- Compact yet comprehensive account of the cognitive and neural mechanisms of human face recognition
- Introduces the general readers to the most important neuroimaging techniques used to investigate the brain
- Describes the clinical and neural features of prosopagnosia, a neurological disorder characterized by the inability to recognize faces
- All the concepts are presented in an easy-to-understand style, making them also accessible to the general public
Buy this book
- About this book
-
This book provides readers with a simplified and comprehensive account of the cognitive and neural bases of face perception in humans. Faces are ubiquitous in our environment and we rely on them during social interactions. The human face processing system allows us to extract information about the identity, gender, age, mood, race, attractiveness and approachability of other people in about a fraction of a second, just by glancing at their faces. By introducing readers to the most relevant research on face recognition, this book seeks to answer the questions: “Why are humans so fast at recognizing faces?”, “Why are humans so efficient at recognizing faces?”, “Do faces represent a particular category for the human visual system?”, What makes face perception in humans so special?, “Can our face recognition system fail”?. This book presents the author’s findings on face perception during his research studies on both normal subjects and subjects with prosopagnosia, a neurological disorder characterized by the inability to recognize faces. The book describes two known forms of prosopagnosia: acquired prosopagnosia, which is the result of a brain lesion, and congenital prosopagnosia, which refers to a lifelong, developmental impairment of face recognition. Written in a comprehensive and accessible style, this book addresses both experts (cognitive scientists, psychologists, neuroscientists and computer scientists) and the general public, and aims at raising awareness for a debilitating face recognition disorder, such as prosopagnosia, which is often ignored or misdiagnosed as autism, with serious consequences for the affected persons and their families.
- Table of contents (5 chapters)
-
-
Cognitive Science: History, Techniques and Methodology
Pages 1-17
-
Cognitive and Neural Aspects of Face Processing
Pages 19-40
-
Prosopagnosia: The Inability to Recognize Faces
Pages 41-68
-
Can I Recognize Faces Without Knowing it? Evidence of Covert Face Recognition in Prosopagnosia
Pages 69-77
-
Stories from People Who Share Their Lives with Congenital Prosopagnosia
Pages 79-95
-
Table of contents (5 chapters)
- Download Preface 1 PDF (130.5 KB)
- Download Sample pages 2 PDF (557.5 KB)
- Download Table of contents PDF (178.5 KB)
Recommended for you

Bibliographic Information
- Bibliographic Information
-
- Book Title
- Prosopagnosia
- Book Subtitle
- When all faces look the same
- Authors
-
- Davide Rivolta
- Series Title
- Cognitive Systems Monographs
- Series Volume
- 20
- Copyright
- 2014
- Publisher
- Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
- Copyright Holder
- Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
- eBook ISBN
- 978-3-642-40784-0
- DOI
- 10.1007/978-3-642-40784-0
- Hardcover ISBN
- 978-3-642-40783-3
- Softcover ISBN
- 978-3-662-52393-3
- Series ISSN
- 1867-4925
- Edition Number
- 1
- Number of Pages
- XII, 95
- Number of Illustrations
- 29 b/w illustrations, 1 illustrations in colour
- Topics