Face

The face also face lifted face, medical facies, in pictures likeness, is generally in animals like humans, the front part of the head.

• 2.1 visual perception and visual behavior in babies and young children
• 2.2 face perception

The face of man

In humans, it is free of head hair and occurs widely due to the greater development of the brain out. Thereby forming the human face, although not anatomically part of the face, but the head portion of the head, a main part of the face.

Due to the difference of the ratios of the individual parts of the face to each other the face education is limited. The changing depending on the state of mind facial expression is mainly due to the activity of some muscles of the head, which are summarized as facial muscles. The facial expression is produced ( wrinkles) and known as the most mobile parts of the face particularly through eyes, eyebrows, forehead.

The face color corresponds to the remaining skin color, in people with fair skin color, it is characterized by a more vivid color and although mainly on the cheeks, the redness is due to an increased blood flow. Certain shades of complexion are sometimes viewed as indications of health disorders.

Often occur in the formation of several individuals face certain similarities forth, so in family members ( family face ).

Face shape

As the frontal face shape contour of the face from the hairline is referred to the chin. A distinction is made between five different basic shapes: oval, round, square, heart-shaped and trapezoidal. The symmetry of a face is considered in some cases as an element of beauty, even though both sides of the face of a person are always different (see idealization ). This applies to the arrangement of the pair of ears and eyes as for the nose and mouth and also for the curvature of the section of bone under the eyes, but also for the view from the left and from the right. Absolutely symmetrical faces there is not though.

Half of the face comparison, the left half of the face mirrored

Half of the face comparison, the right half of the face mirrored

With an oval face is the widest in the amount of the cheekbone, from there it tapers upwards and downwards. Hairline and chin are gently curved, the lower half of the face is a bit longer.

The square face is as wide as long. The cheek lines are angled and have a similar width as the forehead.

The round face is characterized by a wide, full cheeks, and a filled outer contour. In relation to width, it is rather short.

The trapezoidal face has a pear-shaped contour that tapers sharply towards the top. The narrowest part is in the temporal area. The cheekbones are set wide and high. Compared to full chin, the forehead is rather narrow.

The heart-shaped face is characterized by a broad forehead - and eye area. It tapers towards the bottom cheeks to a narrow ( sharp ) chin.

Psychology of visual perception

Adult humans can reliably recognize remember and recognize faces. You can recognize faces from different angles as belonging to the same person. Sublime changes of a face while emotional expression can be perceived and understood as a social signal. The perception of individually different faces plays a central role in the social field. People with impaired ability to face perception are difficult to handicap, especially in social communication. For example, as one of the most clinically important impairments in social interaction ability of early childhood autism, often accompanied by massive impairment of visual behavior.

The outstanding capabilities of the people to face perception are the result of an evolutionary process. Primates show by far the greatest abilities to extract social information the look and also the head position of other individuals. In the primate brain, and thus also in the human, there are specific areas of the brain with neurons that are directly linked to the perception of the face. This means that even a 13- month-old chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes) can follow the gaze of an adult person who looks to an external object. Such skills are a prerequisite for the complex socio- cognitive communication possibilities of higher primates and man. The visual perception has numerous distinct functional aspects, such as the detection of the emotional expression or the direction of view of a social partner. Neurophysiologists and psychologists have found that the identification of a particular facial presupposes, for example, the activation of the fusifom face area ( FFA) in the occipital lobe. Face perception on neurophysiological level is linked to the triggering of emotions, due to the activation of the amygdala. This in turn leads directly to the activation of behavior. The social aspect of these complex connections of visual perceptions, emotions and actions is emerging in the interaction between mother and child.

Face perception and visual behavior in babies and young children

Human babies immediately after birth can ( and probably already prenatal ) see, and they prefer the human face, which is called a face preference. The mother's face gets in the first few weeks of life, more attention than the face of a Fremden.Säuglinge can at the age of about one month with her face and her hands gestures mimic her mother. Newborn stretch out her tongue when an adult sticking out their tongues, opens his mouth or large eyes makes. This imitation skills are not learned but are genetically determined and a part of our evolutionary heritage given.

The ability to direct imitation is based on the existence of so-called mirror neurons. These special neurons fire at practically the same way, both in seeing an act of another person as well as in motor imitation of that act. Thus, these neurons link the external experience of an observed movement with the inner experience in their imitation. They form a neural basis for social learning, compassion, empathy and the experience of works of art: the viewing of images of expressive faces shown to activate the facial muscles of the beholder.

Even the early developed " specific selective social smile ", the first only the mother applies, and the increasing Denying Anlächelns foreign faces belong to the field of visual perception. Soft baby at the age of two weeks ago a fast- approaching face back and react with defense. Babies regulate the means of eye contact avoidance or rejoinder, the intensity of emotional relationship experiences.

In the development of drawing skills the face plays an important role. Children call their earliest drawings (ie at the age of about two years ) often referred to as the face, even if it is little resemblance to a real face. Early arise so-called cephalopods, being drawn consisting of the head and legs with a strong emphasis of the face, with the head and trunk ( "belly ") are not distinguished from each other.

Face perception

Almost always can be alone on the face detect whether it is a man or a woman, even though it does not differ in structure ( the beard, which is not always present in the face of a man apart ).

For Europeans are Asian or African faces very similar. This is partly due to the habituation of the European people to the observance of certain facial features ( European faces have a huge variation in terms of the eyes, beard and head hair color and hair types ). In addition, there is a basic tendency to divide the fellows into categories. The unconscious classification is according to "own" or "foreign" group.

The (pathological ) inability to recognize faces is called face blindness ( prosopagnosia ).

In court proceedings is in doubt as to the identity, such with photographic evaluation of a traffic violation, a morphological image comparison based on the face or a biometric identity anthropological reports created.