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How the brain’s face code might unlock the mysteries of perception

Doris Tsao mastered facial recognition in the brain. Now she’s looking to determine the neural code for everything we see.
  1. Alison Abbott
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Doris Tsao launched her career deciphering faces — but for a few weeks in September, she struggled to control the expression on her own. Tsao had just won a MacArthur Foundation ‘genius’ award, an honour that comes with more than half a million dollars to use however the recipient wants. But she was sworn to secrecy — even when the foundation sent a film crew to her laboratory at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) in Pasadena. Thrilled and embarrassed at the same time, she had to invent an explanation, all while keeping her face in check.

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Nature 564, 176-179 (2018)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-018-07668-4

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