Stefan R. SCHWEINBERGER, Ph.D.

Full Professor and Chair
General Psychology and Cognitive Neuroscience Friedrich Schiller University, Jena, Germany

Venue: LT2, Sino Building, Chung Chi College, CUHK
Time: 11:00 am, 29 October 2018 (Monday)

The strengths of event‐related brain potentials (ERPs) include a millisecond time resolution window to neural processes underlying perception and recognition of complex stimuli under relatively natural viewing conditions. I will present both systematic research conducted over the past 25 years and current data which show how we can systematically link different ERP components to different functional processes that relate to face detection (N170), norm‐based coding (P200), and identification (N250). The research I present provides converging evidence for these links emerging from investigations with diverse paradigms, including own‐race and own‐age biases in face perception, effects of facial distinctiveness and photorealistic caricaturing, effects of parametric manipulations of distance‐to‐norm in faces and their corresponding anti‐faces, and effects of facial familiarity. While basic research is yet to exploit the full potential of ERPs to investigate multiple processes in face perception, I will show a few applied examples for how these components can be used as tools to probe different aspects of face perception that are induced experimentally, or that are subject to individual differences in face recognition abilities.

About the Speaker

Prof. Stefan SCHWEINBERGER obtained his undergraduate degree in Psychology in 1988 from Konstanz University, Germany and completed his PhD at the same institute in 1991. After some years as a post-doctoral fellow, he took up a Professor position at the University of Glasgow, UK in 2000 and moved to a Full Professor position at Friedrich-Schiller- University, Germany in 2005. There he has established a highly productive research unit for person perception that is funded by the German Research Foundation. Prof. Schweinberger has been on the editorial board of several journals including The Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology and Cortex. Since 2013, he is the editor-in-chief of The British Journal of Psychology. His research focus is on face and voice processing and concerns questions related to identity recognition and racial biases, among other topics. Prof. Schweinberger is a leading neuroscientist in the field of person perception. He has published over 160 peer-reviewed articles that have attracted over 8000 citations on Google Scholar.

All are welcome Enquiry: Rebecca Ma (Tel: 3943‐8145)