More Info on FaceSimilar Undetermined MusicSearch Artistopia
Biography
other usesInfobox Anatomy| Name = Face| Latin = facia/facies| GraySubject =| GrayPage =| Image = Mona Lisa headcrop.jpg| Caption = A portrait of a human face ( Mona Lisa )| Image2 =| Caption2 =| Precursor =| System =| Artery =| Vein =| Nerve =| Lymph =| MeshName = face| MeshNumber = A01.456.505|double image|right|faceMars4.jpg|150|Martian face viking cropped.jpg|150|The face perception mechanisms of the brain, such as the fusiform face area , can produce facial pareidolia s such as in images of Libya Montes (left) and Cydonia (region of Mars)|Cydonia (right, Mars)The face is a central sense organ complex, for those animals that have one, normally on the ventral surface of the head , and can, depending on the definition in the human head|human case, include the hair , forehead , eyebrow , eyelashes , Human eye|eye s, human nose|nose , ear s, cheek s, mouth , lip s, philtrum , temple (anatomy)|temple , tooth|teeth , human skin|skin , and chin . http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/face Face | Define Face at Dictionary.com. Dictionary.reference.com. Retrieved on 2011-04-29. The face has uses of facial expression|expression , appearance, and identity amongst others. It also has different senses like olfaction , taste , hearing (sense)|hearing , and visual perception|vision . http://www.face-and-emotion.com/dataface/anatomy/anatomy.jsp Anatomy of the Face and Head Underlying Facial Expression. Face-and-emotion.com. Retrieved on 2011-04-29.
Individuality and recognition
The face is the feature which best distinguishes a person . There are "special" regions of the human brain , such as the fusiform face area (FFA), which prospagnosia|when damaged prevent the recognition of the faces of even intimate family members. The pattern of specific organs such as the eyes or parts thereof are used in biometric identification to uniquely identify individuals.
Metaphor
By extension, anything which is the forward or world facing part of a system which has internal structure is considered its "face", like the façade of a building. For example a public relations or press officer might be called the "face" of the organization he or she represents. "Face" is also used metaphorically in a Face (sociological concept)|sociological context to refer to reputation or standing in society, particularly Chinese society, and is spoken of as a resource which can be won or lost. Because of the association with individuality, the anonymous person is sometimes referred to as "faceless".
Plastic surgery
Cosmetic surgery can be used to alter the appearance of the facial features. http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/plasticandcosmeticsurgery.html Plastic and Cosmetic Surgery: MedlinePlus. Nlm.nih.gov. Retrieved on 2011-04-29. Plastic surgery may also be used in cases of facial trauma , injury to the face. Severely disfigured individuals have recently received full face transplant s and partial transplants of skin and muscle tissue.
Caricatures
Caricature s often exaggerate facial features to make a face more easily recognised in association with a pronounced portion of the face of the individual in question—for example, a caricature of Osama bin Laden might focus on his facial hair and nose; a caricature of George W. Bush might enlarge his ears to the size of an elephant's; a caricature of Jay Leno may pronounce his head and chin; and a caricature of Mick Jagger might enlarge his lips. Exaggeration of memorable features helps people to recognise others when presented in a caricature form. http://www.edu.dudley.gov.uk/art/specproj/caricatures/menu.htm information about caricatures. Edu.dudley.gov.uk. Retrieved on 2011-04-29.
Perception and recognition of faces
Gestalt psychology|Gestalt psychologists theorise that a face is not merely a set of facial features but is rather something meaningful in its form. This is consistent with the Gestalt theory that an image is seen in its entirety, not by its individual parts. According to Gary L. Allen, people adapted to respond more to faces during evolution as the natural result of being a social species. Allen suggests that the purpose of recognizing faces has its roots in the "parent-infant attraction, a quick and low-effort means by which parents and infants form an internal representation of each other, reducing the likelihood that the parent will abandon his or her offspring because of recognition failure".cite journal|author=Allen, Gary L. |title=Review: Seeking a Common Gestalt Approach to the Perception of Faces, Objects, and Scenes|journal= American Journal of Psychology |volume=119|issue=2|year=2006|pages=311–19|jstor=20445341|doi=10.2307/20445341|last2=Peterson|first2=Mary A.|last3=Rhodes|first3=Gillian Allen's work takes a psychological perspective that combines evolutionary theories with Gestalt psychology.
Emotion
Faces are essential to expressing emotion , consciously or unconsciously. A frown denotes disapproval; a smile usually means someone is pleased. Being able to read emotion in another's face is "the fundamental basis for empathy and the ability to interpret a person’s reactions and predict the probability of ensuing behaviors". One study used the Multimodal Emotion Recognition Test http://www.affective-sciences.org/MERT Multimodal Emotion Recognition Test (MERT) | Swiss Center for Affective Sciences. Affective-sciences.org. Retrieved on 2011-04-29. to attempt to determine how to measure emotion. This research aimed at using a measuring device to accomplish what people do so easily everyday: read emotion in a face.cite journal|author=Bänziger, T., Grandjean, D., & Scherer, K. R. |year=2009|title=Emotion recognition from expressions in face, voice, and body: The Multimodal Emotion Recognition Test (MERT)|journal= Emotion|volume= 9|issue=5|pages=691–704|doi=10.1037/a0017088|pmid=19803591
People are also relatively good at determining if a smile is real or fake. A recent study looked at individuals judging forced and genuine smiles. While young and elderly participants equally could tell the difference for smiling young people, the "older adult participants outperformed young adult participants in distinguishing between posed and spontaneous smiles".cite journal|author=Murphy, N. A., Lehrfeld, J. M., & Isaacowitz, D. M. |year=2010|title=Recognition of posed and spontaneous dynamic smiles in young and older adults|journal= Psychology and Aging|volume= 25|issue=4|pages=811–821|doi=10.1037/a0019888|pmid=20718538|pmc=3011054 This suggests that with experience and age, we become more accurate at perceiving true emotions across various age groups.
Biological perspective
Research has indicated that certain areas of the brain respond particularly well to faces. The fusiform face area , within the fusiform gyrus , is activated by faces, and it is activated differently for shy and social people. A study confirmed that "when viewing images of strangers, shy adults exhibited significantly less activation in the fusiform gyri than did social adults".cite journal|author=Beaton, E. A., Schmidt, L. A., Schulkin, J., Antony, M. M., Swinson, R. P. & Hall, G. B.|year=2009|title=Different fusiform activity to stranger and personally familiar faces in shy and social adults|journal=Social Neuroscience|volume= 4|issue=4|pages=308–316|doi=10.1080/17470910902801021|pmid=19322727 Furthermore, particular areas respond more to a face that is considered attractive, as seen in another study: "Facial beauty evokes a widely distributed neural network involving perceptual, decision-making and reward circuits. In those experiments, the perceptual response across FFA and LOC remained present even when subjects were not attending explicitly to facial beauty".cite journal|author=Chatterjee, A., Thomas, A., Smith, S. E., & Aguirre, G. K. |year=2009|title= The neural response to facial attractiveness|journal= Neuropsychology|volume= 23|issue=2|pages=135–143|doi=10.1037/a0014430|pmid=19254086
