Dr. Anderson opened her lecture by talking about the importance of faces and how our human brains are so expertly adapted to recognizing facial features. She showcased this point by presenting a painting by artist Bev Dolittle to us. This painting features a man on horseback traveling through a forest, though as one inspects the painting, many hidden human faces become evident, expertly woven into the depictions of the landscape; trees, rocks, plants and earth. THe longer the painting is viewed, the greater number of faces an individual may recognize. Once recognized our brains remain aware of them, as they become obvious. I was captivated by this opening, as it reminded me of many optical illusions I have seen before and it introduced the topic of facial recognition in an interesting way.

Dr. Anderson went on to explain that we understand the processing of visual information well, and gave an overview of the mechanisms by which our vision functions. She spoke about the different kinds of cells that begin processing visual input as early as within our retinas, and walked us through early experiments by a researcher named Tanaka. Tanaka’s research aimed to identify the parts of the brain involved in facial recognition, and tested the brains of monkeys. He discovered that the inferior temporal complex contained face-sensitive cells which were excited upon seeing pictures of other monkey’s faces. I think it was truly fascinating to see which diagrams of faces (in the form of emoticons missing or including different features) the monkeys’ neurons were activated by. This led to Dr. Anderson’s discussion of the way that recognition of different features is activated by differing neurons, and that even when faces are scrambled, our brains can recognise specific features and identify the individual.

Additionally we spent a great deal of time discussing the artist Chuck Close and his prosopagnosia. Prosopagnosia, or facial blindness, is a condition that prohibits individuals from recognizing faces and remembering them. It was amazing learning about this topic, as I had heard the term before in passing but never really knew what it meant. It is interesting that many of these conditions were taboo and barely understood until relatively recently. I think it is important to research and raise awareness of these conditions, including conditions such as dyslexia and autism, which we discussed. In fact, I have a young cousin who is autistic, and she should grow up in a world that understands her and allows her to be herself. Evidently, great artists come from every background, including neurologically.