Louise Ewing
Faces are immensely rich in social information and by adulthood, most people are remarkably skilled at reading this information. I feel like I’ve been fascinated with face and person perception forever - certainly since my early undergraduate studies in psychology. These days, I’m particularly interested in how these abilities emerge and improve between infancy and adulthood, and how face processing might differ in children and adults with atypical developmental trajectories, e.g., individuals with autism spectrum disorder and Williams Syndrome.
I completed a combined PhD/ MPsych (Educational and Developmental Psychology) at the University of Western Australia. I was supervised by Professor Gillian Rhodes and Dr Elizabeth Pellicano on a thesis investigating some of the mechanisms that might contribute to face processing differences and difficulties observed in children with autism. I continued this work after I graduated in 2012, taking up a post-doctoral position in the Person Perception Node of the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence in Cognition and its Disorders. There, I coordinated a large-scale project investigating (among other things) whether the perceptual coding of faces might be atypical in children and adults with ASD and, in particular, whether coding is less norm-based. We also examined whether children with ASD have difficulty integrating multiple social cues, such as facial expression and eye-gaze direction, and how their perceptions of social attributes, such as trustworthiness, might differ from those of typically developing children and impact upon behaviour.
In my current position, I am working with Emily Farran, Marie Smith and Annette Karmiloff-Smith at Birkbeck College, University of London on a grant exploring developmental shifts in the strategies used to evaluate faces (e.g., whether we have seen someone before, how they are feeling) in typical children and individuals with Williams Syndrome. We are using the Bubbles technique (Gosselin & Schyns, 2001) to reveal the specific characteristics that different age groups draw upon when making judgments about faces and linking their perception of these cues directly to face-selective neural activations using EEG.
If you have a child, or know a child aged 7 – 12 who might be interested in participating this research, please contact me on l.ewing@bbk.ac.uk
Publications
▪ Rhodes, G., Jeffery, L., Taylor, E., Hayward, W., Ewing, L. (2014) Individual differences in adaptive coding of identity are linked to face recognition ability. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance.
▪ Rhodes, G., Jeffery, L., Taylor, L. & Ewing, L. (2013). Autistic traits are linked to reduced adaptive coding of face identity and selectively poorer face recognition in men but not women. Neuropsychologia, 51, 2702 – 2708.
▪ Ewing, L., Leach, K., Jeffery, L., & Rhodes, G. (2013). Reduced face aftereffects in autism are not due to poor attention. PLOS One, 8 (11), e81353.
▪ Ewing, L., Pellicano, E., & Rhodes, G. (2013). Using effort to measure reward value of faces in children with autism. PLOS One, 8 (11), e79493.
▪ Ewing, L., Pellicano, E., & Rhodes, G. (2013). Reevaluating the selectivity of face-processing difficulties in children and adolescents with autism. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 115, 342-355.
▪ Ewing, L., Pellicano, E., & Rhodes, G. (2012). Atypical updating of face representations with experience in children with autism. Developmental Science, 16(1), 116-123.
▪ Rhodes, G., Jeffery, L., Evangelista, E., Ewing, L., Peters, M., & Taylor, L. (2011). Enhanced attention amplifies face adaptation. Vision Research, 51, 1811-1819.
▪ Ewing, L., Rhodes, G., & Pellicano, E. (2010). Have you got the look? Gaze direction affects judgments of facial attractiveness. Visual Cognition, 18, 321-330.
▪ Rhodes, G., Lie, H., Ewing, L., Evangelista, E., & Tanaka, J. (2010). Does perceived race affect discrimination and recognition of ambiguous-race faces? A test of the socio-cognitive hypothesis. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory & Cognition, 36, 217-223.
▪ Rhodes, G., Ewing, L., Hayward, W., Maurer, D., Mondloch, C., & Tanaka, J. (2009). Contact and other-race effects in configural and component processing of faces. British Journal of Psychology, 100, 717-728.
▪ Rhodes, G., Locke, V., Ewing, L., & Evangelista, E. (2009). Race coding and the other-race effect in face recognition. Perception, 38, 232-241.
▪ Rhodes, G., Maloney, L. T., Turner, J., & Ewing, L. (2007). Adaptive face coding and discrimination around the average face. Vision Research, 47, 974-989.
▪ Rhodes, G., Peters, M., & Ewing, L. (2007). Specialised higher-level mechanisms for facial-symmetry perception: Evidence from orientation-tuning functions. Perception, 36, 1804-1812.’
Faces are immensely rich in social information and by adulthood, most people are remarkably skilled at reading this information. I feel like I’ve been fascinated with face and person perception forever - certainly since my early undergraduate studies in psychology. These days, I’m particularly interested in how these abilities emerge and improve between infancy and adulthood, and how face processing might differ in children and adults with atypical developmental trajectories, e.g., individuals with autism spectrum disorder and Williams Syndrome.
I completed a combined PhD/ MPsych (Educational and Developmental Psychology) at the University of Western Australia. I was supervised by Professor Gillian Rhodes and Dr Elizabeth Pellicano on a thesis investigating some of the mechanisms that might contribute to face processing differences and difficulties observed in children with autism. I continued this work after I graduated in 2012, taking up a post-doctoral position in the Person Perception Node of the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence in Cognition and its Disorders. There, I coordinated a large-scale project investigating (among other things) whether the perceptual coding of faces might be atypical in children and adults with ASD and, in particular, whether coding is less norm-based. We also examined whether children with ASD have difficulty integrating multiple social cues, such as facial expression and eye-gaze direction, and how their perceptions of social attributes, such as trustworthiness, might differ from those of typically developing children and impact upon behaviour.
In my current position, I am working with Emily Farran, Marie Smith and Annette Karmiloff-Smith at Birkbeck College, University of London on a grant exploring developmental shifts in the strategies used to evaluate faces (e.g., whether we have seen someone before, how they are feeling) in typical children and individuals with Williams Syndrome. We are using the Bubbles technique (Gosselin & Schyns, 2001) to reveal the specific characteristics that different age groups draw upon when making judgments about faces and linking their perception of these cues directly to face-selective neural activations using EEG.
If you have a child, or know a child aged 7 – 12 who might be interested in participating this research, please contact me on l.ewing@bbk.ac.uk
Publications
▪ Rhodes, G., Jeffery, L., Taylor, E., Hayward, W., Ewing, L. (2014) Individual differences in adaptive coding of identity are linked to face recognition ability. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance.
▪ Rhodes, G., Jeffery, L., Taylor, L. & Ewing, L. (2013). Autistic traits are linked to reduced adaptive coding of face identity and selectively poorer face recognition in men but not women. Neuropsychologia, 51, 2702 – 2708.
▪ Ewing, L., Leach, K., Jeffery, L., & Rhodes, G. (2013). Reduced face aftereffects in autism are not due to poor attention. PLOS One, 8 (11), e81353.
▪ Ewing, L., Pellicano, E., & Rhodes, G. (2013). Using effort to measure reward value of faces in children with autism. PLOS One, 8 (11), e79493.
▪ Ewing, L., Pellicano, E., & Rhodes, G. (2013). Reevaluating the selectivity of face-processing difficulties in children and adolescents with autism. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 115, 342-355.
▪ Ewing, L., Pellicano, E., & Rhodes, G. (2012). Atypical updating of face representations with experience in children with autism. Developmental Science, 16(1), 116-123.
▪ Rhodes, G., Jeffery, L., Evangelista, E., Ewing, L., Peters, M., & Taylor, L. (2011). Enhanced attention amplifies face adaptation. Vision Research, 51, 1811-1819.
▪ Ewing, L., Rhodes, G., & Pellicano, E. (2010). Have you got the look? Gaze direction affects judgments of facial attractiveness. Visual Cognition, 18, 321-330.
▪ Rhodes, G., Lie, H., Ewing, L., Evangelista, E., & Tanaka, J. (2010). Does perceived race affect discrimination and recognition of ambiguous-race faces? A test of the socio-cognitive hypothesis. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory & Cognition, 36, 217-223.
▪ Rhodes, G., Ewing, L., Hayward, W., Maurer, D., Mondloch, C., & Tanaka, J. (2009). Contact and other-race effects in configural and component processing of faces. British Journal of Psychology, 100, 717-728.
▪ Rhodes, G., Locke, V., Ewing, L., & Evangelista, E. (2009). Race coding and the other-race effect in face recognition. Perception, 38, 232-241.
▪ Rhodes, G., Maloney, L. T., Turner, J., & Ewing, L. (2007). Adaptive face coding and discrimination around the average face. Vision Research, 47, 974-989.
▪ Rhodes, G., Peters, M., & Ewing, L. (2007). Specialised higher-level mechanisms for facial-symmetry perception: Evidence from orientation-tuning functions. Perception, 36, 1804-1812.’