Within the last three decades, interest in the psychological experience of human faces has drawn together cognitive science researchers from diverse backgrounds. Computer scientists talk to neural scientists who draw on the work of mathematicians who explicitly influence those conducting behavioral experiments.

The chapters in this volume illustrate the breadth of the research on facial perception and memory, with the emphasis being on mathematical and computational approaches. In pulling together these chapters, the editors sought to do much more than illustrate breadth. They endeavored as well to illustrate the synergies and tensions that inevitably result from adopting a broad view, one consistent with the emerging discipline of cognitive science.