The IAC model of face recognition

This is a psychological model which was written to capture some of the phenomena associated with human face recognition. The aim is not to produce a commercial system, but to understand the processes which allow us to recognise people, remember facts about them and so forth.

Although the purpose is theoretical, rather than applied, recent work with the model turns out to have implicactions for applied problems such as security.

Here's a schematic representation of the internals of the system.

It's built using the Rochester Connectionist Simulator, which provides an excellent graphical interface.

Here is a picture of what it looks like really.

Try out a web based version of the model  here 

Places to read about the IAC model of face recognition

Introduction to the model, and review of data from human experiments

• Burton, A.M., Bruce, V. & Johnston, R.A. (1990). Understanding face recognition with an interactive activation model. British Journal of Psychology, 81, 361-380.
   
• Bruce, V., Burton, A.M. & Craw, I. (1992). Modelling face recognition. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, B, 335, 121-128.
   
• Burton, A.M. (1998) A model of human face recognition. In J. Grainger and A.M. Jacobs (Eds.) Localist Connectionist Approaches to Human Cognition. pp. 75-100. London: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Latest incarnation of the model

• Burton, A.M., Bruce, V. & Hancock, P.J.B. (1999). From pixels to people: a model of familiar face recognition. Cognitive Science, 23, 1-31.

Neuropsychological modelling

• Burton, A.M., Young, A.W., Bruce, V., Johnston, R.A. & Ellis, A.W. (1991). Understanding covert recognition. Cognition, 39, 129-166.
   
• Young, A.W. & Burton, A.M. (1999). Simulating face recognition: implications for modelling cognition. Cognitive Neuropsychology, 16, 1-48.
   
• Burton, A.M. & Young, A.W. (1999). Simulation and explanation: some harmony and some discord. Cognitive Neuropsychology, 16, 73-79. (Reponse to O'Reilly & Farah's comments on Young & Burton, above).
   
• Morrison, D.J., Bruce, V. & Burton, A.M. (2000). Covert face recognition in neurologically intact participants. Psychological Research, 63,83-94.
   
• Morrison, D.J., Bruce, V. & Burton, A.M. (2001). Understanding provoked overt recognition in prosopagnosia. Visual Cognition, 8, 47-65.

Recognising and retrieving names

• Burton, A.M. & Bruce, V. (1992). I recognise your face, but I can't remember your name: a simple explanation? British Journal of Psychology, 83, 45-60.
   
• Burton, A.M. & Bruce, V. (1993). Naming faces and naming names: exploring an interactive activation model of person recognition. Memory, 1, 457-480.
  Available on-line as a PostScript file (511k) or Unix compressed PostScript (100k)
   
• Carson, D.R., Burton, A.M. & Bruce, V. (2000). Putting names to faces: A review and tests of the models. Consciousness and Pragmatics. 8, 9-62.
  
  
• Schweinberger, S.R., Burton, A.M. & Kelly, S.W. (2001). Priming the access to names of famous faces. British Journal of Psychology, 92, 303-317.
   

How to learn in connectionist nets with local representations

• Burton, A.M. (1994). Learning new faces in an interactive activation and competition model Visual Cognition, 1, 313-348.
  Available on-line as a PostScript file (397k) or Unix compressed PostScript (114k)
  
  See also
  
  
• Burton, A. M. (2000).  The many ways to distribute distributed representations. Commentary (p.472-473) on M. Page,  Connectionist modelling in psychology: A localist manifesto. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 23,  443-512.