The recognition of faces is a fundamental visual function that is important for social interaction and communication. Scientific interest in facial recognition has increased dramatically over the last decade. Researchers in such fields as psychology, neurophysiology, and functional imaging have published more than 10,000 studies on face processing. Almost all of these studies focus on the processing of static pictures of faces; however, little attention has been paid to the recognition of dynamic faces, faces as they change over time—a topic in neuroscience that is also relevant to a variety o ... More

The recognition of faces is a fundamental visual function that is important for social interaction and communication. Scientific interest in facial recognition has increased dramatically over the last decade. Researchers in such fields as psychology, neurophysiology, and functional imaging have published more than 10,000 studies on face processing. Almost all of these studies focus on the processing of static pictures of faces; however, little attention has been paid to the recognition of dynamic faces, faces as they change over time—a topic in neuroscience that is also relevant to a variety of technical applications, including robotics, animation, and human–computer interfaces. This book offers an interdisciplinary overview of recent work on dynamic faces from the biological and computational perspectives. The chapters cover a range of topics, including the psychophysics of dynamic face perception, results from electrophysiology and imaging, clinical deficits in patients with impairments of dynamic face processing, and computational models that provide insights about the brain mechanisms for the processing of dynamic faces. The book offers neuroscientists and biologists a reference for designing experiments and provides computer scientists with knowledge that will help them improve technical systems for the recognition, processing, synthesizing, and animating of dynamic faces.