Perception June 2011
Bruce and Young’s theory of face recognition starts with structural encoding where the face is seen and features are analysed. Their theory then splits onto two sections for familiar and unfamiliar faces.
For familiar faces this information then travels to the first node within this section, called the
_____________________________, here the details of the face in question are compared with previously stored details, if a match is found it then moves into the PIN’s which is the persons identity node, it is here information stored about the person is, for example, their job. If you are able to reach this stage then you can then go the NRU which is the name retrieval units where the name of the person in question is. Bruce and Young believe that the serial nature of this means it only goes in this order e.g. you can’t retrieve the persons name without knowing personal information about them, however they do believe that you don’t necessarily go through all the stages and can stop at any if the information isn’t sufficient.
The other path Bruce and Young identified in their theory of face recognition is for unfamiliar faces they believe after the structural encoding the information is passed to the facial expression analysis where the individuals expression and speech is analysed e.g. their lip movement. After this it is passed to a node that notes other important information e.g. scars.
All of these nodes for familiar and unfamiliar are linked to the Cognitive System.
A study that supports this theory is by Young who asked nurses to keep a diary over an 8 week period about recognising faces. They found the most common problem experienced was remembering information about the person but not their name. This supports the serial nature of Bruce and Young’s model.
However it could be said that this study is mildly retrospective as the participants wouldn’t fill the diaries in until the end of the day so they might have forgotten what had happened during the day or might have forgotten to fill it in.
A weakness of this model is that it is very vague about the role of the cognitive system and about unfamiliar faces. Another weakness is that the model doesn’t actually address how unfamiliar faces are encoded to become familiar faces.
However, a major strength of the model is that it has real world application as it has been used by the police to help with eye witness testimonies as they have identified a serial nature the police are able to stick to this order to try and help prompt witnesses.

Another strength is that it has been further developed and modified to create the IAC which is more in depth face recognition model and answers some of the criticisms of Bruce and
Young.
Further support comes from the nervous system which suggests that the human body is made up of individual nodes and units which is what Bruce and Young suggest in their theory of face recognition.
A01 7/9
A02 6/16