Face Perception

Faces constitute one of the most pervasive and important classes of objects in our visual environment. The human visual system is remarkably proficient at various face perception tasks, including identification, emotion assessment, gaze estimation, and gender, race, and age classification. Much research effort has been directed toward elucidating the facial cues that underlie these different assessments, with identification attracting the lion's share. This entry provides an overview of four key aspects of human face perception performance: (1) tolerance for degradations, (2) relative contribution of geometric and photometric cues, (3) development of face perception skills, and (4) neural correlates of face perception.