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Scientists Decipher the Neural Code For Faces (scientificamerican.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the major-advances dept.

New submitter akakaak writes: In a new paper published in Cell, researchers Le Chang and Doris Tsao claim to have uncovered "The Code for Facial Identity in the Primate Brain." They develop a model representing each face as a vector in a 50-dimensional "face-space," and show that the firing rate for each face-sensitive neuron represents the location along a single axis through this space. This allows them to accurately predict the appearance of a viewed face from the collective recorded activity of the neurons. This work is a major advance in the decoding of complex neural representations, and refutes exemplar-based models of face recognition. Further reading: Scientific American

4 of 35 comments (clear)

  1. This is ground breaking. by PerlPunk · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Basically, the result from the paper show that from the data recorded from the primates' neurons, it is possible to recreate with high accuracy the image the monkeys saw.

    The potential technology developed from this finding would astounding. For example, a scanner could be developed that could allow police to ask a victim to remember what the criminal looked like and produce a near photographic image of him.

    1. Re:This is ground breaking. by bbelt16ag · · Score: 2

      or they could use it as another tool to steal our passwords or invade our memories.

      --
      NEVER NEVER NEVER NEVER NEVER NEVER NEVER NEVER GIVE UP! "No limitations, no boundaries, there is no reason for them."
  2. Face blindness by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I wonder what the output looks like for those of us with face blindness? Do I have an accurate representation in my head and just fail to load it, or am I not saving them properly?

  3. Re: nobel prize material by PoopJuggler · · Score: 3, Insightful

    And it's still the fucking Kardashians who make all the headlines.