Posted on 03/10/2003 10:49:34 AM PST by Pharmboy
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.
SOURCE: Nature Neuroscience 2003;10.1038/nn1029.
Chevy Caprice and Ford Crown Victoria headlights and taillights stand out to me. As does their general shape, even at distances greater than my deterioting visual acuity can render sharply. I always chalked it up to 'spidey sense'...
Yep, the "running" lights or side mrkers help alot with identification.
It's also amazing that the worst drivers all seem to drive Lincoln Continentals.
I can not only identify the breed of a horse at a distance; I recognize individual horses by their overall appearance ("holistically" as this article puts it).
Because for many years (before LASIK surgery) I was legally blind and thus unable to distinguish facial features at any sort of distance, I learned to recognize people not by their faces but by their gait and body mannerisms. I can pick either of my children out of a crowd by their style of walking at 100 yards plus (one is a bulldog and the other is a giraffe).
As for the cars, I think that the brain "learns" to do this if you do it often enough.
I don't know, whenever I look at a photo of Bill Clinton, that big ol' red vein-ridden coke nose fairly leaps off the page. I don't have to look at the rest of the face to recognize him. Of course, it might be Roger, so I have to check whether or not he has a 'Fro.
Seriously, though, did the researchers ever consider that certain people may be car buffs because they have holistic recognition of cars or may excel at judging dog shows because they have holistic recognition of dogs?
The place ment of the markers and even their tint and brightness gave the make & model away instantly, at great distances.
I don't do it much anymore though, because I don't like allot of the modern designs.
But if there's a model I like, I can pick it out of a crowd, in the dark, just like that. Bam...
(the engine alone is 700 lbs, you REALLY have to trust someone to allow them to do this for you.. I had a friend killed like this, actually.)
Geez, I miss her.
I'd do anything to have another shot at Tammy.
:(
[article:] As expected, car experts viewed cars holistically without any trouble. But they ran into trouble when identifying faces holistically.Heh, my first thought was that learning to identify cars comes at the expense of your ability to recognize faces. Like, there are only so many neurons available in the necessary brain areas.[gridlock:] Seriously, though, did the researchers ever consider that certain people may be car buffs because they have holistic recognition of cars or may excel at judging dog shows because they have holistic recognition of dogs?
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