Face Recognition

Description

Face processing underpins human social interaction, allowing us to recognise friends and avoid enemies, identify social groups, decode emotional messages and find romantic partners. Despite the advice not to ‘judge a book by its cover’, people also form judgements of a stranger’s attractiveness and character within seconds of seeing their face. This course will examine how these aspects of face processing relate to contemporary real-world topics, including the rise of facial AI. Face processing underpins human social interaction, allowing us to recognise friends and avoid enemies, identify social groups, decode emotional messages and find romantic partners. Despite the advice not to ‘judge a book by its cover’, people go further than these relatively objective judgements, and also form judgements of a stranger’s attractiveness and character within seconds of seeing their face, for example, by judging how trustworthy, powerful or competent they look. This course will examine these aspects of face processing and how they relate to contemporary real-world topics, including the rise of facial AI.