Car lovers 'see faces' in vehicles

They discovered that this ability causes a brainwave "traffic jam" - perhaps reflecting the extra instant it takes to tell the difference.

Test results challenge the widely held view that there is a single, highly specialised part of the brain responsible for facial recognition alone.

The US study provides scientists with insights into how the brain develops the ability to recognise objects quickly.

The study, published in the journal Nature Neuroscience, involved measurements of brain activity in 40 men.

Half of them were car enthusiasts, while others had little or no interest in this.

Slower reaction

The subjects viewed alternating pictures of cars and faces, and asked them to compare each car to the previous car they saw and each face to the previous face.

They found that the car fans used just one part of the brain to recognise the cars and the faces, taking just a fifth of a second to identify the cars.

The non-enthusiasts "broke up" the work and distributed to several areas of the brain before recognising it - a slower process.

However, it appeared as if the car enthusiasts' ability to spot a "face" in the appearance of the car actually interfered with their ability to spot genuine faces, slowing them down.

General purpose

Study author Professor Isabel Gauthier, from Vanderbilt University, said that it was more likely that a general purpose "visual processor" existed - one that could be trained to identify other types of object "holistically".

She said: "We show that the holistic identification process takes place very early in the sequence of visual processing and that at least some of the same neural circuitry must be involved in identifying faces and other objects of extreme interest."

INTERNET LINKS:
Vanderbilt University
Face Recognition
Nature Neuroscience
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