Farah M J, Wilson K D, Drain H M, Tanaka J R
Department of Psychology, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia 19104-6196, USA.
Vision Res. 1995 Jul;35(14):2089-93. doi: 10.1016/0042-6989(94)00273-o.
Does the human visual system contain a specialized system for face recognition, not used for the recognition of other objects? This question was addressed using the "face inversion effect" which refers to the loss of our normal proficiency at face perception when faces are inverted. We found that a prosopagnosic subject paradoxically performed better at matching inverted faces than upright faces, the opposite of the normal "face inversion effect". The fact that his impairment was most pronounced with the stimuli for which normal subjects show the greatest proficiency in face perception provides evidence of a neurologically localized module for upright face recognition in humans. An additional implication of these data is that specialized systems may control behavior even when they are malfunctioning and therefore maladeaptive, consistent with the mandatory operation of such systems according to the "modularity" hypothesis of the cognitive architecture.
人类视觉系统中是否存在一个专门用于人脸识别的系统，而不用于识别其他物体？这个问题通过“面部倒置效应”来探讨，该效应指的是当面部倒置时，我们在面部感知方面正常的熟练程度会丧失。我们发现，一名面孔失认症患者在匹配倒置面孔时的表现反而比匹配正立面孔时更好，这与正常的“面部倒置效应”相反。他的损伤在正常受试者对面部感知表现出最高熟练度的刺激下最为明显，这一事实为人类中存在一个用于正立人脸识别的神经定位模块提供了证据。这些数据的另一个含义是，专门系统即使在出现故障并因此适应不良时，也可能控制行为，这与认知架构的“模块性”假设中此类系统的强制运行相一致。
