222 Book Reviews

The Shute, Glaser, and Raghaven contribution on inference and discovery in a computer microworld that teaches principles of economics is a fitting conclusion to the volume because it brings together many of the concepts discussed in prior chapters. Shute, et al. examine individual differences in the acquisition of principles of economics via an intelligent tutor, the Smithtown microworld. Coexisting in this work are intelligent tutoring, in-depth analyses of individuals’ performance histories and the use of large-scale data collection and correlation- regression techniques-all in the service of understanding the nature of individual differences in acquisition of content-domain knowledge.

So what do we discover about individual differences from this volume? Most importantly, individual differences have progressed beyond ‘poor stepchild’ status. This volume makes clear that research on individual differences contributes in general to our understanding of learning skills and their acquisition.

SUSAN R. GOLDMAN

RECOGNISING FACES. Vicki Bruce. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Hove and London, 1988. No. of pages: 154. ISBN 86377 0681. Hard cover. Price: L14.95.

This book is one of the first in the series Essays in Cognitive Psychology, each of which deals with a particular topic in considerable depth. As the cover notes comment, the aim of the series is to ‘evaluate what is going on in the area, to assess likely trends and to develop some novel approaches or original ideas’. I must say that Vicki Bruce has achieved these aims admirably with this volume.

The opening chapter sets the scene with introductory discussions of familiar and unfamiliar face recognition, problems with identification parades, factors affecting face recognition, and techniques for face reconstruction, such as Identikit. The book is primarily concerned with the development of theoretical models of face recognition, but reference to the relevance of such models to practical issues, such as problems of eyewitness testimony, is made through- out.

Chapter 2 deals with the perception of facial expression, facial speech cues, and social attributions with respect to facial appearance. The discussions here are concise, their main aim being to support Bruce’s view that facial recognition, per se, may reasonably be considered as largely independent of these other activities involving facial information.

Having presented a fairly strong case for this approach, the remainder of the book deals with recognition of facial identity. Chapter 3 considers faces as patterns, and in particular the issue of whether face recognition involves holistic processing or serial feature-by-feature processing. Not too surprisingly, both configural properties and featural information seem to play important roles, depending upon specific task requirements. Spatial frequency analysis is also considered in this chapter, and the role of distinctiveness in face recognition, but for me the highlight of the chapter was a fascinating discussion of caricature.

At the risk of offending vegetarians, Bruce describes Chapter 4 as ‘the meat of this sandwich, since it presents the theoretical state of the art at the time this book was conceived’ (p. 20). This deals at length with the semantic coding of faces, and a number of levels of processing are distinguished and discussed. For example, we may recognize a face in the sense of feeling that the face is familiar, and yet be totally unable to provide any further detail relating to the owner of that face. Alternatively, we may recognize a face to the extent that we are able to identify the context in which it is usually encountered, and yet be unable actually to name the individual. As Bruce points out, it is unheard-of for a person to be able to name a face but be able to provide other identity-specific semantic information, suggesting that the name code is distinct from, and accessed via, other identity-specific semantic infor- mation. Any model of face recognition must be able to account for such observations as

Book Reviews 223

well as a variety of other findings, and it is precisely this task which Bruce and colleagues have been working on in recent years. The model produced (developed in collaboration with Andy Young) is based to a large extent upon logogen-type models of word and face recognition are described. Bruce is always careful to acknowledge her colleagues, particularly those at Nottingham, Lancaster, and Aberdeen.

Given the impressive predictive ability of the model proposed, and the quality of the support- ing evidence, one might have forgiven Bruce for resting on her laurels; instead she concludes the fourth chapter by discussing the limitations of the Bruce and Young model. Chapter 5 continues in this vein by contrasting the ‘abstractive’ Bruce and Young model with possible ‘instance-based’ systems, based upon recent connectionist approaches. In this context a couple of neural net systems for face recognition, such as WISARD, are described and assessed. Bruce concludes the chapter by anticipating the development of a face-recognition, system of which distributed memory mechanisms provide a micro-level description and ‘abstractive’ processes provide a macro-level description.

The final chapter outlines the beginnings of a computational theory of face perception, drawing upon David Marr’s theoretical framework. Consideration is given to the kind of representational framework which might prove useful in understanding face recognition in these terms. The final two chapters of the book differ from the earlier ones in that they are largely speculative, but they provide much food for thought. The bread in this particular sandwich is also of a high quality and surprisingly easy to digest.

In conclusion, this is a book which would prove useful to a number of different groups. It must be considered essential for any researchers active in this area, but would also be of considerable interest to cognitive psychologists generally. It is written clearly enough for advanced undergraduates to gain much from reading it, and there are a few ideas for potential final-year projects in there (providing enough time is available for preparation of stimuli). The book does not deal with all aspects of facial processing in depth, giving only brief consider- ation to affective and communicative aspects, as stated. Furthermore, neuropsychological findings related to facial processing are not reviewed in detail. However, the book was never intended to provide a comprehensive review of all aspects of the subject, instead aiming to chart the progress of a particular cognitive approach. In this, it is eminently successful.

CHRIS FRENCH