Research on face recognition: The Aberdeen influence

The review of 'Recognizing faces' by Hadyn Ellis, published in the British Journal of Psychology in 1975, marked the genesis of a distinct field of research. This seminal review sprang from a broader programme of research on face recognition conducted at the University of Aberdeen, whose influence continues to be felt in what has become an internationally important research area. We discuss the background to the Aberdeen research, summarize some of its achievements, and offer reasons why it proved so successful. These reasons include the synergy between theory and practice-based studies, the value of combining different perspectives and sources of evidence, sound techniques that led to easily reproducible findings, and the emphasis on testing even the most 'common sense' assumptions.