Explore every episode of the podcast The Face with Masoud Saman

What does the face reveal before we say a word? In this episode, Dr. Masoud Saman speaks with world-renowned psychologist Dr. David Matsumoto about microexpressions, emotional leakage, nonverbal communication, and the universal language of the face. They explore how we detect authenticity, how culture shapes expression, and why the face remains one of the most powerful tools of human connection. The conversation also takes on modern questions around Botox, beauty filters, and AI, asking what happens when expression is softened, altered, or simulated.

Some patients get a technically perfect result…
and still hate what they see.

Why?

In this episode of The Face Podcast, Dr. Masoud Saman sits down with clinical psychologist Dr. Toni Pikoos to unpack one of the most misunderstood problems in aesthetic medicine:

Body Dysmorphic Disorder (BDD)

This is not just about plastic surgery.
 It’s about identity, perception, and the dangerous gap between how we look… and how we think we look.

What you’ll learn in this episode:

•  Why cosmetic surgery doesn’t fix certain patients 
•  The subtle red flags surgeons often miss 
•  The psychological profile of the “never satisfied” patient 
•  Why the first 2 months after surgery feel like an emotional rollercoaster 
•  What “perception drift” is and why it leads to chasing more procedures 
•  How social media and filters are quietly distorting reality 
•  Why some patients blame the surgeon when life doesn’t improve 
•  How to say no to a patient without creating conflict 
•  What actually helps these patients long term 

The uncomfortable truth:

For some patients, the problem isn’t their nose.
 It’s the way their brain processes their face.

And no operation can fix that.

This episode is essential listening for:

•  Patients considering rhinoplasty or facial surgery 
•  Surgeons and injectors navigating complex consultations 
•  Anyone interested in how beauty, psychology, and identity collide 

About Dr. Toni Pikoos:
Clinical psychologist specializing in BDD, cosmetic patient assessment, and mental health in aesthetic medicine. 

About Dr. Masoud Saman:
NYC facial plastic surgeon focused on rhinoplasty and facial rejuvenation, known for a philosophy of refinement, restraint, and identity preservation.

What would it be like to wake up one morning and see every face around you distorted? Eyes shifted, mouths stretched, features warped. You know the face is normal, but your brain shows you something completely different.

In this episode of The Face Podcast, Dr. Masoud Saman speaks with Brad Duchaine, Professor and Chair of the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences at Dartmouth College. His research focuses on the cognitive and neural mechanisms that allow humans to perceive and recognize faces, and his work has helped shape the scientific understanding of how the brain processes facial identity.

The conversation explores rare and fascinating neurological conditions such as Prosopagnosia and Prosopometamorphopsia, where individuals may recognize a face but perceive it as distorted, warped, or altered.

Topics discussed include:

• Why the human brain treats faces differently from every other visual object
• How people can lose the ability to recognize faces (face blindness)
• The strange phenomenon where faces appear distorted or melted
• What these conditions reveal about how the brain constructs identity
• Why the face is central to human connection, emotion, and society

If you believe you may be experiencing prosopometamorphopsia, Dr. Duchaine’s research group is actively studying this condition. Individuals interested in participating in research or learning more can visit:
https://prosopometamorphopsia.faceblind.org/

About the guest

Brad Duchaine is Professor and Chair of the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences at Dartmouth College. His lab studies the neural, cognitive, developmental, and genetic bases of face perception, including disorders such as prosopagnosia and prosopometamorphopsia.

About the podcast

The Face Podcast explores the human face through science, medicine, psychology, art, and culture. Hosted by facial plastic surgeon Dr. Masoud Saman, the show brings together leading thinkers to understand why faces matter and what they reveal about the human condition.

Subscribe for more conversations about the science, psychology, and meaning of the human face.

How do we recognize a face?

Most of us do it effortlessly, thousands of times a day. But the process behind that simple act is extraordinarily complex. The human brain has specialized systems devoted specifically to faces, allowing us to recognize identity, emotion, familiarity, and social meaning in fractions of a second.

In this episode of The Face Podcast, Masoud Saman speaks with Dr. Marlene Behrmann, Professor of Ophthalmology and Psychology at the University of Pittsburgh and one of the world’s leading researchers in visual cognition and face perception.

Dr. Behrmann has spent decades studying how the brain processes faces and what happens when those systems are disrupted. Her work has helped shape our understanding of conditions such as prosopagnosia, commonly known as face blindness, where individuals lose the ability to recognize even familiar faces.

In this conversation, they explore:

• Why faces are so important in human society
 • How the brain develops the ability to recognize thousands of faces
 • What happens when that ability breaks down
 • The neurological basis of prosopagnosia
 • Whether face recognition abilities can be retrained or recovered

They also discuss a fascinating question relevant to both neuroscience and aesthetic surgery:

What makes a face recognizable as itself?

Because while the human face can change with age, illness, or surgery, the brain’s sense of identity often depends on subtle patterns that go far beyond individual features.

Host: Masoud Saman, MD
Facial Plastic Surgeon — New York

The Face Podcast explores the science, psychology, and meaning of the human face through conversations with leading researchers, artists, and thinkers.

New episodes available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and YouTube.

The human face is more than anatomy. It is identity. It is communication. It is culture.

As a facial plastic and reconstructive surgeon, I have spent my career studying how the face develops, ages, heals, and expresses who we are. But the face extends far beyond medicine. It is studied by actors, sculptors, archaeologists, artificial intelligence engineers, and even intelligence officers. Courtroom outcomes can hinge on it. Multi billion dollar industries are built around it, from skincare to facial recognition technology.

Within milliseconds of seeing a face, we form judgments about health, mood, personality, dominance, ethnicity, and background. We are not always correct, but the brain extracts remarkable amounts of information almost instantly. The face is not like the liver or the foot. It is the primary interface between the inner self and the outer world.

In this first episode, I introduce the larger vision for this show. I will sit down with experts from different disciplines whose work revolves around the face. Together, we will explore what motivates them, what they see when they study the face, and how the face shapes human behavior and culture.

This is an exploration of humanity through the lens of the face.