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Content archived on 2024-06-18

Face Recognition: Understanding the role of within-person variability

Objective

This project represents a new way to look at the problem of human face recognition. Despite a large amount of research on this topic, we still do not understand the most fundamental aspect of face processing: how can we identify the people we see? This is a key problem in human perception, but it also has practical implications in forensic and security settings. This project has its roots in a simple observation: pictures of the same face can look very different indeed. In the standard approach to face recognition, this commonplace fact is treated as an inconvenience. Differences between pictures of the same person are regarded as ‘noise’, and either ignored, or eliminated by systematically controlling the images used for research. This research programme takes exactly the converse approach. Instead of trying to control away this variability, we wish to study it explicitly. Under this approach, the focus is not how to ‘tell people apart’, but instead how to ‘tell people together’ – how to bring together superficially different images into a coherent representation. Early work suggests that a very important component of familiar face recognition is the ability to generalize over superficial image differences – differences which tend to fool unfamiliar viewers, as well as automatic computer-based systems. The current failure to address this variability may account for the slow progress in face identification – progress which has fallen behind the understanding of other aspects of face processing such as social perception. By studying this missing component of face recognition, a novel theoretical model will be developed which has the potential to make a significant contribution.

Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)

CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: https://op.europa.eu/en/web/eu-vocabularies/euroscivoc.

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Topic(s)

Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.

Call for proposal

Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.

ERC-2012-ADG_20120411
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Funding Scheme

Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.

ERC-AG - ERC Advanced Grant

Host institution

UNIVERSITY OF YORK
EU contribution
€ 1 046 553,41
Address
HESLINGTON
YO10 5DD York North Yorkshire
United Kingdom

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Region
Yorkshire and the Humber North Yorkshire York
Activity type
Higher or Secondary Education Establishments
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Total cost

The total costs incurred by this organisation to participate in the project, including direct and indirect costs. This amount is a subset of the overall project budget.

No data

Beneficiaries (2)

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