Article: Car Buffs' Brains Recognize Cars as They Do Faces
03-10-2003, 01:07 PM
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Article: Car Buffs' Brains Recognize Cars as They Do Faces
This is neat because I, for one, do name my car... 
Car Buffs' Brains Recognize Cars as They Do Faces
By Merritt McKinney
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Many automobile buffs love
their cars so much that they give them names. Now, new
research shows that car lovers use the same part of
the brain to identify cars that they use when
recognizing faces.
The findings, which appear in the journal Nature
Neuroscience, add to previous studies showing that
other avid hobbyists, including bird watchers and
dog-show judges, identify the objects of their
affection "holistically" rather than by first
recognizing individual features.
By studying how experts learn this ability, it may be
possible to develop ways to help people who have
problems with recognizing faces, such as children with
autism, the study's lead author said.
In an interview with Reuters Health, Dr. Tim Curran
explained that "when we recognize faces, we do so by
perceiving all the parts of the face simultaneously."
For example, Curran, who is at the University of
Colorado at Boulder, said that when people look at a
photo of Bill Clinton, they recognize him immediately
without first looking at his nose, lips and other
features.
"You recognize his face holistically," Curran said.
When we look at other objects, though, we tend to
recognize them in a "more piecemeal fashion," Curran
said.
A particular section of the brain is hard-wired to
recognize faces at a glance, and many experts have
believed that this ability is something we are born
with, not something that we learn, Curran said. But
previous experiments with bird watchers and car
aficionados showed that these experts can recognize
birds and cars holistically and that this ability can
be learned, the Colorado researcher said.
Now, Curran and his colleagues report that the ability
to holistically identify objects uses the same brain
circuitry as the ability to recognize faces.
The study included 20 men who were car experts and 20
men who were car novices. Volunteers looked at a
series of photos that alternated between cars and
faces. They were asked to compare each car with the
one that they had seen before.
The researchers modified the top halves of the photos
and asked participants to ignore the top parts in
order to tell if they were viewing the faces and cars
holistically, rather than piece by piece.
As expected, car experts viewed cars holistically
without any trouble. But they ran into trouble when
identifying faces holistically.
The researchers found that car experts showed
differences in a particular brain wave that is linked
to face recognition. This observation--and the fact
that the volunteers had trouble recognizing faces
holistically--suggests that the experts use the same
brain circuitry to identify cars as they do to
identify faces, according to the researchers.
In contrast, car novices had no problems recognizing
faces holistically.
The research suggests that rather than being an innate
skill, holistic recognition could be "a product of
experience," Curran said. Future research, he said,
will focus on understanding how the ability to view
faces holistically develops.
It is uncertain, Curran said, whether it is just the
frequency of exposure to images that leads to these
changes or whether it is a more active learning
process.
Building on the findings, some researchers are in the
very early stages of developing video games that give
children with autism, who often have a very hard time
identifying faces, a lot of practice in doing so.
Car Buffs' Brains Recognize Cars as They Do Faces
By Merritt McKinney
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Many automobile buffs love
their cars so much that they give them names. Now, new
research shows that car lovers use the same part of
the brain to identify cars that they use when
recognizing faces.
The findings, which appear in the journal Nature
Neuroscience, add to previous studies showing that
other avid hobbyists, including bird watchers and
dog-show judges, identify the objects of their
affection "holistically" rather than by first
recognizing individual features.
By studying how experts learn this ability, it may be
possible to develop ways to help people who have
problems with recognizing faces, such as children with
autism, the study's lead author said.
In an interview with Reuters Health, Dr. Tim Curran
explained that "when we recognize faces, we do so by
perceiving all the parts of the face simultaneously."
For example, Curran, who is at the University of
Colorado at Boulder, said that when people look at a
photo of Bill Clinton, they recognize him immediately
without first looking at his nose, lips and other
features.
"You recognize his face holistically," Curran said.
When we look at other objects, though, we tend to
recognize them in a "more piecemeal fashion," Curran
said.
A particular section of the brain is hard-wired to
recognize faces at a glance, and many experts have
believed that this ability is something we are born
with, not something that we learn, Curran said. But
previous experiments with bird watchers and car
aficionados showed that these experts can recognize
birds and cars holistically and that this ability can
be learned, the Colorado researcher said.
Now, Curran and his colleagues report that the ability
to holistically identify objects uses the same brain
circuitry as the ability to recognize faces.
The study included 20 men who were car experts and 20
men who were car novices. Volunteers looked at a
series of photos that alternated between cars and
faces. They were asked to compare each car with the
one that they had seen before.
The researchers modified the top halves of the photos
and asked participants to ignore the top parts in
order to tell if they were viewing the faces and cars
holistically, rather than piece by piece.
As expected, car experts viewed cars holistically
without any trouble. But they ran into trouble when
identifying faces holistically.
The researchers found that car experts showed
differences in a particular brain wave that is linked
to face recognition. This observation--and the fact
that the volunteers had trouble recognizing faces
holistically--suggests that the experts use the same
brain circuitry to identify cars as they do to
identify faces, according to the researchers.
In contrast, car novices had no problems recognizing
faces holistically.
The research suggests that rather than being an innate
skill, holistic recognition could be "a product of
experience," Curran said. Future research, he said,
will focus on understanding how the ability to view
faces holistically develops.
It is uncertain, Curran said, whether it is just the
frequency of exposure to images that leads to these
changes or whether it is a more active learning
process.
Building on the findings, some researchers are in the
very early stages of developing video games that give
children with autism, who often have a very hard time
identifying faces, a lot of practice in doing so.
03-10-2003, 03:43 PM
#2
If I could remember names/faces half as well as I remember car related images/specs, I'd be much better off. I can't remember names at all.
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