*** Everyone Welcome! No need to book in advance***
Date: Thursday 1st November 2018
Time: 12:00-13:00
Room: Building 9 BG09A
Michael Papasavva (Birkbeck, University of London)
Date: Thursday 1st November 2018
Time: 12:00-13:00
Room: Building 9 BG09A
Michael Papasavva (Birkbeck, University of London)
Abstract:
Humans are an incredibly gregarious species that rely on large
interpersonal social networks. Faces are our most readily available social cue
and can reveal a wealth of identity-relevant information. The ability to
extract identity information from the face region is considered a normal and
perhaps innate ability in the vast majority of individuals. However, it is
becoming increasingly clear that there are a varying range of abilities within
the normal (typically developing) population. Here, we investigate two
potential mechanisms that drive individual differences in face identity
recognition. Through a series of experiments, we analysed the effects of social
reward and unconscious bias on face recognition performance. Inherent social
motivation has been hypothesised to drive face expertise through increased
experience. In two large scale community studies, based at the London Science
Museum, we utilised behavioural economics paradigms to assess whether better
processors find faces more rewarding than worse processors. In a second series
of experiments we tackled the possible effect of low-level perceptual biases on
superior face expertise. We employed a particularly powerful variant of
binocular rivalry called Continuous Flash Suppression (CFS) to investigate if
unconsciously perceived faces break into conscious awareness faster in better
face processors.
Biography:
I am a Ph.D
candidate at Birkbeck College, University of London. My research investigates
various drivers of individual differences in typical human identity and emotion
face processing. I utilise, Event Related Potential (ERP), Continuous Flash
Suppression (CFS) and behavioural economic paradigms to investigate this area.
