Over the last few decades, researchers have learned a great deal about how we recognize faces. Using neuro-imaging techniques, scientists have pinpointed the regions and pathways in our visual systems that help us recognize people we know or celebrities we've seen on the screen.
Recently a group of authors in The Frontiers of Psychology made the following observation: "Most of what we know about face processing was investigated using static face images as stimuli. Therefore, an important question arises: to what extent does our understanding of static face processing generalize to face processing in real-life contexts in which faces are mostly moving?"
The scientists classify facial movement in two categories: static movement (head turning or nodding) and elastic movement (speaking, changing expressions).
The paper summarizes findings in other scientific studies, for example:
1. Faces are much easier to recognize when presented in a video. If you play the video backwards, recognition performance drops off drastically.
2. Smiling faces are easier to recognize.
3. Babies begin developing neural strategies for processing movement as early as three or four months old, and the first year of life is crucial for developing these skills.
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Read the free paper online: On the facilitative effects of face motion on face recognition and its development by Naiqi G. Xiao et al.
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