{"id":2226,"date":"2020-02-26T14:30:44","date_gmt":"2020-02-26T14:30:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/psychology\/?p=2226"},"modified":"2020-03-11T11:42:38","modified_gmt":"2020-03-11T11:42:38","slug":"how-do-humans-detect-faces","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/psychology\/2020\/02\/26\/how-do-humans-detect-faces\/","title":{"rendered":"How do humans detect faces?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"lead\">Dr Markus Bindemann is investigating a process neglected by psychologists for over 30 years<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.kent.ac.uk\/psychology\/people\/bindemannm\/\">Dr Markus Bindemann<\/a>, Reader in Psychology, is conducting a project to investigate the phenomenon of face detection.<\/p>\n<p>Although the ability to detect a face is a fundamental part of human perception and something we all take for granted, the mental processes that underpin this task remain a puzzle. Comparatively little work has been done on the subject by psychologists. Instead the bulk of research has been carried out by computer scientists attempting to model the process.<\/p>\n<p>Working in collaboration with <a href=\"https:\/\/www.york.ac.uk\/psychology\/staff\/academicstaff\/rob-jenkins\/\">Dr Rob Jenkins<\/a> from the University of York, Markus aims to test the theory that <strong>we learn to detect faces by developing a template in our memory based on the many different faces we have seen<\/strong>. This template captures commonalities across people by generating a statistical summary of faces in the form of a perceptual average.<\/p>\n<p>The research will address questions such as:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Does <strong>a template of a face average<\/strong> provide a viable model of human face detection?<\/li>\n<li>Is there <strong>one template<\/strong> for face detection or <strong>distinct templates for different face types<\/strong>?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The findings will both provide insight into human performance and inform the development of automatic face detection systems.<\/p>\n<p>The project, entitled \u2018Face Detection by Humans\u2019, runs from October 2019 to September 2022 and is funded by a grant of \u00a3249,000 from the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.leverhulme.ac.uk\/\">Leverhulme Trust<\/a>.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_2227\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-2227\" style=\"width: 300px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><a href=\"http:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/psychology\/files\/2020\/02\/face-average.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"wp-image-2227 size-medium\" src=\"http:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/psychology\/files\/2020\/02\/face-average-300x169.jpg\" alt=\"Small pictures of a selection of different faces next to a larger picture of a face that represents an average of these images \" width=\"300\" height=\"169\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/psychology\/files\/2020\/02\/face-average-300x169.jpg 300w, https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/psychology\/files\/2020\/02\/face-average-768x432.jpg 768w, https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/psychology\/files\/2020\/02\/face-average-1024x576.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/psychology\/files\/2020\/02\/face-average.jpg 1280w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-2227\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">An average image representing 50 faces varying by age, sex and ethnicity. Could a template like this underpin human face detection?<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Dr Markus Bindemann is investigating a process neglected by psychologists for over 30 years Dr Markus Bindemann, Reader in Psychology, is conducting a project to &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/psychology\/2020\/02\/26\/how-do-humans-detect-faces\/\">Read&nbsp;more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14802,"featured_media":2230,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[140630,70],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/psychology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2226"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/psychology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/psychology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/psychology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/14802"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/psychology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2226"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/psychology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2226\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2231,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/psychology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2226\/revisions\/2231"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/psychology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2230"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/psychology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2226"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/psychology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2226"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/psychology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2226"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}