The relative contribution of facial form and facial motion to the perception of identity

Faces are dynamic objects that continuously move as we talk or laugh. Such facial motion can facilitate communication and can also carry information about gender, age and emotion. However, relatively little is known about how facial motion and facial form interact during the processing of facial identity (e.g. Hill Johnston 2001, Lander Bruce, 2000). By combining novel computer animation techniques with psychophysical methods, we have recently shown that non-rigid facial motion patterns applied to previously unfamiliar faces can bias the perception of identity (Knappmeyer et al. 2001). Here we further investigate this finding by systematically varying the form cue at training. We enhanced the form cue e.g. by caricaturing and adding individual skin texture, and reduced the form cue by morphing towards an average face. The results are discussed with respect to current cognitive and neural models of face perception