The artist Salvador Dali was a master of imbedding images into his paintings to challenge perception (Fig. 1, from fig. 13-21 of Schiller and Tehovnik 2015). The head of Voltaire in the painting is composed of three Nuns. Depending on how you view the image will determine whether you see Voltaire by fixating his nose or see the Nuns by fixating their heads. Many bistable images oscillate depending on what part of an object is foveated by the eyes. Indeed, IT cortex must have access to eye-position information with respect to the details of an object (ultimately in three dimensions) (Ingle 1973). This information in its entirety (including the eye movements) is required when learning about novel objects (Hebb 1949; Yarbus 1967), so that the first time you experience the face of a new person it is immediately added to your library of stored faces. We believe that an individual neuron in IT cortex, which can be connected to a network of over 1,000 follower neurons (a unit of declarative consciousness), is sufficient to store a new representation immediately (Tehovnik, Hasanbegović, Chen 2024). To test this supposition, we now have the understanding to disrupt individual neurons in the neocortex using the method of Ojemann/Penfield (Ojemann 1983, 1991; see Fig. 7 of Tehovnik et al. 2009; also see Houweling and Brecht 2008), which should be able to erase the memory of a new face upon direct electrical stimulation of the neuron occupying the center of one unit of declarative consciousness.
From the literature on neurosciences thus far, a few regions of the brain and few neuronal process have been identified for this phenomenon. It is different from norma visual perception as an seperate set of neural networks are present in th brain for facial recognition only. This explains part of the immediate nature of the phenomenon. Below in pointers are illustrated some of the elements that contribute to the phenomenon of facial recognition from the perspective of neuroscience. It would be valuable to look cogntive theories such as figure-ground perception and object-by-recognition theories as well for a more enhanced understanding.
To study the immediate storage of new faces, researchers employ various methods:
The immediate storage of a new face in humans is often attributed to the brain's specialized mechanisms for processing and recognizing faces, known as the fusiform face area (FFA) and other regions in the ventral visual pathway. These brain regions are highly sensitive to facial features and are thought to facilitate rapid encoding and storage of new faces.
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