The objects Malik designs will likely be used in a variety of experiments conducted by researchers here and elsewhere long after he graduates T he object filling the computer screen could have been sculpted by a third-grader left to his imagination in art class. Designed on the computer by Mohsin Malik '01, the work is part of a research project to determine how people recognize faces and whether that process differs from how we recognize other objects, such as a chairs or cars. By determining how someone learns to recognize these objects, there may be answers to face recognition.
Some people argue that there is a specific area of the brain for face recognition.
Like faces, which are very similar, there are only minor differences among the objects Malik is designing. Malik began working with Tarr this past summer on the three-year project funded by the National Science Foundation. Yufo males are characterized by a base that was wider in the front and narrower toward the back. The opposite is true for females. But in no way do they resemble human faces - or anything else.