“We don’t see with our eyes, we see with our brains”

A discussion of the above statement with reference to face

perception and spatial vision.

– Brendan Madden, Core Studies, March 2007

At first the above statement appears as little more than a fanciful

philosophy, but when you look even at the everyday applications of this

notion we can appreciate that there is more to it than just theory. 1

Much of what we see in the world relies on the basis that ‘We don’t see

with our eyes, we see with our brains’. One application of this is in the

world of Art 2. Another application is when we experience R.E.M sleep.

Such is the illusion of reality in R.E.M sleep that often in our dreams we

are not even aware that we are dreaming 3. In this essay we will explore

and discuss this statement further with reference to two areas of visual

perception, face perception and spatial vision. In order to discuss the

statement more fully, we will first define what it is ‘to see’. To do this we

will look briefly at the physical biology of the eye, the visual pathway to

the primary cortex, V 1 and beyond.

1
Much has been written about the nature of scientific theories. Perhaps the best-
known writer in this field is Karl Popper (1902-1994). Popper argued that no
scientific theory can be proved to be correct; it can only be shown to be wrong, or
at least flawed. (Gordon, 2004, p.1)
2
Painting, for example, relies on a cocktail of brushstrokes, perspective, shading,
and colour to present us with an illusion of reality.
3
The use of hallucinogenic drugs such as LSD causes a similar experience.
1
 The structure of an eye is very like that of a photographic camera.
We may distinguish two essential parts: A sensitive screen at the
back, the retina, and an optical system that projects an image of
the outside world on to that screen. The retina is the sense-organ
proper, for it is here that the rays of light forming the image act
on sensitive cells and initiate nervous impulses. The eyeball is
blackened within, like a camera, in order to prevent reflection and
scattering of light... The eye is an organ for determining the
spatial properties of objects – their positions, shapes, and
movements. The brain is constantly elaborating the information
received from the eye by means of unconscious associations with
past experience. In our judgements of solidity and the three-
dimensional shape of objects, for example, we rely to a large
extent on their shading and on associations of shading with
experiences derived from the touch sense… The characteristic
thing about the eye is the precision of the spatial information that
it can obtain. (Wells, 1930, p.77)

The initial event in the visual process is absorption of a photon of

light by visual pigment contained in the photoreceptors of the
retina. There are two types of photoreceptors, the rods and the
cones, so named because of their shapes.
(Hendee, 1997, p.4)

Cones are used for visual acuity 4 in bright light, and rods 5 are used for

monochromatic vision in poor light. At the back of the eye there is a

point known as the fovea where the sharpest image is formed due to

the higher level of cells there. Near the fovea, there is a blind spot that

contains no receptors. 6 (Snowden, 2006, p.32)

4
Acuity is the resolution limit of the eye. This is measured using the Snellen eye
chart (as seen in the optician’s consultation room). High contrast letters of
progressively smaller size allow us to determine the resolution limit of the visual
system, essentially the level of detail that we can make out at a given distance.
5
There are three different types of cones, long wave, medium wave and shortwave,
known as red, green and blue. There are no rods in the fovea whereas the majority
of the cones are located in the foveal or parafoveal regions.
6
What falls on the blind spot is invisible to us due to the absence of
photoreceptors. However the blind spots of both eyes do not overlap and so our
brain compensates by taking visual information from the other eye.
2
The next part of the visual path is the optic nerve, which transmits the

visual information from the eye to the primary visual cortex (V1)

The optic nerves leave the eye [at the blind spot] and converge at
an X-shaped region called the optic chiasm. At the chiasm, fibers
[sic] of the optic nerve from the inner or nasal half of each retina
cross, whereas those from the outside or temporal half of each
retina stay on the same side. The midpoint of each fovea serves
as the dividing point in the retina between fibers that cross and
fibers that remain on the same side. (Schiffman, 2001, p.71)

’The optic tract now reaches the main relay point on the way to the
cortex: the LGN’ 7 (Snowden, 2006, p.35)

As one moves up the visual system, from the retina to the lateral
geniculate nucleus (LGN) and then on to successive cortical
areas, visual neurons become responsive to more and more
complex stimuli... However the visual system is not organised in
just a serial, hierarchical pathway. Different aspects of a stimulus
(such as its shape, colour and motion) are analysed in separate,
parallel pathways. These pathways are usually divided into two
broad categories; 'what' and 'where' pathways. The 'what'
pathway deals with information about the stimulus features (such
as shape and colour) and the identity of an object; it can be
subdivided into two further pathways: colour and shape. The
'where' pathway deals with spatial information about an object
and is usually subdivided into motion and form derived from
motion. (Tovee, 1996, p.60)

From the LGN, the visual pathway consists of the optic radiations
through the parietal and temporal lobes... The optic radiations
terminate in the primary visual cortex in the occipital lobe.
(Hendee, 1997, p.13)

Cells that are close to each other in V1 have receptive fields that
are close to each other on the retina. Each V1 (remember you
have two of them, one in each cerebral hemisphere) maps half of
the visual field. The left V1 maps the right visual field and the right
V1 maps the left visual field … There is very little overlap between
the two halves of the map and yet we are never aware of the join.
(Snowden, 2006, p.74)

7
Lateral geniculate nucleus.
3
It is beyond V1 in the visual pathway that the situation becomes far

more complex with specific receptors that react only to an exact and

ideal stimulus. ‘Earlier in the visual system simple spots are sufficient,

then we require lines of a particular orientation, and then lines of a

particular orientation and a particular length.’ (Snowden, 2006, p.83) At

this later stage in the visual pathway however, many striate cells

become even fussier about what causes them to respond. Some will

respond only if a given stimulus moves in a certain direction at a

particular speed, or if the stimulus is a particular distance away and a

specific colour.

These precise conditions of reaction mean that the firing of a signal

from a particular cell can provide a great deal of information 8 to its

owner, informing them of the presence of a specific state of affairs.

But just how complex can these cells be?

Evidence suggests that there are particular receptors in the brain that

deal exclusively with something as complex as the human face. This is

in the inferior temporal area of the primate brain, quite close to the

striate cortex 9. ‘It appears that the cell’s optimal stimulus is the face and

8
‘This is called the cell’s trigger feature, and the firing of this cell informs its animal
owner of the presence of this particular state of affairs’. (Snowden, 2006, p.83)
9
V1, the primary visual cortex is also known as the striate cortex. (Tovee, 1996,
p.4)
4
that other “control” stimuli (such as a jumbled-up face) have little effect

on the cell.’ (Snowden, 2006, p.84)

‘Given that we see hundreds of faces every day, and their importance

to us, perhaps it is no surprise that we seem able to extract faces from

the most minimal of information.’ (Snowden, 2006, p.285) Because of

this, face perception is an area that really demonstrates the notion that

we see with our brains, not with our eyes. When presented with a

square box containing a number of circles, each containing two small

circles and a crooked line, we will report that we are seeing a crowd of

faces, if one of the crooked lines (the mouth) points upwards at the

middle we will deduce that that face is sad even though strictly

speaking the image formed is not really a face.

In writing about our tendency to personify random marks, stains and

formations, Stewart Guthrie says the following,

Perception is active inference, a mostly unconscious process of

hypothesizing the causes of a given sensation or cluster of
sensations. Stated this way, "interpretation" and "explanation"
become closely related enterprises. Since multiple interpretations
are possible, our choice of interpretations constitutes a guess. As
the art historian Ernst Gombrich puts it, perception is betting.
Writing on cognition as pattern recognition, Margolis makes the
same point with a different image: "the brain has a bias favoring
seeing something rather than nothing, so that it tends to jump to a
pattern that makes sense of a situation. Hence, even if there is no
pattern objectively there, it tries to impute one."
(Guthrie, 1993, p.42)

5
Many studies exist that set human face perception apart from the

perceiving of all other objects. One of these tests is to

present a person with a large number of different pictures, each

presented just briefly. Then in a test stage present them with
another set of pictures, some of which they had seen before and
some of which were novel. The subject is then required to say
whether each picture seen is one they previously saw or whether
it is new. Various studies of this sort have been carried out, and
our ability to recognise face pictures we have seen before has
been compared to our ability to recognise dogs, aeroplanes, or
arbitrary shapes such as ink blots. All the studies agree that
performance for face stimuli is far better than for other stimuli,
confirming our notion that faces are special.
(Snowden, 2006, p.289)

Numerous other studies also demonstrate that the brain processes

faces in a different way to the way in which it deals with other objects

and images, or at least that in addition to the part of the brain that

perceives everyday objects, there is a part of the brain that responds

only to faces 10. The clearest argument for the notion that face

10
Those who hold that face recognition is special have suggested a number of
different explanations to account for its distinctiveness. One is that there is a face-
specific processor whose domain is defined by facial stimuli. That is, the processor
is tuned selectively to faces much in the way that neurons are in the monkeys
temporal lobes. We refer to this as the face-module hypothesis. An alternative
explanation is that although a specialized processor exists, its domain is not
restricted to faces but rather to all stimuli that can be processed and represented
holistically. (Moscovitch, 1997, p.557)
Neuropsychological studies of patients with brain damage have demonstrated a
double dissociation between recognition of faces and objects, indicating that the
two processes are distinct (Newcombe, Mehta, & de Haan, 1994). At a
neuroanatomatical level, prosopagnosia (Bodamer. 1947; Hécaen & Agelergues,
1962), a severe deficit in face recognition, is usually associated with bilateral
damage to the inferior aspect of the temporal cortex…though unilateral daage to
the same region on the right (De Renzi, 1986a, 1986b; De Renzi, Perani,
Cartesimo, Silveri, & Fazio, 1994; Landis, Cummings, Christen, Bogen, & Imhoff,
1986; Michael Poncet, & Signoret, 1989; Tovee & Cohen-Tovee, 1993; Warrington
& James, 1967) is sufficient to produce the deficit while sparing to a greater or
lesser extent object recognition of equal difficulty. The opposite pattern of deficits,
6
recognition is special is found in the study of subjects deficient in either

face processing 11 or in object processing but not both.

In a study entitled, “What is special about Face Recognition? Nineteen

Experiments on a Person with Visual Object Agnosia and Dyslexia but

Normal Face Recognition 12”, an opportunity arises to study face

recognition in relative isolation from visual processes that may also

contribute to object recognition and reading. The ability of the subject,

CK, to recognise objects is severely impaired even though his acuity is

normal and he can apprehend and draw the various features or

components of objects he cannot identify. What is particularly

remarkable about CK is that his face recognition appears to be intact.

This held regardless of whether the face was disguised or

degraded and whether the face was represented as a photo, a
caricature, a cartoon or a face composed of objects. In the last
case, CK perceived the face but, unlike controls, was rarely
aware that it was composed of objects. When the face or just the
internal features were inverted or when the configurational gestalt
was broken by fracturing the face or misaligning the top and
bottom halves, CK’s performance suffered far more than that of
controls. We conclude that face recognition normally depends on
two systems. (1) A holistic face-specific system that is dependent
on orientation-specific coding of second-order relational features
(internal), which is intact in CK and (2) a part-based object-

impaired object recognition but with relatively spared face recognition, can be
obtained with damage on the inferotemporal cortex on the left, although as with
prosopagnosia, visual object agnosia is more commonly associated with bilateral
damage (Farah, 1990; Hécaen, Goldbloom, Masure, & Ramier, 1974; McCarthy &
Warrington, 1990; Newcombe, Mehta, & de Haan, 1994). (Moscovitch, 1997,
p.556)
11
Prosopagnosia is the inability to recognise faces. (Humphries, 2007, p.1)
12
Carried out by Morris Moscovitch and Gordon Winocur at the Rotman Research Institute
and Marlene Behrmann at the Carnegie Mellon University
7
 recognition system which is damaged in CK and which
contributes to face recognition where the face stimulus does not
satisfy the domain-specific conditions needed to activate the face
system. (Moscovitch, 1997, p.555)

Another way in which face processing is special is that recognition of

faces is believed to be hampered by inversion much more than the

recognition of objects 13. ‘This inversion effect has served as a

diagnostic marker for distinguishing between processes involved in face

and object recognition since it was first noted by Yin in 1969’.

(Moscovitch, 1997, p.570)

The next area of perception that we will look at is spatial vision.

‘The active processes by which we attempt to infer what objects and

patterns are in front of us are not perfect and so, under some

conditions, we can get it wrong, and we construct an incorrect

13
At a fundamental level, the inversion effect has played an important part in distinguishing
processes implicated in recognition of faces and objects: inverting stimuli from their canonical
upright orientation impairs recognition of faces more than that of objects. (Moscovitch, 1997,
p.556)
Despite his normal and sometimes above average performance in identifying pictures of
upright faces we were interested to know whether CK would perform similarly on identifying
these faces when they were inverted. To control for the expected difficulty that even
neurologically intact people would have in identifying inverted faces, we included a condition
of disguised faces (with moustaches, glasses and wigs) that were as difficult for controls to
recognize as inverted faces. CK unlike controls finds inverted faces significantly more difficult
to recognise than disguised faces. It would constitute evidence against the discriminability
hypothesis. Instead it would support the dual mechanism hypothesis that inverted faces are
recognized by different mechanisms and processes than are used for upright faces,
presumably ones that also contribute to object recognition which is deficient in CK
(Moscovitch, 1997, p.570).
8
interpretation of the world, which we might call an “illusion 14”.’(Snowden,

2006, p.97)

14
The different visual illusions that we experience are summarized here in a list compiled by
Richard L. Gregory in his 1997 paper, ‘Knowledge in perception and illusion’.
(i) Mist. Any loss of information may increase uncertainty and produce ambiguities
(ii) Mirage. Refraction of light between the object and the eyes displaces objects or
parts of objects, as for mirages, or a spoon bent in water. (Conceptual
understanding does not correct these distortions, though motor performance
may adapt, as for diving birds catching fish.)
(iii) Looking glass. One sees oneself double: through the glass, as a kind of ghost,
yet one knows one is in front of it. So perception and conception separate.
(iv) Rainbow. An illusion when it is seen as an object, with expectations as for a
normal object. (Thus unlike an arch of stone, when approached, it moves away
and can never be touched. With this in mind it is not illusory.)
(v) Retinal rivalry. Small horizontal separations of corresponding points of the eyes’
images are ‘fused’, and signal depth stereoscopically. At angles greater than
about 1° (Panum’s limit) fusion breaks down, and perception shifts and changes
in bizarre ways.
(vi) Café Wall. The rows of ‘tiles’ with alternate rows displaced by half a cycle appear
as long alternating wedges. This lacks perspective, or any other depth cues.
Unlike the distortions of point 10 below, it depends critically on luminances,
disappearing when the neutral ‘mortar’ lines are brighter than the light, or dimmer
than the dark tiles. It appears to violate Curie’s principle that systematic
asymmetry cannot be generated from symmetry; but there are two processes:
small wedges are produced by local asymmetry where there is luminance
contrast of light-dark half tiles and these small wedges integrate along the rows
to form long wedges. (Gregory & Heard 1979)
(vii) Rotating spiral (after-effect of movement). The spiral expands yet, paradoxically,
does not change size. The adapted motion channel gives conflicting evidence
with unadapted position signals.
(viii) After-images. These are almost entirely due to local losses of retinal visual
pigments, from intense or prolonged stimulation.
(ix) Figure-ground. The primary decision: which shapes are objects and which are
spaces between objects. This seams to be given by general rules of closure and
so on. (These rules cannot always make up the brain’s mind.)
(x) Muller-Lyer (Ponzo, Poggendorif, Orbison, Hering and many other illusions) seam
to be due to perspective, or other depth cues, setting constancy sealing
inappropriately, e.g. when depth is represented on the planes of a picture.
Scaling can be set bottom-up from depth cues, though depth is not seen, e.g.
when countermanded by the surface texture of a picture (Gregory 1963). The
distortions disappear when these figures are presented and seen in true depth:
Corners for the Muller-Lyer and parallel receding lines for the Ponzo, etc.
(Gregory & Harris 1975)
(xi) Penrose impossible triangle. When a simple closed figure or object, seen from a
critical position, has features lying at different distances but that touch in a
picture, or retinal image, the visual system accepts a rule that they are the same
distance. This false assumption generates a rule-based paradoxical perception.
9
 An essential problem for vision is perceiving scenes and objects
in a three-dimensional external world, which is very different from
the flat ghostly images in eyes. Some phenomena of illusion
provide evidence for the use of specific knowledge for vision; this
is revealed when it is not appropriate to the situation and so
causes an systematic error, even though the physiology is
working normally. (Gregory, 1997, p.2)

An example of this systematic error with functional physiology is in after-

effects. The tilt after-effect 15 is good evidence that we have orientation-

selective neurons. These cells in the V1 area show a change in

response after exposure to a high-contrast pattern whereas the cells in

the retina and LGN do not show any adaptation. The size after-effect 16

is produced in exactly the same way as the tilt after-effect. Exposure to

‘fat’ bars cause medium sized bars to look thinner, whereas exposure to

slender bars cause medium sized bars to look broader. 17

(xii) Kaniza triangle and many other illusory contours and surfaces. Some are due to
‘postulating’ a nearer occluding surface, to ‘explain’ surprising gaps (Gregory
1972; Petry et al. 1987).
(xiii) Hollow face. This illustrates the power of probabilities (and so knowledge for
object perception.
(xiv) Size-weight illusion. Small objects feel heavier than larger objects of the same
scale weight; muscles are set by knowledge-based expectations that the larger
will be heavier, which is generally, though not always true.
(xv) Margritte Mirror. René Magritte’s painting La reproduction interdite (1937) shows
a man facing a mirror, but the back of his head appears in the glass. This looks
impossible from our knowledge of mirrors (Gregory 1997).
(xvi) Faces-in-the-fire, ink blots, galleons in the clouds and so on, show the dynamics
of perception. Hypotheses are generated that go fancifully beyond the evidence.

15
See (Snowden, 2006, p.98)
16
See (Snowden, 2006, p.106)
17
‘Since scientists do not, we are told, refer to bars as being ‘fat’ or ‘skiny’, rather
they define the size of these bars in terms of the number of bars that would fit in a
given distance, so big fat bars actually have what is called a low spatial frequency
and skinny bars have a high spatial frequency.’ (Snowden, 2006, p.110)
10
At a close view ing distance, high spatial frequencies are m ore visible, but

further aw ay the high spatial frequencies becom e less visible and you see

the low er ones. The ‘high’ spatial frequencies get higher and becom e

invisible as they fall outside our resolution lim it but the low spatial

frequency content w ill also get higher and can be seen clearly. B lurring an

im age rem oves the high spatial frequencies w hich are the frequencies that

contain the fine details of a picture . (S now den, 2006, p114).

18

This show s that our visual system breaks an im age up into different

orientation channels. This is an efficient w ay of encoding visual

inform ation.

O ur attem pt to construct a real w orld from 2-D im ages causes m any

illusions as listed som e pages previously. B ars of the sam e spatial

frequency appear to be different sizes if they are different distances from

the retina. As an object approaches us, its im age on our retina becom es

larger. If the distance is halved, the im age form ed on the retina doubles in

size and the spatial frequencies are all halved. If this did not occur then an

object m oving tow ards us w ould appear to dim inish as its retinal size

w ould rem ain constant and the farther aw ay from us the im age w as, the

18
Blurring also occurs in our peripheral vision, that is what is seen by our eye but
does not hit the fovea, we can see only low spatial frequencies (things are blurrier).
This must mean that when we move into the peripheral parts of our vision we don’t
have very small receptive fields and are left with just the large receptive fields. For
objects such as letters to be seen clearly in our peripheral vision they must be
quite large in comparison to the required size in our focused vision (what falls on
the fovea).

11
bigger it w ould appear to be 19. ‘O ur ability to perceive accurately the real

size of objects regardless of their distance from us is know n as size

constancy and is one of a group of ‘constancies’ in vision, other

constancies include orientation constancy, shape constancy and colour

constancy. (S now den, 2006, p.123)

The final area of spatial vision that w e w ill consider is texture. ‘A s w ell as

recognizing textures, w e can also get other kinds of inform ation from them ’

(S now den, 2 006, p.124) W e can use them to detect the boundaries of

areas, edges in the collection of descriptors that define a texture.

W e can also use texture to tell us about distance , about the geom etric
20

properties of the textured object.

21

H aving explored the evidence in favour of the notion that w e do not see

w ith our eyes but w ith our brains, having discussed the notion further w ith

relation to both face recognition and spatial vision, and having looked

19
The ponzo illusion, (Snowden, 2006, p.123) (where two identically sized lines or
blocks are placed in vertical alignment over the centre of an image with receding
perspective) manipulates this process so that although both lines or blocks are
identical, the farther one appears to be far larger. However, interestingly, in spite of
it appearing to be larger than the closer bar, when we go to pick up the farther bar,
our hand makes the exact same measurement as it does for the nearer one. This
shows that although consciously it appears that we are fooled by the illusion, our
brain somehow makes sense of it subconsciously.
20
The textural elements appear smaller as they are farther away (e.g. grass in a
field)
21
Differences in appearance of a texture show us boundaries between different
zones on an object which helps us to determine its spatial properties.
12
briefly at the visual path w ay and the process of vision, w e can now m ake

the follow ing argum ent:

O ur eyes are the sensory m echanism s through w hich light enters and is

translated by neurons into electrical im pulses that are passed on to and

around in our brains, but it is in our bra ins w here perception— the process

of m aking sense of w hat our eyes register— actually occurs.

W ord C ount: 2220

13
Bibliography and Reading List for essay entitled
‘“We don’t see with our eyes, we see with our brains”
A discussion of the above statement with reference to face
perception and spatial vision’
by Brendan Madden.

Websites:

• Behrmann, Dr. Marlene (March 2007)

“Cognitive Neuroscience Lab-CMU-Publications
Carnegie Mellon University, Cognitive Neuroscience Lab
http://www.cnbc.cmu.edu/~behrmann/pubs.htm
(Accessed 21.03.2007)

• Farah, Prof. Martha

“Martha J. Farah”
Center for Congnitive Neuroscience, University of Pennsylvania
http://www.psych.upenn.edu/~mfarah/
(Accessed 21.03.2007)

• Gregory, Prof. Richard (February 2006)

"Papers On-line".
Professor Richard Gregory on-line
http://www.richardgregory.org/papers/index.htm
(Accessed 21.03.2007)

• Halligan, Prof. Peter W. (March 2007)

“Professor Peter W. Halligan”
University of Cardiff – Department of Psychology
http://www.cardiff.ac.uk/psych/home/halliganpw/indexmain.html
(Accessed 21.03.2007)

• Llinas, Dr. Rudolfo, M.D., Ph.D.

“Rudolfo Llinas, M.D., Ph.D.”
NYU Medical Center
http://www.med.nyu.edu/people/R.Llinas.html
also http://www.med.nyu.edu/pubs/llinar01.html
14
 (Accessed 21.03.2007)

Books:

• Behrmann, M (Ed.), (2001), Handbook of Neuropsychology: Volume 4

– Disorders of Visual Behaviour, Amsterdam, Elsevier Science B.V.

• Bruce, Vicki and Andrew Young, (1998), In the Eye of the Beholder:
The Science of Face Perception, Oxford, Oxford University Press.

• Gordon, Ian E, (2004), Theories of Visual Perception, Hove,

Psychology Press.

• Gregory, R. L, (1990), Eye and brain: The psychology of seeing,

London: Weidenfeld and Nicholson.

• Guthrie, Stewart, (1993), Faces in the Clouds: A New Theory on

Religion, New York, Oxford University Press.

• Harris, Laurence and Michael Jenkin (Eds.), (2003), Levels of

Perception, New York, Springer-Verlag.

• Hendee, William R. and Peter N.T. Wells, (1997), The Perception

of Visual Information, New York, Springer-Verlag.

• McIlwain, James T, (1996), An Introduction to the Biology of

Vision, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.

• Schiffman, H. R, (2001), Sensation and perception, New York,

John Wiley and sons.

• Snowden, Robert, Peter Thompson and Tom Troscianko (2006), Basic

Vision – an introduction to visual perception, Oxford, Oxford University Press.

• Tovee, Martin J., (1996), An Introduction to the Visual System,

Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.

• de Valois, Russell L. and Karen K. de Valois, (1990), Spatial Vision

(Oxford Psychology Series, No.14), Oxford, Oxford University Press.

15
• Wells, H.G, Julian Huxley and G.P. Wells, (1931), The Science of
Life, London, The Amalgamated Press Ltd.

• Yantis, Stephen, (2001), Visual Perception: Essential Reading,

Philadelphia, Taylor & Francis.

• Zebrowitz, Leslie A, (1998), Reading Faces: Window to the soul?,

Boulder, Westview Press.

Articles:

• Behrmann, M. , Zemel, R. and Mozer, M. C., (2000),

‘Occlusion, symmetry, and object-based attention: Reply to
Saiki (2000)’, Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human
Perception and Performance, 26, 4, pp. 1497-1505

• Behrmann, M. and Avidan, G., (2005), ‘Congenital

prosopagnosia: Face-blind from birth’, Trends in Cognitive
Science, 9, 4, pp. 180-187.

• Gauthier, I., Behrmann, M. and Tarr, M., (1999), ‘Can face

recognition really be dissociated from object recognition?’,
Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 11, 4, pp. 349-370.

• Gregory, Richard L and Priscilla Heard, (1979), ‘Border locking

and the Café Wall illusion’, Perception, Volume 8, pp. 365-380.

• Gregory, Richard L, (1997), ‘Knowledge in Perception and

illusion’, Phil. Trans. R. Soc. Lond. B (1997) 352, pp. 1121–
1128.

• Humphreys, K., Avidan, G. and Behrmann, M., (2007), ‘A

detailed investigation of facial expression processing in
congenital prosopagnosia as compared to acquired
prosopagnosia’, Experimental Brain Research, in press (Epub
ahead of print on
http://www.cnbc.cmu.edu/~behrmann/pubs.htm#face)

• Marotta, J.J., McKeeff, T.J, and Behrmann, M., (2002), ‘The

effects of rotation and inversion on face processing in
prosopagnosia’, Cognitive Neuropsycholgy, 19 (1), pp. 31-
47

16
• Moscovitch, M., Winocur, G. and Behrmann, M., (1997),
‘What is special about face recognition? Nineteen
experiments on a person with visual object agnosia and
dyslexia but normal face recognition’, Journal of Cognitive
Neuroscience, 9, 5, pp. 555-604.

• Zemel, R., Behrmann, M., Mozer, M. C., and Bavelier, D.

(2002), ‘Experience-Dependent Perceptual Grouping and
Object-Based Attention’,. Journal of Experimental
Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 28,(1), pp.
202-217

17