-the art computer-manipulated graphics. An attractive and accessible book, this will be of interest to anyone who has ever wondered why and how faces are special, to humans generally, and to the human brain in particular.
Reviews (2)
Kirkus Review
Evolution has bestowed a remarkably expressive face on humans, and we have used it to communicate a dazzlingly wide variety of information to one another.. The authors, both psychologists and longtime researchers in the field of how we express messages with our faces and how we decipher them, have provided a cogent summary of what is known, as well as some interesting speculation on what seems likely. Because the book was originally written to accompany an exhibit at the Scottish National Gallery, it features a wide and appealing variety of illustrations drawn from artworks, in addition to a number of photographs, some computer-enhanced. The manner in which we use information derived from our reactions to faces to make decisions on concerns as disparate as truthfulness and sexual appeal, and the means by which the brain processes data drawn from our perpetual study of the faces around us are covered in depth here. While the authors write with clarity, the detail of the study and the emphasis on scientific investigation make this a work of interest primarily to students and others involved in some aspect of the field, though a serious layperson should find much here of interest. A handsomely presented report on an emerging field of research. (189 color and b&w illustrations)
Library Journal Review
Art and science join hands in this beautifully illustrated book on the subject of human facial perception. Bruce (psychology, Univ. of Stirling) and Young (applied psychology, Cambridge Univ.) describe the neurological processes that occur as we look at a face and suggest reasons for the almost universal reaction to beauty and certain features of facial "personality." Written to accompany a recent exhibition at the Scottish National Portrait Gallery, the book successfully illustrates psychological and neurological processes with pieces from the show. While emphasizing research in psychology, the authors also include relevant discoveries in the fields of medicine, biology, and engineering. Daniel McNeill's The Face (Little, Brown, 1998) covers similar ground in a slightly more engaging, accessible mannerthough without the extensive and effective use of illustration found here. Both books are recommended for their organization, clarity of text, and unusual insight into human behavior.Laurie Bartolini, Illinois State Lib., Springfield (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Table of Contents
1 Introduction: The face - organ of communication |
2 Light, Colour, and shape: The science of vision |
3 Physical differences between faces: Age, sex, and race |
4 The mating game: attractiveness and the sociobiology |
5 Whose face is it? How individual faces are recognised |
6 Messages from the face: Lipreading, gaze, and expression |
7 In the brain of the beholder: The neuroscience of face perception |