This special issue showcases new findings from many investigators in this field in studies that use a wide range of experimental techniques including brain imaging, ERPs, patient studies, and single-unit recording in monkeys.

This book draws together, for the first time, the latest scientific findings from leading international researchers on how face recognition develops. It is only in recent years that methods acceptable in experimental psychology have been developed for studying this vital and unique process. While other publications have concentrated on computer modeling and of face processing and the like, this one is unique in that it looks at fundamental (and so far unanswered) questions such as: What are the roots of and reasons for our ability to recognize faces? How much of this ability is learned and how much innate? By connecting studies on face processing in infancy with those on the development of face processing, it thus bridges the gap between face processing research and visual perceptual development. Leading researchers from USA and Europe who have conducted pioneering work in these domains describe results and anticipate future inquiry, covering topics such as fundamental cognitive abilities in infancy, development of face processing from infancy to adulthood, and the effects of expertise on face recognition.

In the past 30 years, face perception has become an area of major interest within psychology. This is the most comprehensive and commanding review of the field ever published.

Human faces are unique biological structures that convey a complex variety of important social messages. Even strangers can tell things from our faces – our feelings, our locus of attention, something of what we are saying, our age, sex and ethnic group, whether they find us attractive. In recent years there has been genuine progress in understanding how our brains derive all these different messages from faces and what can happen when one or other of the structures involved is damaged. Face Perception provides an up-to-date, integrative summary by two authors who have helped develop and shape the field over the past 30 years. It encompasses topics as diverse as the visual information our brains can exploit when we look at faces, whether prejudicial attitudes can affect how we see faces, and how people with neurodevelopmental disorders see faces. The material is digested and summarised in a way that is accessible to students, within a structure that focuses on the different things we can do with faces. It offers a compelling synthesis of behavioural, neuropsychological and cognitive neuroscience approaches to develop a distinctive point of view of the area. The book concludes by reviewing what is known about the development of face processing and re-examines the question of what makes faces ‘special’. Written in a clear and accessible style, this is invaluable reading for all students and researchers interested in studying face perception and social cognition.

Face processing is now a mainstream, multi-faceted and global research field in psychology, and it is growing exponentially. The volume of emerging research necessitates continuous efforts to update our overall understanding of current theory. This book brings together contributions from face processing researchers around the world to provide up-to-date reviews of topics of great current interest. The book is partitioned to give insight into face processing systems, such as those employed to verify a persons identity in applied security settings, the state-of-the-art systems utilised for the construction of criminal facial composites in police investigations, and the cognitive systems for the recognition of familiar faces and bodies; disorders, focusing on people with extremely high and extremely poor face processing ability, as well as face processing in autism spectrum disorder; and cultural differences, including the development of perceptual and social race biases, the impact of cultural headdress traditions and reading directions on face perception, cultural similarities and differences in the processing of facial expressions, as well as a broader look at ethnicity, gender and age biases in face processing. The outcome is a book that provides diverse, interesting, useful and thought-provoking chapters, covering a range of topics of current theoretical and applied importance, authored by a combination of internationally renowned and exciting upcoming researchers.

BORB provides a set of standardised procedures for assessing neuropsychological disorders of visual object recognition, based on tests developed in the cognitive neuropsychological literature. The tests are introduced in terms of cognitive neuropsychological analyses of object recognition, and guidance is given concerning test use and interpretation. The tests assess low-level aspects of visual perception (using same-different matching of basic perceptual features, such as orientation, length, position and object size), intermediate visual processes (e.g., matching objects different in viewpoint), access to stored perceptual knowledge about objects (object decision), access to semantic knowledge (function and associative matches) and access to names from object (picture naming). BORB will serve as an invaluable companion test battery to the PALPA test of language ability.

'Face Processing' seeks to answer questions such as how we recognise familiar faces, and which factors determine facial attractiveness. Drawing on a wealth of studies and research, it is an essential companion for undergraduates studying face processing as part of a psychology degree.

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.

The Neuroscience of Expertise examines the ways in which the brain accommodates the incredible feats of experts. It builds on a tradition of cognitive research to explain how the processes of perception, attention, and memory come together to enable experts' outstanding performance. The text explains how the brain adapts to enable the complex cognitive machinery behind expertise, and provides a unifying framework to illuminate the seemingly unconnected performance of experts in different domains. Whether it is a radiologist who must spot a pathology in a split second, a chess grandmaster who finds the right path in a jungle of possible continuations, or a tennis professional who reacts impossibly quickly to return a serve, The Neuroscience of Expertise offers insight into the universal cognitive and neural mechanisms behind these achievements.