How do we perceive faces? How can makeup change these impressions?
Richard Russell applies techniques and knowledge from the vision sciences to answer questions about how we perceive people. A major focus of his research is the development of a biologically based account of makeup and other techniques of personal decoration.
Facial Perception Research
Perceiving Age, Health, Sex, and Beauty in the Face
People use facial contrast to decide the sex of a face and how masculine or feminine it is. Manipulating this facial contrast has opposite effects on male and female attractiveness.
Face Recognition: Prosopagnosia and Super-recognizers
Prosopagnosia (also called face blindness) is an impairment in the recognition of faces. Some people are the opposite of prosopagnosic, and have excellent face recognition ability.
Is Beauty In The Eye of the Beholder?
How does social organization, experience, and learning affect attractiveness preferences?
Representations for face recognition
Is shape really the dominant feature for face recognition, as is the case for most object classes?