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Face

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For other uses, see Face (disambiguation).
"Faces" redirects here. For other uses, see Faces (disambiguation).
"Human face" redirects here. For the miniseries, see The Human Face.
Face
Face of a woman (left) and face of a man (right)
Ventrolateral aspect of the human face with skin removed, showing muscles of the face
Details
Identifiers
Latinfacies, facia or fave
MeSHD005145
TA98A01.1.00.006
TA2112
FMA24728
Anatomical terminology

The face is the front of an animal's head that features the eyes, nose and mouth, and through which animals express many of their emotions.[1][2] The face is crucial for human identity, and damage such as scarring or developmental deformities may affect the psyche adversely.[1]

Structure

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The front of the human head is called the face. It includes several distinct areas,[3] of which the main features are:

Facial appearance is vital for human recognition and communication. Facial muscles in humans allow expression of emotions.[citation needed]

The face is itself a highly sensitive region of the human body and its expression may change when the brain is stimulated by any of the many human senses, such as touch, temperature, smell, taste, hearing, movement, hunger, or visual stimuli.[4]

Variability

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See also: Human variability

The face is the feature which best distinguishes a person. Specialized regions of the human brain, such as the fusiform face area (FFA), enable facial recognition; when these are damaged, it may be impossible to recognize faces even of intimate family members. The pattern of specific organs, such as the eyes, or of parts of them, is used in biometric identification to uniquely identify individuals.

Shape

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The muscles of the face are important when engaging in facial expressions.
Skeletal anatomy of the face

The shape of the face is influenced by the bone-structure of the skull, and each face is unique through the anatomical variation present in the bones of the viscerocranium (and neurocranium).[1] The bones involved in shaping the face are mainly the maxilla, mandible, nasal bone, zygomatic bone, and frontal bone. Also important are various soft tissues, such as fat, hair and skin (of which color may vary).[1]

The face changes over time, and features common in children or babies, such as prominent buccal fat-pads disappear over time, their role in the infant being to stabilize the cheeks during suckling. While the buccal fat-pads often diminish in size, the prominence of bones increase with age as they grow and develop.[1]

Facial shape – such as facial symmetry – is an important determinant of beauty.

Other characteristics

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Visible variable features of the face other than shapes and proportions include color (paleness, sun tan and genetic default pigmentation), hair (length, color, loss, graying), wrinkles,[5][6] facial hair (e.g. beards), skin sagging,[6] discolorations[7] (dark spots,[6] freckles and eye circles[6]), pore-variabilities,[8] skin blemishes (pimples, scars, burn marks). Many of these features can also vary over time due to aging,[6][5][7] skin care, nutrition,[9][10][11][12][13][14] the exposome[15] (such as harmful substances of the general environment,[11][15] workplace and cosmetics), psychological factors,[11] and behavior (such as smoking,[15] sleep,[11] physical activity and sun damage[5][7][11]).

Mechanisms underlying these include changes related to peptides (notably collagen),[7][11] inflammation,[11][13] production of various proteins (notably elastin and other ECM proteins),[13] the structure of subcutaneous tissue,[5][7] hormones,[11] fibers (such as elastic fibers or elasticity)[7] and the skin barrier.[15]

The desire of many to look young for their age and/or attractive[6] has led to the establishment of a large cosmetics industry,[5] which is largely concerned with make-up that is applied on top of the skin (topically) to temporarily change appearance but it or dermatology also develop anti-aging products (and related products and procedures) that in some cases affect underlying biology and are partly applied preventively.[12] Facial traits are also used in biometrics[16][17] and there have been attempts at reproducible quantifications.[7][8] Skin health is considered a major factor in human well-being and the perception of health in humans.[12]

Genetics

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Genes are a major factor in the particular appearance of a person's face with the high similarity of faces of identical twins indicating that most of facial variability is determined genetically.[18]

Studies have identified genes and gene regions determining face shape and differences in various facial features. A 2021 study found that a version of a gene associated with lip thickness – possibly selected for due to adaption to cold climate via fat distribution – introgressed from ancient humans – Denisovans – into the modern humans Native Americans.[19][20][21] Another study found look-alike humans (doppelgängers) have genetic similarities, sharing genes affecting not only the face but also some phenotypes of physique and behavior.[22][23] A study identified genes controlling the shape of the nose and chin.[24] Biological databases may be used to aggregate and discover associations between facial phenotypes and genes.[25][26]

Human face development, by Haeckel
A man's face
A woman's face
An intersex person's face

Function

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Emotional expression

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Faces are essential to expressing emotion, consciously or unconsciously. A frown denotes disapproval; a smile usually means someone is pleased. Being able to read emotion in another's face is "the fundamental basis for empathy and the ability to interpret a person's reactions and predict the probability of ensuing behaviors". One study used the Multimodal Emotion Recognition Test[27] to attempt to determine how to measure emotion. This research aimed at using a measuring device to accomplish what many people do every day: read emotion in a face.[28]

The muscles of the face play a prominent role in the expression of emotion,[1] and vary among different individuals, giving rise to additional diversity in expression and facial features.[29]

Variations of the risorius, triangularis and zygomaticus muscles

People are also relatively good at determining if a smile is real or fake. A recent study looked at individuals judging forced and genuine smiles. While young and elderly participants equally could tell the difference for smiling young people, the "older adult participants outperformed young adult participants in distinguishing between posed and spontaneous smiles".[30] This suggests that with experience and age, we become more accurate at perceiving true emotions across various age groups.

Perception and recognition

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Main article: Face perception
The face perception mechanisms of the brain, such as the fusiform face area, can produce facial pareidolias such as this famous rock formation on Mars.

Gestalt psychologists theorize that a face is not merely a set of facial features, but is rather something meaningful in its form. This is consistent with the Gestalt theory that an image is seen in its entirety, not by its individual parts. According to Gary L. Allen, people adapted to respond more to faces during evolution as the natural result of being a social species. Allen suggests that the purpose of recognizing faces has its roots in the "parent-infant attraction, a quick and low-effort means by which parents and infants form an internal representation of each other, reducing the likelihood that the parent will abandon his or her offspring because of recognition failure".[31] Allen's work takes a psychological perspective that combines evolutionary theories with Gestalt psychology.

Biological perspective

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Research has indicated that certain areas of the brain respond particularly well to faces. The fusiform face area, within the fusiform gyrus, is activated by faces, and it is activated differently for shy and social people. A study confirmed that "when viewing images of strangers, shy adults exhibited significantly less activation in the fusiform gyri than did social adults".[32] Furthermore, particular areas respond more to a face that is considered attractive, as seen in another study: "Facial beauty evokes a widely distributed neural network involving perceptual, decision-making and reward circuits. In those experiments, the perceptual response across FFA and LOC remained present even when subjects were not attending explicitly to facial beauty".[33]

Society and culture

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Cosmetic surgery

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Cosmetic surgery can be used to alter the appearance of the facial features.[34] Maxillofacial surgery may also be used in cases of facial trauma, injury to the face and skin diseases. Severely disfigured individuals have recently received full face transplants and partial transplants of skin and muscle tissue.[35]

Caricatures

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Caricatures often exaggerate facial features to make a face more easily recognized in association with a pronounced portion of the face of the individual in question—for example, a caricature of Osama bin Laden might focus on his facial hair and nose; a caricature of George W. Bush might enlarge his ears to the size of an elephant's; a caricature of Jay Leno may pronounce his head and chin; and a caricature of Mick Jagger might enlarge his lips. Exaggeration of memorable features helps people to recognize others when presented in a caricature form.[36]

Metaphor

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By extension, anything which is the forward or world-facing part of a system which has internal structure is considered its "face", like the façade of a building. For example, a public relations or press officer might be called the "face" of the organization he or she represents. "Face" is also used metaphorically in a sociological context to refer to reputation or standing in society, particularly Chinese society,[37] and is spoken of as a resource which can be won or lost. Because of the association with individuality, the anonymous person is sometimes referred to as "faceless".

See also

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Wikiquote has quotations related to Faces.
Wikimedia Commons has media related to face.

References

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  1. ^ a b c d e f Moore, Keith L.; Dalley, Arthur F.; Agur, Anne M. R. (2010). Moore's clinical anatomy. United States of America: Lippincott Williams & Wilkins. pp. 843–980. ISBN 978-1-60547-652-0.
  2. ^ "Year of Discovery, Faceless and Brainless Fish". 2011-12-29. Archived from the original on 2014-10-06. Retrieved December 11, 2013.
  3. ^ Face | Define Face at Dictionary.com. Dictionary.reference.com. Retrieved on 2011-04-29.
  4. ^ Anatomy of the Face and Head Underlying Facial Expression Archived 2007-11-29 at the Wayback Machine. Face-and-emotion.com. Retrieved on 2011-04-29.
  5. ^ a b c d e Gunn, David A.; Rexbye, Helle; Griffiths, Christopher E. M.; Murray, Peter G.; Fereday, Amelia; Catt, Sharon D.; Tomlin, Cyrena C.; Strongitharm, Barbara H.; Perrett, Dave I.; Catt, Michael; Mayes, Andrew E.; Messenger, Andrew G.; Green, Martin R.; Ouderaa, Frans van der; Vaupel, James W.; Christensen, Kaare (1 December 2009). "Why Some Women Look Young for Their Age". PLOS ONE. 4 (12): e8021. Bibcode:2009PLoSO...4.8021G. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0008021. ISSN 1932-6203. PMC 2779449. PMID 19956599.
  6. ^ a b c d e f Porcheron, A.; Latreille, J.; Jdid, R.; Tschachler, E.; Morizot, F. (August 2014). "Influence of skin ageing features on Chinese women's perception of facial age and attractiveness". International Journal of Cosmetic Science. 36 (4): 312–320. doi:10.1111/ics.12128. ISSN 0142-5463. PMC 4283052. PMID 24712710. S2CID 1546162.
  7. ^ a b c d e f g Buranasirin, Punnapath; Pongpirul, Krit; Meephansan, Jitlada (28 June 2019). "Development of a Global Subjective Skin Aging Assessment score from the perspective of dermatologists". BMC Research Notes. 12 (1): 364. doi:10.1186/s13104-019-4404-z. ISSN 1756-0500. PMC 6599371. PMID 31253172.
  8. ^ a b Gartstein, Vladimir; Shaya, Steven A. (12 June 1986). Dwyer Iii, Samuel J; Schneider, Roger H (eds.). "Image Analysis Of Facial Skin Features". Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers (Spie) Conference Series. Application of Optical Instrumentation in Medicine XIV and Picture Archiving and Communication Systems. 0626: 284. Bibcode:1986SPIE..626..284G. doi:10.1117/12.975404. S2CID 129634133.
  9. ^ Cao, Changwei; Xiao, Zhichao; Wu, Yinglong; Ge, Changrong (March 2020). "Diet and Skin Aging—From the Perspective of Food Nutrition". Nutrients. 12 (3): 870. doi:10.3390/nu12030870. ISSN 2072-6643. PMC 7146365. PMID 32213934.
  10. ^ Mekić, Selma; Jacobs, Leonie C.; Hamer, Merel A.; Ikram, M. Arfan; Schoufour, Josje D.; Gunn, David A.; Kiefte-de Jong, Jessica C.; Nijsten, Tamar (1 May 2019). "A healthy diet in women is associated with less facial wrinkles in a large Dutch population-based cohort". Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology. 80 (5): 1358–1363.e2. doi:10.1016/j.jaad.2018.03.033. ISSN 0190-9622. PMID 29601935. S2CID 4487261.
  11. ^ a b c d e f g h Passeron, T.; Krutmann, J.; Andersen, M.L.; Katta, R.; Zouboulis, C.C. (July 2020). "Clinical and biological impact of the exposome on the skin". Journal of the European Academy of Dermatology and Venereology. 34 (S4): 4–25. doi:10.1111/jdv.16614. ISSN 0926-9959. PMID 32677068. S2CID 220609978.
  12. ^ a b c Zouboulis, Christos C.; Ganceviciene, Ruta; Liakou, Aikaterini I.; Theodoridis, Athanasios; Elewa, Rana; Makrantonaki, Eugenia (1 July 2019). "Aesthetic aspects of skin aging, prevention, and local treatment". Clinics in Dermatology. 37 (4): 365–372. doi:10.1016/j.clindermatol.2019.04.002. ISSN 0738-081X. PMID 31345325. S2CID 149692214.
  13. ^ a b c Lupu, Mihaela-Adi; Gradisteanu Pircalabioru, Gratiela; Chifiriuc, Mariana-Carmen; Albulescu, Radu; Tanase, Cristiana (1 July 2020). "Beneficial effects of food supplements based on hydrolyzed collagen for skin care (Review)". Experimental and Therapeutic Medicine. 20 (1): 12–17. doi:10.3892/etm.2019.8342. ISSN 1792-0981. PMC 7271718. PMID 32508986. S2CID 213518696.
  14. ^ Marcílio Cândido, Thalita; Bueno Ariede, Maíra; Vieira Lima, Fabiana; de Souza Guedes, Luciana; Robles Velasco, Maria Valéria; Rolim Baby, André; Rosado, Catarina (16 March 2022). "Dietary Supplements and the Skin: Focus on Photoprotection and Antioxidant Activity—A Review". Nutrients. 14 (6): 1248. doi:10.3390/nu14061248. ISSN 2072-6643. PMC 8953599. PMID 35334905.
  15. ^ a b c d Krutmann, Jean; Bouloc, Anne; Sore, Gabrielle; Bernard, Bruno A.; Passeron, Thierry (1 March 2017). "The skin aging exposome". Journal of Dermatological Science. 85 (3): 152–161. doi:10.1016/j.jdermsci.2016.09.015. ISSN 0923-1811. PMID 27720464.
  16. ^ Reid, D.A.; Samangooei, S.; Chen, C.; Nixon, M.S.; Ross, A. (2013). "Soft Biometrics for Surveillance: An Overview" (PDF). Handbook of Statistics. 31. Elsevier: 327–352. doi:10.1016/b978-0-444-53859-8.00013-8. ISBN 9780444538598.
  17. ^ Arbab-Zavar, Banafshe; Wei, Xingjie; Bustard, John D.; Nixon, Mark S.; Li, Chang-Tsun (18 December 2015). "On Forensic Use of Biometrics". Handbook of Digital Forensics of Multimedia Data and Devices. John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. pp. 270–304. doi:10.1002/9781118705773.ch7. ISBN 9781118705773.
  18. ^ Crouch, Daniel J. M.; Winney, Bruce; Koppen, Willem P.; Christmas, William J.; Hutnik, Katarzyna; Day, Tammy; Meena, Devendra; Boumertit, Abdelhamid; Hysi, Pirro; Nessa, Ayrun; Spector, Tim D.; Kittler, Josef; Bodmer, Walter F. (23 January 2018). "Genetics of the human face: Identification of large-effect single gene variants". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 115 (4): E676 – E685. Bibcode:2018PNAS..115E.676C. doi:10.1073/pnas.1708207114. ISSN 0027-8424. PMC 5789906. PMID 29301965.
  19. ^ "Genes for face shape identified". phys.org. Retrieved 6 March 2021.
  20. ^ "Genes for face shape identified | Scienmag: Latest Science and Health News". ScienceMag. Archived from the original on 16 January 2022. Retrieved 6 March 2021.
  21. ^ Bonfante, Betty; Faux, Pierre; Navarro, Nicolas; Mendoza-Revilla, Javier; Dubied, Morgane; Montillot, Charlotte; Wentworth, Emma; Poloni, Lauriane; Varón-González, Ceferino; Jones, Philip; Xiong, Ziyi; Fuentes-Guajardo, Macarena; Palmal, Sagnik; Chacón-Duque, Juan Camilo; Hurtado, Malena; Villegas, Valeria; Granja, Vanessa; Jaramillo, Claudia; Arias, William; Barquera, Rodrigo; Everardo-Martínez, Paola; Sánchez-Quinto, Mirsha; Gómez-Valdés, Jorge; Villamil-Ramírez, Hugo; Cerqueira, Caio C. Silva de; Hünemeier, Tábita; Ramallo, Virginia; Liu, Fan; Weinberg, Seth M.; Shaffer, John R.; Stergiakouli, Evie; Howe, Laurence J.; Hysi, Pirro G.; Spector, Timothy D.; Gonzalez-José, Rolando; Schüler-Faccini, Lavinia; Bortolini, Maria-Cátira; Acuña-Alonzo, Victor; Canizales-Quinteros, Samuel; Gallo, Carla; Poletti, Giovanni; Bedoya, Gabriel; Rothhammer, Francisco; Thauvin-Robinet, Christel; Faivre, Laurence; Costedoat, Caroline; Balding, David; Cox, Timothy; Kayser, Manfred; Duplomb, Laurence; Yalcin, Binnaz; Cotney, Justin; Adhikari, Kaustubh; Ruiz-Linares, Andrés (1 February 2021). "A GWAS in Latin Americans identifies novel face shape loci, implicating VPS13B and a Denisovan introgressed region in facial variation". Science Advances. 7 (6): eabc6160. Bibcode:2021SciA....7.6160B. doi:10.1126/sciadv.abc6160. ISSN 2375-2548. PMC 7864580. PMID 33547071.
  22. ^ Golembiewski, Kate; Brunelle, François (23 August 2022). "Your Doppelgänger Is Out There and You Probably Share DNA With Them". The New York Times. Retrieved 15 September 2022.
  23. ^ Joshi, Ricky S.; Rigau, Maria; García-Prieto, Carlos A.; Moura, Manuel Castro de; Piñeyro, David; Moran, Sebastian; Davalos, Veronica; Carrión, Pablo; Ferrando-Bernal, Manuel; Olalde, Iñigo; Lalueza-Fox, Carles; Navarro, Arcadi; Fernández-Tena, Carles; Aspandi, Decky; Sukno, Federico M.; Binefa, Xavier; Valencia, Alfonso; Esteller, Manel (23 August 2022). "Look-alike humans identified by facial recognition algorithms show genetic similarities". Cell Reports. 40 (8): 111257. doi:10.1016/j.celrep.2022.111257. hdl:10230/54047. ISSN 2211-1247. PMID 36001980.
  24. ^ Adhikari, Kaustubh; Fuentes-Guajardo, Macarena; et al. (19 May 2016). "A genome-wide association scan implicates DCHS2, RUNX2, GLI3, PAX1 and EDAR in human facial variation". Nature Communications. 7 (1): 11616. Bibcode:2016NatCo...711616A. doi:10.1038/ncomms11616. PMC 4874031. PMID 27193062. S2CID 11364821.
  25. ^ Hassani-Pak, Keywan; Rawlings, Christopher (1 March 2017). "Knowledge Discovery in Biological Databases for Revealing Candidate Genes Linked to Complex Phenotypes". Journal of Integrative Bioinformatics. 14 (1). doi:10.1515/jib-2016-0002 (inactive 3 December 2024). ISSN 1613-4516. PMC 6042805. PMID 28609292.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: DOI inactive as of December 2024 (link)
  26. ^ "Defining a Face: What Can DNA Phenotyping Really Tell Us About An Unknown Sample?". National Institute of Justice. Retrieved 4 April 2021. Based on Walsh's phenotype analysis, King determined that one of the earliest paintings of Richard III, the 1510 "Arched Framed Portrait," best matched the genetic information. "We were still dealing with categories [of color] because we're not at the quantitative level yet," Walsh said of her determination of Richard III's hair and eye color. "[King] wanted something physical to see, and that's what spurred me to move toward the quantitative so strongly. Because I could always say to someone, 'blue' or 'blonde,' and they would say, 'I need to see this physically.' So that is what I'm working on now. I want to produce that result." Walsh has gathered DNA phenotype data from 2,000 Irish, Greek and U.S. individuals and is currently collecting data from 3,000 additional individuals from those same countries in order to create a phenotype-genotype database and prediction model. For forensic purposes, she would like to be able to start with a "blank person" and with a sample of DNA, determine the actual eye, hair and skin pigmentation.
  27. ^ Multimodal Emotion Recognition Test (MERT) | Swiss Center for Affective Sciences Archived 2011-09-03 at the Wayback Machine. Affective-sciences.org. Retrieved on 2011-04-29.
  28. ^ Bänziger, T.; Grandjean, D. & Scherer, K. R. (2009). "Emotion recognition from expressions in face, voice, and body: The Multimodal Emotion Recognition Test (MERT)" (PDF). Emotion. 9 (5): 691–704. CiteSeerX 10.1.1.455.8892. doi:10.1037/a0017088. PMID 19803591. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2017-08-08. Retrieved 2017-11-01.
  29. ^ Braus, Hermann (1921). Anatomie des Menschen: ein Lehrbuch für Studierende und Ärzte. p. 777.
  30. ^ Murphy, N. A.; Lehrfeld, J. M. & Isaacowitz, D. M. (2010). "Recognition of posed and spontaneous dynamic smiles in young and older adults". Psychology and Aging. 25 (4): 811–821. doi:10.1037/a0019888. PMC 3011054. PMID 20718538.
  31. ^ Allen, Gary L.; Peterson, Mary A.; Rhodes, Gillian (2006). "Review: Seeking a Common Gestalt Approach to the Perception of Faces, Objects, and Scenes". American Journal of Psychology. 119 (2): 311–19. doi:10.2307/20445341. JSTOR 20445341.
  32. ^ Beaton, E. A., Schmidt, L. A., Schulkin, J., Antony, M. M., Swinson, R. P. & Hall, G. B. (2009). "Different fusiform activity to stranger and personally familiar faces in shy and social adults". Social Neuroscience. 4 (4): 308–316. doi:10.1080/17470910902801021. PMID 19322727. S2CID 13304727.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  33. ^ Chatterjee, A.; Thomas, A.; Smith, S. E. & Aguirre, G. K. (2009). "The neural response to facial attractiveness". Neuropsychology. 23 (2): 135–143. CiteSeerX 10.1.1.576.5894. doi:10.1037/a0014430. PMID 19254086.
  34. ^ Plastic and Cosmetic Surgery: MedlinePlus. Nlm.nih.gov. Retrieved on 2011-04-29.
  35. ^ Face Transplant Surgery at Brigham and Women's Hospital
  36. ^ information about caricatures Archived 2007-08-26 at the Wayback Machine. Edu.dudley.gov.uk. Retrieved on 2011-04-29.
  37. ^ Ho, David Yau-fai (January 1976). "On the Concept of Face". American Journal of Sociology. 81 (4): 867–84. doi:10.1086/226145. JSTOR 2777600. S2CID 145513767.: "The concept of face is, of course, Chinese in origin".
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