This Masters Degree essay evaluates and compares the evidence for two competing theories of face recognition in humans.
One theory states that face recognition is a specialised function of the human brain, which is impaired by injury to an area of the temporal lobe called the fusiform gyrus. The opposing school of thought is that faces are processed in the same way as other objects and that the fusiform gyrus is involved in processing any objects for which people have expert knowledge.
The argument is presented by focusing on four important areas of debate: 1) psychological/behavioural studies of the key phenomena associated with face processing; 2) studies of infant face processing; 3) studies of patients with impaired face processing ability (prosopagnosics); and 4) neuroimaging studies.
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