We rely heavily on faces during social interactions. Humans possess the ability to recognise thousands of people very quickly and accurately without effort. The serious social difficulties that follow abnormalities of the face recognition system (i.e., prosopagnosia) strongly underline the importance of typical face skills in our everyday life. Over the last fifty years, research on prosopagnosia, along with research in the healthy population, has provided insights into the cognitive and neural features behind typical face recognition. This has also been achieved thanks to non-invasive neuroimaging techniques such as functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI), Electroencephalography (EEG), Magnetoencephalography (MEG), Diffusion Tensor Imaging (DTI) and Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS). However, there is still much debate about the cognitive and neural mechanisms of face perception. In the current “Research Topic” we plan to gather experimental works, opinions, commentaries, mini-reviews and reviews that focus on new or novel theories and methods in face perception research. Where is the field at the moment? Do we need to re-think the experimental procedures we have adopted so far? Again, what kind of techniques (or combination of them) and analysis methods will be important in the future? From the experimental point of view we encourage both behavioural and neuroimaging contributions (e.g., fMRI, EEG, MEG, DTI and TMS). Despite the main emphasis on face perception, memory and identification, we will also consider original works that focus on other aspects of face processing, such as expression recognition, attractiveness judgments and face imagery. In addition, animal investigations and experimental manipulations that alter face recognition abilities in typical human subjects (e.g., hypnosis) are also welcome. Overall, we are proposing a Research Topic that looks at face processing using different perspectives and welcome contributions from different domains such as psychology, neurology, neuroscience, cognitive science and philosophy. The current “Research Topic” evolved over the desire to acknowledge the relatively recent loss of three giants in the field: Drs. Shlomo Bentin, Truett Allison and Andy Calder. We dedicate this “Research Topic” to them and their pioneering studies.

We rely heavily on faces during social interactions. Humans possess the ability to recognise thousands of people very quickly and accurately without effort. The serious social difficulties that follow abnormalities of the face recognition system (i.e., prosopagnosia) strongly underline the importance of typical face skills in our everyday life. Over the last fifty years, research on prosopagnosia, along with research in the healthy population, has provided insights into the cognitive and neural features behind typical face recognition. This has also been achieved thanks to non-invasive neuroimaging techniques such as functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI), Electroencephalography (EEG), Magnetoencephalography (MEG), Diffusion Tensor Imaging (DTI) and Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS). However, there is still much debate about the cognitive and neural mechanisms of face perception. In the current Research Topic we plan to gather experimental works, opinions, commentaries, mini-reviews and reviews that focus on new or novel theories and methods in face perception research. Where is the field at the moment? Do we need to re-think the experimental procedures we have adopted so far? Again, what kind of techniques (or combination of them) and analysis methods will be important in the future? From the experimental point of view we encourage both behavioural and neuroimaging contributions (e.g., fMRI, EEG, MEG, DTI and TMS). Despite the main emphasis on face perception, memory and identification, we will also consider original works that focus on other aspects of face processing, such as expression recognition, attractiveness judgments and face imagery. In addition, animal investigations and experimental manipulations that alter face recognition abilities in typical human subjects (e.g., hypnosis) are also welcome. Overall, we are proposing a Research Topic that looks at face processing using different perspectives and welcome contributions from different domains such as psychology, neurology, neuroscience, cognitive science and philosophy. The current Research Topic evolved over the desire to acknowledge the relatively recent loss of three giants in the field: Drs. Shlomo Bentin, Truett Allison and Andy Calder. We dedicate this Research Topic to them and their pioneering studies.

Face Recognition: Cognitive and Computational Processes critically discusses current research in face recognition, leading to an original approach with criminological applications. The book covers • The methodological and philosophical basis of research in face recognition. • Findings and their explanations, conceptual issues, theories and models of face recognition • The Catch Model (Rakover & Cahlon) for reconstructing (identifying) a face from memory, and other models and methods of face reconstruction. • Conscious perception and recognition of faces. The book also discusses original ideas on conceptualizing face perception and recognition in tasks of facial cognition, developing the Schema Theory and the Catch Model, and introducing Rakover & Cahlon's discovery of the proposed law of Face Recognition by Similarity (FRBS). (Series B)

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.

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.

Reflections of a Neuropsychologist: Brushes with Brains follows the life of an influential neuropsychologist's fascinating and varied career. Unique in its autobiographical approach, it features coverage of research into human evolution, archaeology and neurology. Beginning with his earliest memories (and implications for memory processes), John L. Bradshaw reflects on his archaeological expeditions preceding his primary career as a physiological psychologist and a behavioural neuroscientist. His influential research covers such rare neurological disorders as Huntington’s disease, Friedreich ataxia and Williams syndrome, and more common maladies like Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s diseases, stroke, Fragile X, Tourette’s syndrome, obsessive compulsive and attention deficit hyperactivity disorders, schizophrenia, autism and depression. His fascinating personal experiences illustrating scientific discoveries will entertain, enthuse, encourage and inspire, and provide established research scientists and practising clinicians with a unique road map.

This book explores visual object recognition and introduces a collaborative model, codified as the "Perceptual Expertise Network" (PEN). It focuses on delineating the principles of high-level visual learning that can account for how different object categories are processed and associated with spatially localized activity in the primate brain. It address questions such as how expertise develops, whether there are different kinds of experts, whether some disorders such as autism or prosopagnosia can be understood as a lack or loss of expertise, and how conceptual and perceptual information interact when experts recognize and categorize objects. The research and results that have been generated by these questions are presented here, along with other questions, background information, and extant issues that have emerged from recent studies.