Prof Peter Hancock

I have a first degree in Chemistry, an MSc in Intelligent systems and a PhD in Computing Science, and have been a lecturer in Psychology since 1995.  As Deputy Head I help with the departmental budget, and chair the resources committee.

 

Stirling has a beautiful campus.  I have a webcam of the view from my office.

I've made available some animations of the principal components of shape variation.

I'm responsible for the PICS image archive.  If you'd like to contribute your images, please let me know.

I'm on the editorial boards of Applied Cognitive Psychology and Network: computation in neural systems. Please contact me if you think you might have something suitable for publication therein.

I'm principally interested in the perception of faces and what kind of representations we might use: how do we tell whether two different faces are the same or different people? Together with Charlie Frowd I'm developing EvoFIT (www.evofit.co.uk), a novel holistic facial composite system.  I'm looking at other ways to improve facial composites: the sketch of me above is by Gil Gibli, with whom I'm collaborating.

With Debbie Riby I'm investgating how children with Autism and with Williams Syndrome look at faces, using eye-tracking, funded by ESRC.

With Josef Kittler at Surrey, I'm looking at how to improve human face matching abilities, funded by a DTI grant to Omniperception.

 

My PhD thesis looked at issues of representation in neural nets and genetic algorithms, in particular the problem of coding a neural net on a genetic string. http://hdl.handle.net/1893/39

I organise the module on individual differences and teach cognition and memory, and assorted electives on face perception, neural computational modelling, evolutionary approaches to psychology and public communication of psychology. I contribute to the MSc in psychological research methods.

• Face perception
• Williams Syndrome and Autism
• Visual psychophysics
• Neural nets
• GAs
• GA+NN
• Image statistics
  
• None of the above

Face perception

Hancock, P.J.B., Burton, A.M. and Bruce, V., Preprocessing images of faces: correlations with human perceptions of distinctiveness and familiarity In proceedings of IEE Fifth International Conference on Image Processing and its Applications, Edinburgh, July 1995. (160K pdf)

Hancock, P.J.B., Burton, A.M. and Bruce, V. Face processing: human perception and principal components analysis. Memory and Cognition 24(1) 26-40, 1996. 

 

Bruce, V., Burton, A.M. and Hancock, P.J.B. Missing dimensions of distinctiveness, in Cognitive and computational aspects of face recognition: explorations in face space. Tim Valentine (Ed), Routledge, 1995.

 

Hancock, P.J.B., Bruce, V. and Burton, A.M. Testing principal component representations for faces. In Proceedings of 4th Neural Computation and Psychology Workshop, 1997, J.A. Bullinaria, D.W.Glasspool and G. Houghton (Eds), London: Springer-Verlag, p84-97. 173K pdf

 

Hancock, P.J.B., Bruce, V. and Burton, A.M. A comparison of two computer-based face recognition systems with human perceptions of faces. Vision Research. 38, 2277-2288, 1998 

 

Burton, A.M., Bruce, V. and Hancock, P.J.B. From pixels to people: a model of familiar face recognition. Cognitive Science 23(1): 1-31, 1999. Winner of British Psychological Society Cognitive Psychology Section Award, 2000 

 

Bruce, V., Henderson, Z., Greenwood, K., Hancock, P. J. B., Burton, A. M., & Miller, P. I.  Verification of face identities from images captured on video. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied  5-4, 339-360, 1999.

 

Hancock P.J.B. and Frowd, C.D. Evolutionary generation of faces.  In proceedings of AISB99. (250Kb pdf file)

 

Hancock, P.J.B. Evolving faces from principal components.  Behavior Research Methods, Instruments and Computers, 32-2, 327-333, 2000

 

Hancock P.J.B., Bruce, V. and Burton, A.M. Recognition of unfamiliar faces.  Trends in Cognitive Sciences 4-9, 330-337, 2000. 

 

Hancock, P.J.B. and Frowd, C.D. Evolutionary generation of faces. In P.J. Bentley and D.W.Corne (Eds) Creative Evolutionary Systems. London: Academic Press, 2001

 

Burton, A.M., Miller, P., Bruce, V., Hancock, P.J.B. and Henderson, Z. Human and automatic face recognition: a comparison across image formats. Vision Research 41, 3185-3195, 2001

 

Bruce, V., Ness, H., Hancock, P.J.B., Newman, C. and Rarity, J. Combining face composites yields improvements in face likeness. Journal of Applied Psychology 87-5, 894-902, 2002

 

Little, A.C. and Hancock, P.J.B. The role of masculinity and distinctiveness in judgements of human male facial attractiveness. British Journal of Psychology 93, 451-464, 2002

 

Hancock, P.J.B. and DeBruine, L.M. What's a face worth: Noneconomic factors in game playing. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 26-2, 162-3, 2003. 

 

Frowd, C.D., Hancock, P.J.B., & Carson, D. EvoFIT: A Holistic, Evolutionary Facial Identification Technique for Creating Composites. Association for Computing Machinery Transactions on Applied Psychology , 1 (1), 1-21, 2004

 

Frowd, C.D., Carson, D., Ness, H., Richardson, J., Morrison, L., McLanaghan, S., & Hancock, P.J.B. A forensically valid comparison of facial composite systems. Psychology, Crime & Law, 11 (1), 33-52, 2005.

 

Frowd, C.D., Carson, D., Ness, H., McQuiston, D., Richardson, J., Baldwin, H., & Hancock, P.J.B. Contemporary Composite Techniques: the impact of a forensically-relevant target delay. Legal & Criminological Psychology, 10(1), 63-81, 2005

 

Hardie, S., Hancock, P.J.B., Rodway, P., Penton-Voak, I., Carson, D. & Wright, L. The enigma of facial asymmetry: Is there a gender specific pattern of facedness? Laterality: Asymmetries of Body, Brain, and Cognition, 10, 295-304, 2005. 

 

Burton, AM., Jenkins, R., Hancock, P.J.B., White, D. Robust representations for face recognition: the power of averages. Cognitive Psychology 51-3, 256-284, 2005. 

 

Frowd, C.D., Bruce, V., McIntyre, A. & Hancock, P.J.B. The relative importance of external and internal features of facial composites. British Journal of Psychology 98 (1), 61 - 77, 2007 

 

Frowd, C. D., Bruce, V., Ness, H., Bowie, L., Paterson, J., Thomson-Bogner, C., Mcintyre, A., & Hancock, P.J.B. Parallel approaches to composite production: interfaces that behave contrary to expectation. Ergonomics, 50, 562-585, 2007 

Frowd, C.D., Bruce, V., McIntyre, A., Ross, D., Fields, S., Plenderleith, Y., & Hancock, P.J.B. Implementing Holistic Dimensions for a Facial Composite System. Journal of Multimedia, 1, 42-51, 2006.

Hirose, Y. and Hancock P.J.B. Equally attending but still not seeing: An eye-tracking study of change detection in own and other race faces. Visual Cognition, 15-6, 647-660, 2007

 

Frowd, C.D., Bruce, V., Ross, D. McIntyre, A. & Hancock, P.J.B. An application of caricature: how to improve the recognition of facial composites. Visual Cognition 15-8, 927-953, 2007 http://hdl.handle.net/1893/295

 

Frowd, C.D., McQuiston-Surrett, D., Anandaciva, S., Ireland, C.E., & Hancock, P.J.B. An evaluation of US systems for facial composite production. Ergonomics, 50, 562-585, 2007 

 

Frowd, C.D., Bruce, V. & Hancock, P.J.B. Helping the police to construct the face of a criminal. The Psychologist. 21-8, 670-2, 2008 

 

Frowd, C.D., Bruce, V., Smith, A., & Hancock, P.J.B. Improving the quality of facial composites using a holistic cognitive interview. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied. 14-3, 276-287, 2008 http://hdl.handle.net/1893/663

 

Frowd, C.D., Bruce, V., Chang, Y., Plenderleith, Y., McIntyre, A.H., & Hancock, P.J.B. (2008). Predict Your Child: a system to suggest the facial appearance of children. Journal of Multimedia, 3(1), 28-35. 

 

Lander, K., Bruce, V, Smith E., and Hancock, P.J.B. (2009) Multiple repetition priming of faces: Massed and spaced presentations, Visual Cognition 17, 598-616 

 

Ross, D.A., Hancock, P.J.B. and Lewis, M.B. (2010) Changing Faces: Direction is Important, Visual Cognition 18-1, 67-81 

 

Frowd, C.D., Bruce, V., Gannon, C., Robinson, M., Tredoux, C., Park., J., McIntyre, A., & Hancock, P.J.B. (2010). Evolving the memory of a criminal’s face: methods to search a face space more effectively. Soft Computing 14-1, 81-90. DOI: 10.1007/s00500-009-0518-x 

 

Frowd, C.D., Bruce, V., Gannon, C., Robinson, M., Tredoux, C., Park., J., McIntyre, A., & Hancock, P.J.B. (2010). Evolving the memory of a criminal’s face: methods to search a face space more effectively. Soft Computing 14-1, 81-90. DOI: 10.1007/s00500-009-0518-x.

Frowd, C.D., Pitchford, M., Bruce, V., Jackson, S., Hepton, G., Greenall, M., McIntyre, A.H., Hancock, P.J.B. (2011). The psychology of face construction: giving evolution a helping hand.  Applied Cognitive Psychology, 25-2, 195-203.

Hancock, P.J.B. and Little A.C (2011).  Adaptation may cause some of the face caricature effect .  Perception, 40, 317-322.

Hancock, P.J.B., Burke, K. and Frowd, C.D. (2011), Testing Facial Composite Construction under Witness Stress, International Journal of Bio-Science and Bio-Technology 3-3, 65-71

Frowd, C.D., Ramsay, S., & Hancock, P.J.B. (2011). The influence of holistic interviewing on hair perception for the production of facial composites. International Journal of Bio-Science and Bio-Technology 3-3, 55-64.

Frowd, C.D., Hancock, P.J.B., Bruce, V., Skelton, F.C., Atherton, C., Nelson, L., et al. (2011). Catching more offenders with EvoFIT facial composites: lab research and police field trials. Global Journal of Human Social Science, 11, 46-58.

Zhao, C, Seriès, P., Hancock, P.J.B. and Bednar, J.A. (2011)  Similar neural adaptation mechanisms underlying face gender and tilt aftereffects, Vision Research, 51-18, 2021-2030

Frowd, C.D., Skelton, F., Butt, N., Hassan, A., Fields, S. & Hancock, P.J.B. (2011). Familiarity effects in the construction of facial-composite images using modern software systems. Ergonomics, 54-12, 1147-1158

Frowd, C.D., Skelton, F, Atherton, C., Pitchford, M., Hepton, G., Holden, L., McIntyre, A.H. and Hancock, P.J.B. Recovering faces from memory: the distracting influence of external facial features, in press, JEP: Applied

Frowd, C.D., Nelson, L., Skelton F.C., Noyce, R., Atkins, R., Heard, P., Morgan, D., Fields, S., Henry, J., McIntyre, A., & Hancock, P.J.B. (in press). Interviewing techniques for Darwinian facial-composite systems. Applied Cognitive Psychology.

Hancock P J B, Foster C, (2012), "The ‘double face’ illusion" Perception 41-1, 57 – 70

Adaptation to Antifaces and the Perception of Correct Famous Identity in an Average Face (2012), Little, A.C., Hancock, P.J.B., DeBruine, L.M. and  Jones B.C. Frontiers in Perception Science doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2012.00019

 

Williams Syndrome and Autism

Riby, D.M. and Hancock, P.J.B.  Viewing it differently: Social scene perception in Williams syndrome and Autism. Neuropsychologia. 46, 2855–2860, 2008  

 

Riby, D. M., & Hancock, P. J. B. (2009). Do faces capture the attention of individuals with Williams syndrome or Autism? Evidence from tracking eye movements. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 39, 421-431

and springerlink.com

 

Riby, D.M. and Hancock, P.J.B. (2009). Looking at Movies and Cartoons: Eye-tracking evidence from Williams syndrome and Autism.  Journal of Intellectual Disability Research, 53-2, 169-181.  

Visual Psychophysics

Hancock, P.J.B. and Phillips, W.A. Pop-out from abrupt visual onsets. Vision Research 44-19, 2285-2299, 2004.  

 

Hancock, P. J. B., Walton, L., Mitchell, G., Plenderleith, Y., & Phillips, W. A. (2008). Segregation by onset asynchrony. Journal of Vision, 8(7):21, 1-21, doi:10.1167/8.7.21.

Neural Nets

Hancock, P.J.B., Data representation in neural nets: an empirical study, Proceedings of the 1988 Connectionist models summer school, 11-20, Touretzky, D. and Hinton, G. and Sejnowski, T. (Eds), Morgan Kaufmann, 1989

Hancock, P.J.B. and Smith, L.S., Data representation and net structure for object perception, Proceedings of Neuro-Nimes, 395-405, Herault, J. (Ed), EC2, Nimes, 1989

 

Hancock, P.J.B. and Smith, L.S., Formal equivalence of Stent and Grossberg synaptic modification rules, Network: computation in neural systems, 1, 133-134, 1990

 

Hancock, P.J.B.

and Smith, L.S. and Phillips, W.A., A biologically supported error-correcting rule, Neural Computation, 3, 201-212, 1991

 

Hancock, P.J.B. and Smith, L.S. and Phillips, W.A., A biologically supported error-correcting learning rule, Artificial Neural Networks, 1, 531-536, Kohonen, T. and Makisara, K. and Simula, O. and Kangas, J. (Eds), North-Holland, Amsterdam, 1991

Genetic algorithms

Hancock, P.J.B., An empirical comparison of selection methods in evolutionary algorithms, Evolutionary Computing: AISB Workshop, Leeds, U.K., April 1994, Selected Papers, Lecture Notes in Computer Science 865, 80-94, Fogarty, T.C. (Ed), 1994 (200 Kbytes)

Hancock, P.J.B. Selection methods for evolutionary algorithms. In Practical handbook of genetic algorithms: new frontiers, Volume II. Lance Chambers (Ed), CRC Press, 1995.

 

Hancock, P.J.B.  A comparison of selection mechanisms, in T.Bäck, D.Fogel and Z.Michalewicz (Eds), Handbook of Evolutionary Computation, New York, Oxford University Press, 1997.

Genetic algorithms and neural nets

Hancock, P.J.B., GANNET: Design of a neural net for face recognition by Genetic Algorithm, Proceedings of IEEE Workshop on Genetic Algorithms, Neural Networks and Simulated Annealing applied to problems in signal and image processing, Glasgow, 1990

Hancock, P.J.B. and Smith, L.S, GANNET: Genetic design of a neural net for face recognition, Parallel problem solving from nature, Schwefel, H-P. and Maenner, R. (eds), Lecture notes in Computer Science 496, Springer Verlag, 292-296, 1991

 

Hancock, P.J.B., Coding strategies for genetic algorithms and neural nets, PhD Thesis, Department of Computing Science and Mathematics, University of Stirling, 1992

 

Hancock, P.J.B., Recombination operators for the design of neural nets by genetic algorithm, Parallel Problem Solving from Nature 2, 441-450, Maenner, R. and Manderick, B. (Eds), Elsevier, North Holland, 1992

 

Hancock, P.J.B., Pruning neural nets by genetic algorithm, Proceedings of the International Conference on Artificial Neural Networks, Brighton, 991-994, Aleksander, I. and Taylor, J.G. (Eds), Elsevier, 1992

 

Hancock, P.J.B., Genetic algorithms and permutation problems: a comparison of recombination operators for neural net structure specification, Proceedings of COGANN workshop, IJCNN, Baltimore, Whitley, D. (Ed), IEEE Press, 1992

Image statistics

Baddeley, R.J. and Hancock, P.J.B., A statistical analysis of natural images matches psychophysically derived orientation tuning curves, Proceedings of the Royal Society B, 246, 219-223, 1991

Hancock, P.J.B. and Baddeley, R.J. and Smith, L.S., Principal components of natural images, Network: computation in neural systems, 3, 61-70, 1992.

 

Miscellaneous

Hockaday, S, Beddow, T.A., Stone, M.,  Hancock, P.J.B. and Ross. L.G. Using truss networks to estimate the biomass of Oreochromis niloticus, and to investigate shape characteristics. Journal of Fish Biology 57:(4) 981-1000, 2000.

Tovée, M.J., Hancock, P.J.B., Mahmoodi, M., Singleton, B.R.R. and Cornelissen, P.L. Human female attractiveness: waveform analysis of body shape. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London (B) 269, 2205-2213, 2002.  

 

Hancock, P.J.B. Monozygotic twins’ colour-number association, a case study. Cortex, 42, 147-150, 2006.  

 

Smith, K.L., Tovée, M.J., Hancock, P.J.B., Bateson, M., Cox, M.A.A, & Cornelissen, P.L. An analysis of body shape attractiveness based on image statistics; evidence for a dissociation between expressions of preference and shape discrimination. Visual Cognition 15-8, 927-953, 2007

 

Cornelissen, P.L., Hancock, P.J.B., Kiviniemi, V.W., George, H. R., & Tovée, M. J.  (2009) Patterns of eye-movements when Male and Female observers judge female attractiveness, body fat and waist-to-hip ratio.  Evolution and Human Behavior 30-6, 417-428. 

 

George, H. R., Cornelissen, P.L., Hancock, P.J.B., Kiviniemi, V.W., & Tovée, M. J. (2011) Differences in eye-movement patterns between anorexic and control observers when judging body size and attractiveness.  British Journal of Psychology, 102-3, 340-354

 

Rhodes, S.M., Murphy, D. and Hancock, P.J.B. (2011) Developmental changes in the engagement of episodic retrieval processes and their relationship with working memory during the period of middle childhood. British Journal of Developmental Psychology, 29-4, 865-882.

 

Holliday, I.E., Longe, O.A., Thai, N.J.,  Hancock, P.J.B., Tovée, M.J. (2011)  BMI Not WHR modulates BOLD fMRI responses in a sub-cortical reward network when participants judge the attractiveness of human female bodies.  PLoS ONE 6(11): e27255. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0027255