Article

Configural Coding, Expertise, and the Right Hemisphere Advantage for Face Recognition

June 1993
Brain and Cognition 22(1):19-41

June 1993
22(1):19-41

DOI:10.1006/brcg.1993.1022

Source
PubMed

Authors:

Gillian Rhodes

University of Western Australia

Expertise in recognizing faces is associated with configural coding and configural coding is associated with a right hemisphere advantage for face recognition. Therefore one would expect the orientation-specific LVF (left visual field) advantage for face recognition to be moderated by expertise. The present experiments examined the effect of expertise with face ethnicity on the LVF advantage. In Experiment 1 subjects showed expertise-related use of configural coding, but no orientation-specific LVF advantage. In Experiment 2 subjects with high hemispheric arousal asymmetry showed an orientation-specific LVF advantage, but no expertise-related use of configural coding. Low arousal asymmetry subjects showed the opposite pattern. These results suggest that different kinds of configural coding may underlie ethnicity-related expertise effects and laterality effects in face recognition.

Hemispheric Asymmetry in Expression and Perception of Happiness

Article

Full-text available

Dec 2012
TURK PSIKOL DERG

Hemispheric asymmetries in happiness expression -which has an important role in interpersonal communication and its perception- have been studied using different techniques. However, it is not clear whether the source of the asymmetry is the poser or the observer. In Experiment I, we investigated on which hemiface (right/left) the expression of happiness was better identified. Subjects evaluated right-sided happy chimeric faces as more expressive. In Experiment II, we examined whether the source of the bias was the observer's hemispheric asymmetry or the poser's facial asymmetry. Stimuli were briefly presented unilaterally, either in the left visual field(LVF)/right hemisphere(RL) or in the right visual field(RVF)/left hemisphere(LH). Faces were recognized faster in LVF condition, but they were evaluated as more expressive in RVF condition. Right-sided happy faces were found to be more expressive in RVF condition. Results indicated LH superiority in the recognition of happy expression and a RH superiority in the duration of facial processing. Additionally findings pointed out a sex difference in subjects' evaluation time and evaluation scores. Men evaluated the stimuli faster in the RH condition than they did in the LH condition; while women evaluated the faces with higher scores in LH than they did in RH condition.

Hemispheric specialization in face recognition: From spatial frequencies to holistic/analytic cognitive processing

Article

Full-text available

Jun 2014

We present clinical and neurophysiological studies that show brain areas that are involved in face perception and how the right and left hemispheres perform holistic and analytic processing, depending on spatial frequency information. The hemispheric specialization of spatial frequency in face recognition is then reviewed and discussed. The limitations of previous work and suggestions for further investigations are discussed. Our conclusion is that functional sensorial asymmetries may be the basis for high-level cognitive asymmetries. Keywords: face recognition, hemispheric specialization, holist and analytic processing, spatial frequency.

How robust is the own-group face recognition bias? Evidence from first- and second-generation East Asian Canadians

Article

Full-text available

May 2020
PLOS ONE

There is mounting evidence that North Americans are better able to remember faces of targets who belong to the same social group, and this is true even when the social groups are experimentally created. Yet, how Western cultural contexts afford the development of this own group face recognition bias remains unknown. This question is particularly important given that recent findings suggest that first-generation East Asian Canadians do not show this bias. In the current research, we examined the own-group bias among first- and second-generation East Asian Canadians, who vary systematically in their exposure to and engagement in a Western cultural context, and tested mediators that could explain any difference. In Study 1, second-generation East Asian Canadians showed better memory for same-group (vs. other-group) faces. In Studies 2 and 3, as well as a meta-analysis of all three studies, we found some additional evidence that second-generation East Asian Canadians show better memory for same-group (vs. other-group) faces, whereas first-generation East Asian Canadians do not, but only when each cultural group was examined separately in each study, as no interaction with generational status emerged. In Study 2, and in a higher powered pre-registered Study 3, we also examined whether second- (vs. first-) generational status had a positive indirect effect on same-group face recognition through the effects of acculturation and perceived relational mobility in the immediate social environment, however this mediation model was not supported by the data. Overall, the results provide some additional evidence that the effect of mere social categorization on face recognition may not be as consistently found among East Asian participants.

Right perceptual bias and self-face recognition in individuals with congenital prosopagnosia

Article

Mar 2016
LATERALITY

The existence of a drift to base judgments more on the right half-part of facial stimuli, which falls in the observer's left visual field (left perceptual bias (LPB)), in normal individuals has been demonstrated. However, less is known about the existence of this phenomenon in people affected by face impairment from birth, namely congenital prosopagnosics. In the current study, we aimed to investigate the presence of the LPB under face impairment conditions using chimeric stimuli and the most familiar face of all: the self-face. For this purpose we tested 10 participants with congenital prosopagnosia and 21 healthy controls with a face matching task using facial stimuli, involving a spatial manipulation of the left and the right hemi-faces of self-photos and photos of others. Even though congenital prosopagnosics performance was significantly lower than that of controls, both groups showed a consistent self-face advantage. Moreover, congenital prosopagnosics showed optimal performance when the right side of their face was presented, that is, right perceptual bias, suggesting a differential strategy for self-recognition in those subjects. A possible explanation for this result is discussed.

Investigating the role of the fusiform face area and occipital face area using multifocal transcranial direct current stimulation

Article

Full-text available

Aug 2023
NEUROPSYCHOLOGIA

The functional role of the occipital face area (OFA) and the fusiform face area (FFA) in face recognition is inconclusive to date. While some research has shown that the OFA and FFA are involved in early (i.e., featural processing) and late (i.e., holistic processing) stages of face recognition respectively, other research suggests that both regions are involved in both early and late stages of face recognition. Thus, the current study aims to further examine the role of the OFA and the FFA using multifocal transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS). In Experiment 1, we used computer-generated faces. Thirty-five participants completed whole face and facial features (i.e., eyes, nose, mouth) recognition tasks after OFA and FFA stimulation in a within-subject design. No difference was found in recognition performance after either OFA or FFA stimulation. In Experiment 2 with 60 participants, we used real faces, provided stimulation following a between-subjects design and included a sham control group. Results showed that FFA stimulation led to enhanced efficiency of facial features recognition. Additionally, no effect of OFA stimulation was found for either facial feature or whole face recognition. These results suggest the involvement of FFA in the recognition of facial features.

Tracking the temporal dynamics of the face-like inversion effect as revealed by Chinese characters using magnetoencephalography

Article

Apr 2023
CEREB CORTEX

The neural basis of configural processing has been extensively studied by exploiting face inversion during recognition, and growing evidence has revealed that word inversion also involves changes in configuration. However, the neural dynamics of face-like inversion effects remain unclear. Here, we tracked the temporal dynamics of neural responses that were sensitive to inversion during Chinese character recognition as they occurred during face recognition using multivariate decoding and temporal generalization analyses. We recorded magnetoencephalography while participants performed a one-back task for faces, compound characters, and simple characters with upright and inverted orientations. We showed that the inversion effect (inverted versus upright) can be decoded at occipitotemporal sensors for all stimulus types over and across time points, with a stronger impact on faces and compound characters than on simple characters. The inversion effect occurred earlier and lasted longer for faces than for characters, and the effect was also stronger for compound characters than for simple characters. Finally, we demonstrated inversion effects in the event-related field for all stimulus types and identified their sources in the ventral occipitotemporal areas. Overall, this study provides novel evidence for the temporal dynamics of the face-like inversion effect occurring during Chinese character recognition.

Some historical notes orienting towards brain mechanisms that could underlie hemispheric asymmetries

Article

Mar 2023
CORTEX

Guido Gainotti

The first minor aim of this synthetical historical survey consisted in showing that the discovery of the internal organization of language within the left hemisphere has been mainly determined by theoretical models and cultural factors, whereas the discovery of the left lateralisation of language and of the right lateralization of emotions and of other cognitive and perceptual functions has been mainly determined by empirical observations. A second more relevant aim of the survey consisted in discussing historical and more recent data suggesting that the different lateralisation of language and emotions has influenced not only the asymmetrical representation of other cognitive, affective and perceptual functions, but also (thank to the shaping influence of language on human cognition) of asymmetries regarding more general aspects of thought (such as the distinctions between 'propositional vs automatic' and 'conscious vs unconscious' ways of functioning). In the last part of the review, these data will be included in a more general discussion, concerning the brain functions that could be subsumed by the right hemisphere for three main reasons: (a) to avoid conflicts with the language mediated activities of the left hemisphere; (b) because of unconscious and automatic aspects of its non-verbal organisation or (c) due to the competition for cortical space determined by the development of language within the left hemisphere.

The upside‐down self: One's own face recognition is affected by inversion

Article

Full-text available

Aug 2021

One's own face is recognized more efficiently than any other face, although the neural mechanisms underlying this phenomenon remain poorly understood. Considering the extensive visual experience that we have with our own face, some authors have proposed that self‐face recognition involves a more analytical perceptual strategy (i.e., based on face features) than other familiar faces, which are commonly processed holistically (i.e., as a whole). However, this hypothesis has not yet been tested with brain activity data. In the present study, we employed an inversion paradigm combined with event‐related potential (ERP) recordings to investigate whether the self‐face is processed more analytically. Sixteen healthy participants were asked to identify their own face and a familiar face regardless of its orientation, which could either be upright or inverted. ERP analysis revealed an enhanced amplitude and a delayed latency for the N170 component when faces were presented in an inverted orientation. Critically, both the self and a familiar face were equally vulnerable to the inversion effect, suggesting that the self‐face is not processed more analytically than a familiar face. In addition, we replicated the recent finding that the attention‐related P200 component is a specific neural index of self‐face recognition. Overall, our results suggest that the advantage for self‐face processing might be better explained by the engagement of self‐related attentional mechanisms than by the use of a more analytical visuoperceptual strategy. Our findings have important implications for understanding how the self‐face is processed by the brain and suggest that the key element of such processing could be linked to social relevance rather than accumulated visual experience. Results presented in this work contribute toward the validation and expansion of the current Neural Model of the Self proposed by Sui and Gu (2017).

Personality in Autism Spectrum Disorder: Associations With Face Memory Deficit and Theory of Mind

Article

Full-text available

Sep 2020
COGN BEHAV NEUROL

Objective: In this study we examined the personality profiles of adults with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) using a standard personality test. In addition, we investigated the association between ASD-related face memory deficits (FMD) and theory of mind (ToM). In a broader context, we examine whether there are distinct clinical phenotypes in the ASD population that have implications for personality development and treatment. Methods: Fifty-five adults with ASD and 22 neurotypical (NT) adults underwent a battery of neuropsychological tests including measures of personality, face memory and ToM. ASD and NT groups were compared in terms of Personality Assessment Inventory (PAI) profiles. Additional analyses focused on the association between specific PAI subscales and FMD. Performance on the Eyes Test was compared across groups and examined in relation to FMD. Results: ASD adults demonstrated significant elevations on several PAI scales compared to NTs, particularly those sensitive to treatment rejection, depression, and schizophrenia. The presence of FMD was associated with differing PAI profiles among ASD participants. In this group, people with FMD had significantly higher scores on scales sensitive to positive impression management and treatment rejection whereas they endorsed fewer items on scales sensitive to borderline personality, anxiety, depression, schizophrenia, and stress. There was a significant association between performance on the Eyes Test and FMD in the ASD, but not in the NT group. Discussion: PAI results indicated significant differences in personality traits between ASD versus NT adults. ASD participants with the additional burden of FMD exhibited reduced insight, low endorsement of psychiatric comorbidities and reduced ToM. Conclusions: Findings suggest that ASD adults with FMD have reduced insight into their difficulties with emotional processing and they may not be as sensitive to the emotions of others.

Does right hemisphere superiority sufficiently explain the left visual field advantage in face recognition?

Article

Nov 2019

The tendency to perceive the identity of the left half of a centrally viewed face more strongly than that of the right half is associated with visual processing of faces in the right hemisphere (RH). Here we investigate conditions under which this well-known left visual field (LVF) half-face advantage fails to occur. Our findings challenge the sufficiency of its explanation as a function of RH specialization for face processing coupled with LVF-RH correspondence. In two experiments we show that the LVF half-face advantage occurs for normal faces and chimeric faces composed of different half-face identities. In a third experiment, we show that face inversion disrupts the LVF half-face advantage. In two additional experiments we show that half-faces viewed in isolation or paired with inverted half-faces fail to show the LVF advantage. Consistent with previous explanations of the LVF half-face advantage, our findings suggest that the LVF half-face advantage reflects RH superiority for processing faces and direct transfer of LVF face information to visual cortex in the RH. Critically, however, our findings also suggest the operation of a third factor, which involves the prioritization of face-processing resources to the LVF, but only when two upright face-halves compete for these resources. We therefore conclude that RH superiority alone does not suffice to explain the LVF advantage in face recognition. We also discuss the implications of our findings for specialized visual processing of faces by the right hemisphere, and we distinguish LVF advantages for faces viewed centrally and peripherally in divided field studies.

Holistic face processing and hemispheric competition during face recognition

Article

Full-text available

Sep 2018
J VISION

Differential Sensitivity of Human Visual Cortex to Faces, Letterstrings, and Textures: A Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging Study

Article

Full-text available

Aug 1996

Twelve normal subjects viewed alternating sequences of unfamiliar faces, unpronounceable nonword letterstrings, and textures while echoplanar functional magnetic resonance images were acquired in seven slices extending from the posterior margin of the splenium to near the occipital pole. These stimuli were chosen to elicit initial category-specific processing in extrastriate cortex while minimizing semantic processing. Overall, faces evoked more activation than did letterstrings. Comparing hemispheres, faces evoked greater activation in the right than the left hemisphere, whereas letterstrings evoked greater activation in the left than the right hemisphere. Faces primarily activated the fusiform gyrus bilaterally, and also activated the right occipitotemporal and inferior occipital sulci and a region of lateral cortex centered in the middle temporal gyrus. Letterstrings primarily activated the left occipitotemporal and inferior occipital sulci. Textures primarily activated portions of the collateral sulcus. In the left hemisphere, 9 of the 12 subjects showed a characteristic pattern in which faces activated a discrete region of the lateral fusiform gyrus, whereas letterstrings activated a nearby region of cortex within the occipitotemporal and inferior occipital sulci. These results suggest that different regions of ventral extrastriate cortex are specialized for processing the perceptual features of faces and letterstrings, and that these regions are intermediate between earlier processing in striate and peristriate cortex, and later lexical, semantic, and associative processing in downstream cortical regions.

Lingual Gyrus Surface Area Is Associated with Anxiety-Depression Severity in Young Adults: A Genetic Clustering Approach

Article

Full-text available

Jan 2018

Here we aimed to identify cortical endophenotypes for anxiety-depression. Our data-driven approach used vertex-wise genetic correlations (estimated from a twin sample: 157 monozygotic and 194 dizygotic twin pairs) to parcellate cortical thickness (CT) and surface area (SA) into genetically homogeneous regions (Chen et al., 2013). In an overlapping twin and sibling sample (n = 834; aged 15-29, 66% female), in those with anxiety-depression Somatic and Psychological Health Report (SPHERE) scores (Hickie et al., 2001) above median, we found a reduction of SA in an occipito-temporal cluster, which comprised part of the right lingual, fusiform and parahippocampal gyrii. A similar reduction was observed in the Human Connectome Project (HCP) sample (n = 890, age 22-37, 56.5% female) in those with Adult Self Report (ASR) DSM-oriented scores (Achenbach et al., 2005) in the 25-95% quantiles. A post hoc vertex-wise analysis identified the right lingual and, to a lesser extent the fusiform gyrus. Overall, the surface reduction explained by the anxiety-depression scores was modest (r = -0.10, 3rd order spline, and r = -0.040, 1st order spline in the HCP). The discordant results in the top 5% of the anxiety-depression scores may be explained by differences in recruitment between the studies. However, we could not conclude whether this cortical region was an endophenotype for anxiety-depression as the genetic correlations did not reach significance, which we attribute to the modest effect size (post hoc statistical power <10%).

A Comparative Perspective on the Human Temporal Lobe

Chapter

Full-text available

Aug 2018

The temporal lobe is a morphological specialization of primates resulting from an expansion of higher-order visual cortex that is a hallmark of the primate brain. Among primates, humans possess a temporal lobe that has significantly expanded. Several uniquely human cognitive abilities, including language comprehension, semantic memory, and aspects of conceptual processing, are represented in the temporal lobe. Understanding how the temporal lobe has been modified and reorganized in the human lineage is crucial to understanding how it supports human cognitive specializations. Identifying these structural modifications requires a direct comparison with other primates, with special attention to our closest relatives, the chimpanzees. Comparative examination of data from architectonics, tract tracing, and newer imaging methodologies suggests modifications to external morphology (gyri and sulci), preferential expansion of association areas, and elaboration of white matter fasciculi, distinguishing the human temporal lobe from those of Old World monkeys. Chimpanzees and humans share some of these features of cortical expansion, although more research is needed in order to elucidate whether humans possess simply a large hominoid temporal lobe or whether important reorganization has happened since our divergence from chimpanzees.

Çocukların Bilişsel İşlevlerinde Hemisferik Asimetriler

Article

Full-text available

Jun 2016

Evrim Gülbetekin

Looking at faces: autonomous perspective invariant facial gaze analysis

Conference Paper

Jul 2016

Eye-tracking provides a mechanism for researchers to monitor where subjects deploy their visual attention. Eye-tracking has been used to gain insights into how humans scrutinize faces, however the majority of these studies were conducted using desktop-mounted eye-trackers where the subject sits and views a screen during the experiment. The stimuli in these experiments are typically photographs or videos of human faces. In this paper we present a novel approach using head-mounted eye-trackers which allows for automatic generation of gaze statistics for tasks performed in real-world environments. We use a trained hierarchy of Haar cascade classifiers to automatically detect and segment faces in the eye-tracker's scene camera video. We can then determine if fixations fall within the bounds of the face or other possible regions of interest and report relevant gaze statistics. Our method is easily adaptable to any feature-trained cascade to allow for rapid object detection and tracking. We compare our results with previous research on the perception of faces in social environments. We also explore correlations between gaze and confidence levels measured during a mock interview experiment.

L'ombrage verbal : Quand verbaliser trouble la mémoire

Research

Full-text available

Jun 2016

Elise Defrasne

Issu de ma partie théorique de thèse dirigée par A. Didierjean et F. Maquestiaux (Université Franche-Comté)

Traitement cérébral de l’expression faciale de peur : vision périphérique et effet de l’attention

Thesis

Full-text available

Dec 2009

Dimitri J Bayle

L’expression faciale de peur constitue un important vecteur d’information sociale mais aussi environnementale. En condition naturelle, les visages apeurés apparaissent principalement dans notre champ visuel périphérique. Cependant, les mécanismes cérébraux qui sous-tendent la perception de l’expression faciale de peur en périphérie restent largement méconnus. Nous avons démontré, grâce à des études comportementales, des enregistrements magnétoencéphalographiques et intracrâniens, que la perception de l’expression faciale de peur est efficace en grande périphérie. La perception de la peur en périphérie génère une réponse rapide de l’amygdale et du cortex frontal, mais également une réponse plus tardive dans les aires visuelles occipitales et temporales ventrales. Le contrôle attentionnel est capable d’inhiber la réponse précoce à l’expression de peur, mais également d’augmenter les activités postérieures plus tardives liées à la perception des visages. Nos résultats montrent non seulement que les réseaux impliquées dans la perception de la peur sont adaptés à la vision périphrique, mais ils mettent également en avant une nouvelle forme d’investigation des mécanismes de traitement de l’expression faciale, pouvant conduire à une meilleure compréhension des mécanismes de traitement des messages sociaux dans des situations plus écologiques.

Perceptual Asymmetry in Depression: Do Information Processing Demands and Methodologies have any Role?

Article

Full-text available

Jan 2015

The researchers have tried to examine the nature of hemispheric asymmetry in depression, but did not reach consensus. It is speculated that failure to be unanimously agreed upon any view could be due to several reasons. Thus, with this background, the present study aims at exploring the nature of hemispheric asymmetry in depression while examining the infl uence of information processing demands or method of presenting stimuli. Emotional and non-emotional information were presented in split-fi eld and free-viewing paradigm to sub-clinically depressed as well as age and gender matching non-depressed individuals. The fi ndings revealed that both groups showed signifi cant left visual fi eld (i.e. right hemispheric) advantage in processing of emotional and non- emotional information irrespective of depression level. However, this enhanced left visual fi eld bias for processing of emotional information was greater in the depressed group. The fi ndings suggest that anomaly in hemispheric asymmetry in depression is task specifi c or restricted to information processing demands.

Early perceptual anomaly of negative facial expression in depression: An event-related potential study

Article

Full-text available

Nov 2015

Depressed patients have a demonstrated cognitive bias in emotional information processing. However, it is unknown how early perceptual processing is modulated by emotional stimuli in depression. To examine this question, we studied 22 depressed patients and 22 healthy controls performing a cued target-response task with emotional facial expression as the cue. The early perceptual processes were examined using event-related potential (ERP) components, i.e., P1 and N170. Results showed that depressed patients had larger P1 amplitudes than healthy controls, implying that early perceptual abnormality for face processing in depression may occur as early as the P1 stage. There was no significant interaction between emotion types and groups on P1 amplitudes, which suggested that cognitive biases in depression might not yet have arisen. Following the P1 stage, N170 amplitudes for sad faces were larger than for other emotion types in depressed patients, whereas N170 amplitudes for happy faces were larger than for other emotion types in healthy controls. These results implied that depressed patients might have a perceptual bias associated with sad emotions, which may be detectable from the N170 time window. In summary, this study provides new insights for understanding the negative cognitive bias in depression using the electroneurophysiological biomarker N170.

How Well Do Computer-Generated Faces Tap Face Expertise?

Article

Full-text available

Nov 2015
PLOS ONE

The use of computer-generated (CG) stimuli in face processing research is proliferating due to the ease with which faces can be generated, standardised and manipulated. However there has been surprisingly little research into whether CG faces are processed in the same way as photographs of real faces. The present study assessed how well CG faces tap face identity expertise by investigating whether two indicators of face expertise are reduced for CG faces when compared to face photographs. These indicators were accuracy for identification of own-race faces and the other-race effect (ORE)-the well-established finding that own-race faces are recognised more accurately than other-race faces. In Experiment 1 Caucasian and Asian participants completed a recognition memory task for own- and other-race real and CG faces. Overall accuracy for own-race faces was dramatically reduced for CG compared to real faces and the ORE was significantly and substantially attenuated for CG faces. Experiment 2 investigated perceptual discrimination for own- and other-race real and CG faces with Caucasian and Asian participants. Here again, accuracy for own-race faces was significantly reduced for CG compared to real faces. However the ORE was not affected by format. Together these results signal that CG faces of the type tested here do not fully tap face expertise. Technological advancement may, in the future, produce CG faces that are equivalent to real photographs. Until then caution is advised when interpreting results obtained using CG faces.

Functional asymmetry between the left and right Human fusiform gyrus explored through electrical brain stimulation.

Article

Aug 2015

Central processing of fearful faces : peripheral vision and attention effect

Article

Dec 2009

Dimitri Bayle

Facial expression of fear is an important vector of social and environmental information. In natural conditions, the frightened faces appear mainly in our peripheral visual field. However, the brain mechanisms underlying perception of fear in the periphery remain largely unknown. We have demonstrated, through behavioral, magnetoencephalographic and intracranial studies that the perception of fear facial expression is efficient in large peripheral visual field. Fear perception in the periphery produces an early response in the amygdala and the frontal cortex, and a later response in the occipital and infero-temporal visual areas. Attentional control is able to inhibit the early response to fear expression and to increase the later temporo-occipital activities linked to face perception. Our results show that networks involved in fear perception are adapted to the peripheral vision. Moreover, they validate a new form of investigation of facial expression processing, which may lead to a better understanding of how we process social messages in more ecological situations.

Voluntary attention in Asperger's syndrome: Brain electrical oscillation and phase-synchronization during facial emotion recognition

Article

Full-text available

May 2015
RES AUTISM SPECT DIS

The Emergence of a Left Visual Field Bias in Infants' Processing of Dynamic Faces

Article

Andrea Wheeler

Face-Specific Processing in the Human Fusiform Gyrus

Article

Full-text available

Oct 1997

The perception of faces is sometimes regarded as a specialized task involving discrete brain regions. In an attempt to identi$ face-specific cortex, we used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to measure activation evoked by faces presented in a continuously changing montage of common objects or in a similar montage of nonobjects. Bilateral regions of the posterior fusiform gyrus were activated by faces viewed among nonobjects, but when viewed among objects, faces activated only a focal right fusiform region. To determine whether this focal activation would occur for another category of familiar stimuli, subjects viewed flowers presented among nonobjects and objects. While flowers among nonobjects evoked bilateral fusiform activation, flowers among objects evoked no activation. These results demonstrate that both faces and flowers activate large and partially overlapping regions of inferior extrastriate cortex. A smaller region, located primarily in the right lateral fusiform gyrus, is activated specifically by faces.

When Faces Are Heads: View-Dependent Recognition of Faces Altered Relationally or Componentially

Article

Full-text available

Dec 2006

When faces are viewed from different angles the appearance of facial features undergoes dramatic changes. We investigated two types of 3D-head models in frontal and three-quarter views, varying either in componential information such as different eyes, mouths and noses, or in relational information. Variations of the latter can only be investigated using 3D-head versions. Experiment 1 revealed high costs of transfer in recognition performance when views change, that were similar for both componentially and relationally altered faces. In Experiment 2, whole-to-part superiority was investigated by presenting isolated parts of critical features in addition to the whole face. Recognition of the whole face was only superior when views were identical. The results support the hypothesis of picture-based and view-dependent processing. Thus, there seems to be no efficient view-independent representation, at least for relatively unfamiliar faces.

Is sex categorization from faces really parallel to face recognition?

Article

Nov 2002

Bruno Rossion

According to a classical functional architecture of face processing (Bruce & Young, 1986), sex processing on faces is a parallel function to individual face recognition. One consequence of the model is thus that sex categorization on faces is not influenced by face familiarity. However, the behavioural and neuro- psychological evidences supporting this dissociation are yet equivocal. To test the independence between sex processing on faces and familiar face recognition, familiar (learned) faces were morphed with new faces, generating facial continua of visual similarity to familiar faces. First, a pilot experiment shown that subjects familiarized with one extreme of the face continuum roughly perceive one half of the continuum (60 to 100% of visual similarity to familiar faces) as made of familiar faces and the other part as unfamiliar. In the experiment proper, subjects were familiarized with faces and tested in a sex decision task made on faces at the different steps of the continua. Subjects were significantly quicker at telling the sex of faces perceived as familiar (60-100%), and the effect was not observed in a control (untrained) group. These results indicate that familiar face representations are activated before sex categorization is completed, and can facilitate this pro- cessing. The nature of the interaction between sex categorization on faces and familiar face recognition is discussed.

Face-specific processing in the fusiform gyrus

Article

Full-text available

Brain Signal Variability is Parametrically Modifiable

Article

Full-text available

Jun 2013
CEREB CORTEX

Moment-to-moment brain signal variability is a ubiquitous neural characteristic, yet remains poorly understood. Evidence indicates that heightened signal variability can index and aid efficient neural function, but it is not known whether signal variability responds to precise levels of environmental demand, or instead whether variability is relatively static. Using multivariate modeling of functional magnetic resonance imaging-based parametric face processing data, we show here that within-person signal variability level responds to incremental adjustments in task difficulty, in a manner entirely distinct from results produced by examining mean brain signals. Using mixed modeling, we also linked parametric modulations in signal variability with modulations in task performance. We found that difficulty-related reductions in signal variability predicted reduced accuracy and longer reaction times within-person; mean signal changes were not predictive. We further probed the various differences between signal variance and signal means by examining all voxels, subjects, and conditions; this analysis of over 2 million data points failed to reveal any notable relations between voxel variances and means. Our results suggest that brain signal variability provides a systematic task-driven signal of interest from which we can understand the dynamic function of the human brain, and in a way that mean signals cannot capture.

Cerebral and Behavioural Asymmetries in Animal Social Recognition

Article

Full-text available

Jan 2012

Evidence is here summarized that animal species belonging to distant taxa show forms of social recognition, a sophisticated cognitive ability adaptive in most social interactions. The paper then proceeds to review evidence of functional lateraliza-tion for this cognitive ability. The main focus of this review is evidence obtained in domestic chickens, the animal model employed in the authors' laboratories, but we also discuss comparisons with data from species ranging from fishes, amphib-ians and reptiles, to other birds and mammals. A consistent pattern emerges, pointing toward a right hemisphere dominance, in particular for discrimination of social companions and individual (or familiarity-based) recognition, whereas the left hemisphere could be specialized for "category-based" distinctions (e.g., conspecifics versus heterospecifics). This pattern of results is discussed in relation to a more general specialization and processing styles of the two sides of the brain, with the right hemisphere predisposed for developing a detailed, global and contextual representation of objects, and the left hemisphere predisposed for rapid assignment of a stimulus to a category, for processing releaser stimuli and for control of responses.

Face-Evoked Steady-State Visual Potentials: Effects of Presentation Rate and Face Inversion

Article

Full-text available

Nov 2012
FRONT HUM NEUROSCI

Face processing can be explored using electrophysiological methods. Research with event-related potentials has demonstrated the so-called face inversion effect, in which the N170 component is enhanced in amplitude and latency to inverted, compared to upright, faces. The present study explored the extent to which repetitive lower-level visual cortical engagement, reflected in flicker steady-state visual evoked potentials (ssVEPs), shows similar amplitude enhancement to face inversion. We also asked if inversion-related ssVEP modulation would be dependent on the stimulation rate at which upright and inverted faces were flickered. To this end, multiple tagging frequencies were used (5, 10, 15, and 20 Hz) across two studies (n = 21, n = 18). Results showed that amplitude enhancement of the ssVEP for inverted faces was found solely at higher stimulation frequencies (15 and 20 Hz). By contrast, lower frequency ssVEPs did not show this inversion effect. These findings suggest that stimulation frequency affects the sensitivity of ssVEPs to face inversion.

Perinatal stroke: Effects and outcomes

Article

Full-text available

Jan 2009

The Development and Neural Bases of Face Recognition

Article

Full-text available

Mar 2001
INFANT CHILD DEV

Charles Nelson

Evidence from fields as diverse as cognitive, evolutionary, and developmental psychology, as well as cognitive neuroscience, has increasingly pointed to the ‘special’ nature of face recognition. A critical examination of the literature supports the view that faces begin to be seen as a separate class of objects within the first 6 months of life. Not surprisingly, the neural systems that underlie face recognition also come on line during this period of time. Less clear, however, are the mechanisms whereby these events occur. It seems likely that face recognition reflects an experience-expectant process, whereby exposure to faces during a sensitive period of development likely leads to perceptual and cortical specialization. However, it is unknown what the role of experience is in maintaining this ability, and how long this sensitive period lasts. After reviewing three related models that attempt to account for the way the ability to recognize faces develops, a number of suggestions are offered for testing the hypothesis that face recognition depends on experience for acquisition, and for evaluating the role of experience in maintaining this ability. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

The hidden face of hemispherectomy: Visuo-spatial and visuo-perceptive processing after left or right functional hemispherectomy in 40 children

Article

Sep 2022
EPILEPSY BEHAV

Functional hemispherectomy results in good outcomes in cases of refractory epilepsy and constitutes a unique situation in which to study cerebral plasticity and the reorganization of lateralized functions of the brain, especially in cases of infancy or childhood surgery. Previous studies have highlighted the remarkable ability of the brain to recover language after left hemispherectomy. This leads to a reorganization of language networks toward right hemisphere, causing limitation in the development of visuo-spatial abilities, known as a crowding effect in the right hemisphere. Deficits in nonverbal functions have also been described as a more direct consequence of right hemipherectomy, but the results from case studies have sometimes been contradictory. We conducted a group study which may effectively compare patients with left and right hemispherectomy and address the effects of the age of seizure onset and surgery. We analyzed the general visuo-spatial and visuo-perceptive abilities, including face and emotional facial expression processing, in a group of 40 patients aged 7–16 years with left (n = 24) or right (n = 16) functional hemispherectomy. Although the groups did not differ, on average, in general visuo-spatial and visuo-perceptive skills, patients with right hemispherectomy were more impaired in the processing of faces and emotional facial expressions compared with patients with left hemispherectomy. This may reflect a specific deficit in the perceptual processing of faces after right hemispherectomy. Results are discussed in terms of limited plasticity of the left hemisphere for facial and configural processing.

Вклад правого и левого полушария в восприятие лиц

Article

Full-text available

Mar 2020

Восприятие лица – процесс формирования его визуального дифференцированного образа. Специфичная именно для восприятия лиц как социальных стимулов стратегия восприятия получила название конфигурационной. В современных исследованиях процесса переработки информации о лице все чаще встречаются сведения о том, что выраженность данной стратегии зависит от качества используемого в эксперименте стимульного материала. Так, установлено, что лица известных людей обрабатываются как социальные стимулы, в то время как овалы незнакомых лиц – скорее как физические объекты. В настоящем исследовании представлены данные нейропсихологического обследования 22 пациентов с поражениями задних отделов правого и левого полушарий...

Functional Connectivity Pattern in the Core Face Network Reflects Different Mechanisms of Holistic Face Processing Measured by the Whole-Part Effect and Composite-Face Effect

Article

Apr 2019
NEUROSCIENCE

Holistic face processing is a critical component of face recognition. There are two classical measures of holistic face processing: the whole-part effect (WPE) and composite-face effect (CFE). However, the two effects have demonstrated inconsistent pattern of results in behavioral literature. Here, to address whether the WPE and CFE tap different mechanisms of holistic face processing, we examined the neural basis of the two effects at network level in a large sample of participants. With a voxel-wise global brain connectivity approach based on resting-state fMRI, we calculated the within network connectivity (WNC) of each voxel in the core face network (CFN). We found that a cluster in the right occipital face area (rOFA) showed positive correlation between its WNC and the WPE, while a cluster in the right fusiform face area (rFFA) showed negative correlation between its WNC and the CFE. These results suggested that the WPE was related to integration of the rOFA within the CFN, while the CFE was associated with separation of the rFFA from other CFN regions. Further analyses showed that higher WPE was related to stronger connection between the rOFA and bilateral posterior superior temporal sulcus (pSTS), while larger CFE was associated with weaker connection between the rFFA and bilateral pSTS. In short, our study reveals distinct neural correlates of the two hallmarks of holistic face processing at network level and sheds new light on the different mechanisms of holistic face processing reflected by the two effects.

Dissociated neural basis of two behavioral hallmarks of holistic face processing: The whole-part effect and composite-face effect

Article

May 2017

It has been long proposed that our extraordinary face recognition ability stems from holistic face processing. Two widely-used behavioral hallmarks of holistic face processing are the whole-part effect (WPE) and composite-face effect (CFE). However, it remains unknown whether these two effects reflect similar or different aspects of holistic face processing. Here we investigated this question by examining whether the WPE and CFE involved shared or distinct neural substrates in a large sample of participants (N=200). We found that the WPE and CFE showed hemispheric dissociation in the fusiform face area (FFA), that is, the WPE was correlated with face selectivity in the left FFA, while the CFE was correlated with face selectivity in the right FFA. Further, the correlation between the WPE and face selectivity was largely driven by the FFA response to faces, whereas the association between the CFE and face selectivity resulted from suppressed response to objects in the right FFA. Finally, we also observed dissociated correlation patterns of the WPE and CFE in other face-selective regions and across the whole brain. These results suggest that the WPE and CFE may reflect different aspects of holistic face processing, which shed new light on the behavioral dissociations of these two effects demonstrated in literature.

Face Context Influences Local Part Processing: An ERP Study

Article

Feb 2017

Perception of face parts on the basis of features is thought to be different from perception of whole faces, which is more based on configural information. Face context is also suggested to play an important role in face processing. To investigate how face context influences the early-stage perception of facial local parts, we used an oddball paradigm that tested perceptual stages of face processing rather than recognition. We recorded the event-related potentials (ERPs) elicited by whole faces and face parts presented in four conditions (upright-normal, upright-thatcherised, inverted-normal and inverted-thatcherised), as well as the ERPs elicited by non-face objects (whole houses and house parts) with corresponding conditions. The results showed that face context significantly affected the N170 with increased amplitudes and earlier peak latency for upright normal faces. Removing face context delayed the P1 latency but did not affect the P1 amplitude prominently for both upright and inverted normal faces. Across all conditions, neither the N170 nor the P1 was modulated by house context. The significant changes on the N170 and P1 components revealed that face context influences local part processing at the early stage of face processing and this context effect might be specific for face perception. We further suggested that perceptions of whole faces and face parts are functionally distinguished.

The Cognitive Capitalist: Social Benefits of Perceptual Economy

Article

Jan 2011

This chapter explores the perceptual processes that support the extraction of social information from faces and how these fit within extant models of social cognition. It assesses the efficiency with which our perceptual system extracts visual information from faces to provide us with useful social cues. To this end, the chapter considers the minimal perceptual requirements associated with categorization and individuation early in the person-construal process, rather than in the content of stereotypes and prejudices that occur further down the processing stream. © 2011 by Reginald B. Adams, Jr., Nalini Ambady, Ken Nakayama, Shinsuke Shimojo. All rights reserved.

Direct evidence for a consistent dissociation between structural facial discrimination and facial individuation in prosopagnosia

Article

Jun 1999
BRAIN COGNITION

Faces are distinguished by stable spatial relations between their features and precise location thereof. Whereas this stability is important for general gestalt-like perceptual processing of faces, distinctive variations of spatial arrangements are decisive for facial individuation and discrimination. Investigation of a patient with severe prosopagnosia due to a right-hemispheric occipito-temporal lesion revealed inability to process gestalt-like information of faces. Furthermore, experimental variations of relational facial properties revealed a consistent dissociation between structural face discrimination and facial individuation mainly due to locally restricted extraction and processing of relational facial features. These results refine the picture of configurational apperceptive prosopagnosia described in a previous study.

Progressive defective recognition of familiar people

Article

Sep 1999

This paper describes a right-handed patient (Maria), with a mild cognitive deterioration, who demonstrated the neuropsychological deficits of progressive bi-temporal atrophy. Temporal atrophy was ascertained by repeated MRI scanning. The patient was first assessed 5 1/2 years from clinical onset. The first 2 years were hallmarked by a worsening impairment of recognizing and identifying familiar people, which at our last assessment (13 months after the first) were very severe. Extra-facial information provided via conversation, gestures or clothes failed to counter the recognition defect. When given the names of the unrecognized familiar people, she had no difficulty retrieving the relevant biographical information. By contrast, hearing the name did not appear to help her to retrieve the corresponding visuo-perceptual characteristics. Two years post-onset, a milder, multisensorial defect of object recognition began to develop. During the last 6 months of observation, increasing lexico-semantic and aphasic defects became apparent. Psychometric assessment revealed that the patient's face recognition deficits were mainly 'associative'. Nevertheless, the patient was also impaired in some basic (i.e. 'apperceptive') visual skills. Her knowledge of colours and her spatial and reading skills were preserved. There were no signs of simultanagnosia. The patient's familiar people recognition defects were traced back to the malfunctioning of 'person identity nodes', and were considered to follow the more pronounced and earlier arising right temporal atrophy. The patient's multisensorial impaired recognition and naming of a still small number of common objects suggests the presence of semantic dementia arising from the concomitant less pronounced left temporal lobe atrophy. Clinically, this case may be viewed as an example of fronto-temporal dementia, consequent to a degenerative process of unknown histopathological nature.

Bilingual experience modulates hemispheric lateralization in visual word processing

Article

Jul 2013

Previous studies showed reduced hemispheric asymmetry in face perception in bilinguals compared with monolinguals, suggesting that hemispheric asymmetry in visual stimulus processing may be modulated by language reading experience. Here we examined whether this phenomenon can also be observed in bilinguals with different language backgrounds. We compared English monolinguals, European–English bilinguals (who know two alphabetic languages), and Chinese–English bilinguals (who have mastered a logographic and an alphabetic language) in an English word sequential matching task. We showed that European–English bilinguals had a stronger right visual field/left hemispheric advantage than the other two groups, suggesting that different language experiences can influence how visual words are processed in the brain. In addition, by using a computational model that implements a theory of hemispheric asymmetry in perception, we showed that this lateralization difference could be accounted for by the difference in participants’ vocabulary size and the difference in word-to-sound mapping between alphabetic and logographic languages.

Electrical Stimulation of the Left and Right Human Fusiform Gyrus Causes Different Effects in Conscious Face Perception

Article

Full-text available

Sep 2014

Neuroimaging and electrophysiological studies across species have confirmed bilateral face-selective responses in the ventral temporal cortex (VTC) and prosopagnosia is reported in patients with lesions in the VTC including the fusiform gyrus (FG). As imaging and electrophysiological studies provide correlative evidence, and brain lesions often comprise both white and gray matter structures beyond the FG, we designed the current study to explore the link between face-related electrophysiological responses in the FG and the causal effects of electrical stimulation of the left or right FG in face perception. We used a combination of electrocorticography (ECoG) and electrical brain stimulation (EBS) in 10 human subjects implanted with intracranial electrodes in either the left (5 participants, 30 FG sites) or right (5 participants, 26 FG sites) hemispheres. We identified FG sites with face-selective ECoG responses, and recorded perceptual reports during EBS of these sites. In line with existing literature, face-selective ECoG responses were present in both left and right FG sites. However, when the same sites were stimulated, we observed a striking difference between hemispheres. Only EBS of the right FG caused changes in the conscious perception of faces, whereas EBS of strongly face-selective regions in the left FG produced non-face-related visual changes, such as phosphenes. This study examines the relationship between correlative versus causal nature of ECoG and EBS, respectively, and provides important insight into the differential roles of the right versus left FG in conscious face perception.

The other-race effect: Holistic coding differences and beyond

Article

Sep 2013

We evaluate claims that the other-race effect in face memory reflects stronger holistic coding of own-race than other-race faces. Considering evidence from a range of paradigms, including the inversion effect, part-whole effect, composite effect, and the scrambled/blurred task, we find considerable inconsistency, both between paradigms and between participant ethnicities. At the same time, however, studies that isolate configural and component feature processing consistently show better featural, as well as better configural, processing of own-race faces, for both Caucasian and Asian participants. These results raise the possibility that the key feature of own-race face processing is not stronger holistic processing per se, but rather more effective processing of all types of face information (featural as well as holistic).

The influence of left and right hemisphere brain damage on configural and featural processing of affective faces

Article

Dec 2013
LATERALITY

The literature about the lateralization of facial emotion perception according to valence (positive, negative) is conflicting; investigating the underlying processes may shed light on why some studies show right-hemisphere dominance across valence and other studies demonstrate hemispheric differences according to valence. This is the first clinical study to examine whether the use of configural and featural cues underlies hemispheric differences in affective face perception. Right brain-damaged (RBD; n = 17), left brain-damaged (LBD; n = 17) and healthy control (HC; n = 34) participants completed an affective face discrimination task that tested configural processing using whole faces and featural processing using partial faces. No group differences in expression perception according to valence or processing strategy were found. Across emotions, the RBD group was less accurate than the HC group in discriminating whole faces, whilst the RBD and LBD groups were less accurate than HCs in discriminating partial faces. This suggests that the right hemisphere processes facial expressions from configural and featural information, whereas the left hemisphere relies more heavily on featural facial information.

Do the right and left hemisphere attend to the same visuospatial information within a face in infancy?

Article

Jan 1998

Four‐ to 10‐month‐old infants process different information within geometrical patterns with each of the 2 hemispheres (Deruelle & de Schonen 1991,1995). This study was designed to test whether this early difference between the hemispheres’ modes of processing also holds in the case of face processing. Four‐ to 10‐month‐old participants had to discriminate and recognize with each hemi‐visual field the 2 members of a pair of faces. There were 3 pairs of faces that differed by either eye shape, eye size, or eye orientation. The results confirmed the predictions made on the basis of adult studies and infants’ hemispheric differences in geometrical pattern processing: A left hemisphere advantage was observed in the case of the 1st pair of faces and a right hemisphere advantage with the 2nd and 3rd pairs. It is suggested that the early right hemisphere advantage over the left observed by de Schonen and Mathivet (1990) in face recognition by 4‐ to 9‐month‐old infants may be mainly based on the difference in the kind of visuospatial information processed by each hemisphere.

Les visages et leurs émotions

Article

Nov 2006
REV NEUROL-FRANCE

Les visages véhiculent des messages sociaux déterminants pour la communication et l’insertion dans toute société. Les capacités de reconnaissance de chaque information transmise par un visage peuvent être altérées de façon indépendante ou combinée après lésion(s) cérébrale(s) focale(s) ou dégénérative(s). Un démembrement des mécanismes neuronaux impliqués dans la reconnaissance de ces différents messages faciaux est nécessaire pour une meilleure compréhension des conséquences comportementales invalidantes impliquées par ce type de dysfonction. Nous proposons dans cette première partie de présenter les différents systèmes impliqués dans la reconnaissance des visages, et plus particulièrement la question de l’identité et de la prosopagnosie. Différents réseaux largement distribués semblent en effet impliqués dans la reconnaissance des aspects invariants (identité, genre, origine ethnique) et dynamiques des visages (expression faciale, direction du regard, mouvements des lèvres). Ces propos sont illustrés par nos travaux électrophysiologiques de scalp et intracrâniens réalisés chez l’homme permettant de décrire la dynamique de la reconnaissance des visages avec une excellente résolution spatiale et temporelle. Les enregistrements intracérébraux furent réalisés chez des patients épileptiques pharmaco-résistants porteurs d’électrodes intracrâniennes lors d’une exploration préchirurgicale. L’ensemble de ces travaux démontre que la reconnaissance des visages met en jeu de nombreuses structures corticales et sous-corticales de façon précoce et parfois soutenue dans le temps.

Behavioural and Neural Correlates of Mental Imagery in Sheep Using Face Recognition Paradigms

Article

Feb 2001

Determining objective measures for proof of consciousness in non-human animals has been helped by improved understanding of neural correlates of human consciousness. Functional imaging and neuropsychological studies have shown remarkable overlap between structures involved in actual perception of social and non-social objects and those involved in forming mental images of them. One area of particular interest is individual face recognition. This involves regions of the temporal lobe that are mainly only activated by actual perception or mental imagery of faces. Using behavioural, neuroanatomical and neurophysiological approaches in sheep, we have found that they have similar specialized abilities for recognizing many individuals from their faces. They have developed the same specialized neural processing regions in the temporal lobe for aiding such recognition. Furthermore, parallel activation of other brain regions controlling behavioural and emotional responses only occurs when they are overtly interested in the individuals whose faces they perceive. Such interest might therefore equate to their becoming consciously aware of them. Preliminary experiments have indicated that sheep may form and use mental images and that the regions of the temporal lobe that respond to faces can also do so under conditions where faces are suggested but do not actually appear. Such similarities between humans and sheep in this form of social recognition make it difficult to claim that humans can form mental images of faces whereas sheep cannot. While the ability to form and use mental imagery is not in itself definitive proof of consciousness, it is an important component part.

Selective attention in Alzheimer's Disease: Analysis of errors in Zazzo's Cancellation Task.

Article

Jun 1999

Used the PAQUID epidemiological data to analyze errors on Cancellation Tasks made by 18 Ss (aged 65+ yrs) recently diagnosed with Alzheimer's Disease (AD) vs 36 normal elderly controls. Cancellation Tasks provide useful information on the way Ss process their surrounding field, since these tasks require one to selectively attend to relevant features of the field while suppressing irrelevant ones. Inconsistently with the hypothesis of a general inhibitory breakdown in AD which would have predicted a considerable number of crossed distractors in AD Ss, previous results had shown that errors were predominantly omissions but rarely crossed distractors. However, current results on Zazzo's Cancellation Task show that by increasing the features shared by the target and distractors, AD Ss also commit numerous crossed distractors. The results are interpreted in terms of inhibitory deficits. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)

Looking at Upside Down Faces

Article

Full-text available

Jul 1969
J Exp Psychol

Robert K. Yin

Compared memory for faces with memory for other classes of familar and complex objects which, like faces, are also customarily seen only in 1 orientation (mono-oriented). Performance of 4 students was tested when the inspection and test series were presented in the same orientation, either both upright or both inverted, or when the 2 series were presented in opposite orientations. The results show that while all mono-oriented objects tend to be more difficult to remember when upside-down, faces are disproportionately affected. These findings suggest that the difficulty in looking at upside-down faces involves 2 factors: a general factor of familiarity with mono-oriented objects, and a special factor related only to faces. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)

Recognition-by-Components: A Theory of Human Image Understanding

Article

Full-text available

Apr 1987

Irving Biederman

The perceptual recognition of objects is conceptualized to be a process in which the image of the input is segmented at regions of deep concavity into an arrangement of simple geometric components. The fundamental assumption of the proposed theory, recognition-by-components (RBC), is that a modest set of generalized-cone components, called geons, can be derived from contrasts of five readily detectable properties of edges in a two-dimensional image. The detection of these properties is generally invariant over viewing position and image quality and consequently allows robust object perception when the image is projected from a novel viewpoint or is degraded. RBC thus provides a principled account of the heretofore undecided relation between the classic principles of perceptual organization and pattern recognition. The results from experiments on the perception of briefly presented pictures by human observers provide empirical support for the theory. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)

Perception of Bilateral Chimeric Figures Following Hemispheric Deconnexion

Article

Full-text available

Feb 1972

Lateral asymmetry in face perception

Article

Full-text available

Sep 1981
Rev Canad Psychol

Robert St John

The tachistoscope was used to examine cerebral asymmetries in the perception of human faces by having 64 right-handed Ss make same–different comparisons between 2 faces or 2 objects (shoes) presented in the left or right field. A consistent left visual field advantage in response times (suggesting right-hemisphere processing) was found for the face presentations across all 3 experiments. There was no consistent field difference for the object presentations. Results suggest a right-hemisphere system specialized specifically to human faces. Some mechanisms are proposed for this apparent specificity. (French abstract) (41 ref)

Upright and inverted faces, and housefronts, in the two visual fields: A right and a Left hemisphere contribution

Article

Dec 1980
J Clin Neuropsychol

In the first experiment, schematic outline drawings of upright and inverted faces and house fronts, where nontargets differed from targets by all three features, were flashed to left and right visual fields (LVF and RVF, respectively), in a discriminatory manual RT task. An equally strong LVF superiority occurred for each type of stimulus. There was no evidence in this task of a specialist processor for upright faces in the right hemisphere over and above the latter's general mediation of complex visuospatial stimuli. The second experiment confirmed that a right hemisphere superiority is not an inevitable concommitant of processing face material. Upright faces which previously had been shown to generate a RVF superiority in the context of difficult, analytic, single-feature discriminations, and a LVF superiority in the context of an easy holistic match-mismatch, were combined into a single sequence to determine whether the perceived nature of the total task would change the magnitude or direction of asymmetries normally occurring for a given type of stimulus when presented in isolation. The hypothesis was confirmed.The findings were discussed in the context of clinical evidence for a dissociation between deficits in general visuospatial processing, and one or more specific types of face processing, all of which are known to be largely represented in the right hemisphere.

Die Prosop-Agnosie

Article

Jan 1947

Joachim Bodamer

Fat manzum Schlu die Merkmale, die das Wesen der Prosopagnosie ausmachen, zusammen, so lt sich sagen: Sie ist die Agnosie fr das Erkennen von Gesichtern und Ausdrucksphnomen berhaupt. Bei ungestrter Perzeption der Formteile von Physiognomien bleibt der Erkenntnisvorgang aus oder kommt, wie wir das auch von anderen Agnosien kennen, nur unvollkommen zustande. Wie es nun zum Wesen der Agnosie gehrt, sich auf eine optische Kategorie zu beschrnken, so die Prosopagnosie elektiv auf Gesichter. Nicht blo die Tatsache der Prosopagnosie selbst, sondern auch gewisse Beobachtungen (Flimmeranflle, cerebrale Metamorphopsien fr Gesichter) weisen darauf hin, da sie die Strung einer eigentmlichen optischen Kategorie ist, die sowohl das Physiognomiesehen, wie das Physiognomieerkennen umfat und der im Aufbau der Wahrnehmungswelt ein ganz bestimmter Platz zukommt. Es handelt sich hier prinzipiell um den gleichen Vorgang wie bei den brigen Kategorien fr Objekte, Sinnzusammenhnge, Farben, symbolische Zeichen usw., in deren Strungsformen die ihnen zugrunde liegenden optischen Sonderkategorien zum Ausdruck kommen. Da die Agnosie als klinisches Phnomen in solche kategorialen Einzelformen auseinanderfllt, wird gewhnlich einfach hingenommen, ist aber im Grunde tief rtselhaft, und mit der Annahme von gestrten Sonderapparaten im Gehirn so wenig erklrt, wie durch die Theorie der Gestaltspsychologie, da in aller Agnosie die Strung der Erfassung der Gestalt es sei, die die Agnosie bedinge.Die Bearbeitung der Frage, ob die in den Agnosien erscheinenden optischen Sonderkategorien nur durch Zufall vereint auftreten, oder eine innere Hierarchie erkennen lassen, steht noch in den Anfngen. Ein erster Anhaltspunkt lt sich gewinnen durch unseren Nachweis, da die Prosopagnosie Storungsfrm einer optischen Kategorie sein mu, in der die ursprnglichste genetisch frheste Wahrnehmungs- und Erkenntnisfunktion sich prsentiert. Im Strungstyp der Prosopagnosie sehen wir eine Regression auf diese frheste optische Umwelterfassungsstufe, eine Grund- und Urfunktion der Sehwelt berhaupt. In einzelnen Merkmalen der Agnosie, Radikalen gleichsam, vermgen wir noch die, diese Grundkategorie ursprnglich konstituierenden Elemente, wenn auch in verzerrter Form zu erkennen: In der Ocula das primre Wahrnehmungsfeld, in der Faszination durch das mitmenschliche Auge den frhesten optischen Erlebnisakt, in der Strung der eigenen Ausdrucksfhigkeit den durchgehenden Seinsbezug dieser optischen Kategorie und in dem konstanten Ausfall der optischen Merkfhigkeit fr Gesichter das zeitliche Vorausgehen des Ausdruckserkennens vor dem Objektsehen.Bezglich der Frage der chronogenen Engraphierung (v. Monakow) der optischen Kategorien im Laufe der Entwicklung hat Ptzl die Ansicht geuert, da die Simultanagnosie die Regression auf das Bilderbuchstadium der Kinder darstelle, auf die Phase der Und-Verbindungen (Pick). Demnach wre die Simultanagnosie die Strungsform der optischen Sinnkategorie. Zwischen beiden, der Ausdruckskategorie und der Simultankategorie, drfte die Kategorie der Objekt- und Farberfassung liegen, jenseits davon die Welt der symbolischen Zeichen. Diese, ihrer Qualitt nach ganz unterschiedlichen Kategorien, von denen wir hier der Einfachheit halber nur die Ausdrucksschicht, die Objekt-, Sinn- und Symbolschicht nennen, gehen nicht kontinuierlich auseinander hervor, sondern die Entwicklung geschieht in Sprngen. Jede Schicht ist von der anderen durch einen Hiatus irrationalis getrennt. Mit jeder der genannten Schichten beginnt etwas kategorial Neues. Da optisch gegebene Zusammenhnge simultan erkannt werden, ist nicht einfach Folge des vorausgegangenen optisch-gnostischen Erfassens von Objekten, so wenig wie das Erkennen von Symbolzeichen seinen Grund in der Erfassung ihrer Formen hat.Wir stoen hier von der klinischen Empirie her auf dasselbe Phnomen, das die moderne Ontologie, am strengsten verkrpert in Nicolai Hartmann, dazu gefhrt hat, der Welt den Charakter der Schichtung beizulegen. Im Schichtenbau der Welt hat jede Schicht ihre eigenen Gesetze, keine hat ein selbstndiges Sein, immer ruht die hhere auf der niederen, doch ohne Beeintrchtigung ihrer autonomen innerkategorialen Freiheit, denn mit jeder Schicht beginnt ein kategoriales Novum. Diese allgemeinsten Schichtgesetze treffen auch auf die optischen Kategorien zu, nur darf dabei nie bersehen werden, da wir in den optischen Kategorien keine Seinskategorien vor uns haben. Denn im Erkenntnisgebilde als der bloen, sich in Annherung vollziehenden Reprsentanz des Objekts im erkennenden Bewutsein erscheinen nur die Abbilder der eigentlichen Seinskategorien, eben die optischen Kategorien. Ihre Schichtung ist nur ein Hinweis auf die Schichtung der Welt, deren Objekte dem Menschen nie an sich, sondern immer nur als Bilder gegeben sind.So erhebt sich nach der Analyse des Phnomens unabweisbar die anthropologische Frage nach dem Wesen des Menschen und nach seiner Stellung in der Welt, denn in keinem anderen Problembereich, als in dem der Agnosie, Aphasie und Apraxie berhrt sich medizinische Tatsachenforschung so eng mit philosophischer Besinnung, als dem tragenden Grund aller Wissenschaft.

Asymmetry of perception in free viewing of chimeric faces

Article

Nov 1983

We have devised a new free-vision task to index functional cerebral asymmetry for processing facial characteristics. Confirming its sensitivity to properties of lateralized hemispheric functions, left-and right-handers were clearly differentiated on this task with respect to several aspects of performance that conform with known differences between handedness groups in hemispheric asymmetry. Additionally, there were highly reliable and stable individual differences in perceptual asymmetries within handedness. Analyses of items in the task revealed that most of the differences between items in the asymmetries they elicited were random.

Opposite visual hemifield superiorities in face recognition as a function of cognitive style

Article

Feb 1979
NEUROPSYCHOLOGIA

Twenty-four women, classified as field dependent or field independent on the Rod-and Frame Test, memorized sets of upright and inverted faces and were then tested for recognition in a tachistoscopic visual hemifield paradigm using upright and inverted faces as probes. A significant triple interaction of probe orientation, visual hemifield and cognitive style was found. For upright probes, field independent subjects responded faster and more accurately when probes were in the left visual field; in contrast, field dependent subjects showed a right visual field advantage. For inverted probes, there was little evidence of lateralization. The findings are interpreted as reflecting a difference in the strategies used by these subjects for tachistoscopic face discrimination; however, this interpretation rests upona particular model of laterality effects.

Distinctiveness and Expertise Effects with Homogeneous Stimuli: Towards a Model of Configural Coding

Article

Feb 1990

Recent studies using Brennan's computerized caricature generator have demonstrated distinctiveness effects consistent with the idea that faces are coded in terms of their individual distinctive properties. Based on these findings it is suggested that, for homogeneous classes whose members share a common configuration, distinctive configural information may be coded as metric deviations from a spatial norm. Experiments are described which demonstrate similar distinctiveness effects in bird identification. Transformations that increase distinctiveness (caricatures) produced faster identification and a higher recognition proportion, for both experts and nonexperts, than transformations that reduce distinctiveness (anticaricatures). This distinctiveness advantage is consistent with the norm-based coding idea. Furthermore, within certain limits, increasing distinctiveness did not impair performance relative to that for veridical drawings. For experts there was also a caricature advantage, such that 50% caricatures of birds in a highly homogeneous and familiar class (passerines) were identified more quickly, provided that they were recognized at all, than uncaricatured veridical drawings. The significance of a caricature advantage for the visual coding of configural information is discussed.

Are variations among subjects in lateral asymmetry real individual differences or random error in measurement?: Putting variability in its place

Article

Dec 1990

The current research investigates sources of variability in subjects' asymmetry scores on commonly used laterality tasks. In particular, subjects' asymmetry scores on four bilateral tachistoscopic tasks and one free-vision task were entered into a principal component analysis (PCA) in order to investigate components that explain the maximum variance of the sample. The results indicate that about half of the variation (45.2%) in asymmetry scores on both tachistoscopic and free-vision tasks is attributable to individual differences in characteristic perceptual asymmetry. The amount of variance explained by this characteristic perceptual asymmetry component is similar in a sample of dextrals and a sample of sinistrals. No significant relation was revealed between individual differences in characteristic perceptual asymmetry and performance on various verbal and spatial cognitive tasks.

Prosopagnosia and agnosia for noncanonical views. An autopsied case

Article

Jan 1989

It has been postulated that for prosopagnosia to occur, bilateral lesions of the central visual system are usually necessary. All but 1 of the 10 previously documented cases that came to autopsy showed this pattern. However, the long survival period after the onset of prosopagnosia in most of these patients limits the value of the autopsy findings for clinicopathological correlation. A patient is presented who died 10 days after she had developed prosopagnosia, topographagnosia and an agnosia for real objects seen from noncanonical views. These clinical symptoms corresponded directly to the autopsy finding of a recent large occipitotemporal ischaemic infarct in the territory of the right posterior cerebral artery. An additional right frontal infarct and a cortical microinfarct in a deep left lateral parieto-occipital sulcus were both old lesions and had passed unnoticed clinically. This first report of a direct clinicopathological correlation between a fresh right posterior lesion and prosopagnosia demonstrates that bilateral involvement of the visual system is not a prerequisite for prosopagnosia.

Face recognition: A general or specific right hemisphere capacity?

Article

Jan 1989

Face-recognition ability has been claimed to be qualitatively different from other pattern-recognition abilities. One argument for this claim is the finding of a significant right hemisphere advantage for the recognition of upright but not inverted faces. However, this argument is justified only if this orientation-sensitive pattern is unique to faces. In the present study, comparable patterns of orientation-sensitive involvement of the right hemisphere are found for the recognition of faces and houses. This finding is interpreted as evidence for a right hemisphere schema formation capacity that is applied not only to upright faces but also to other familiar classes of stimuli in their canonical upright orientation. It is suggested that any greater right hemisphere involvement in the recognition of upright faces is due to our greater expertise at recognizing faces than other stimulus types. We also find evidence that only a subset of right-handed adults show orientation-sensitive right hemisphere involvement in the recognition of faces and houses: in particular, those dextrals with a characteristic hemispheric arousal asymmetry in favor of the right hemisphere. In contrast, dextrals with a characteristic arousal asymmetry in favor of the left hemisphere do not show significant visual field asymmetries for faces or houses in either upright or inverted orientations.

Configurational Information in Face Perception

Article

Feb 1987

A new facial composites technique is demonstrated, in which photographs of the top and bottom halves of different familiar faces fuse to form unfamiliar faces when aligned with each other. The perception of a novel configuration in such composite stimuli is sufficiently convincing to interfere with identification of the constituent parts (experiment 1), but this effect disappears when stimuli are inverted (experiment 2). Difficulty in identifying the parts of upright composites is found even for stimuli made from parts of unfamiliar faces that have only ever been encountered as face fragments (experiment 3). An equivalent effect is found for composites made from internal and external facial features of well-known people (experiment 4). These findings demonstrate the importance of configurational information in face perception, and that configurations are only properly perceived in upright faces.

The Effects of Distinctiveness in Recognising and Classifying Faces

Article

Feb 1986

In an earlier study it was found that distinctive familiar faces were recognised faster than typical familiar faces in a familiarity decision task. In the first experiment reported here this effect was replicated with the use of celebrities' faces rather than personally familiar faces. In the second and third experiments the effect of distinctiveness was found to reverse if the task was to distinguish between faces and jumbled faces. Subjects took longer to classify distinctive faces as faces than they did to classify typical faces. Thus distinctive faces were recognised faster, but were classified as faces more slowly than were typical faces, both when personally familiar faces and when famous faces were used as stimuli. These results are interpeted as evidence that faces are encoded by reference to a general face prototype.

Identification and ratings of caricatures: Implications for mental representations of faces

Article

Nov 1987

S. Brennan (1985, Leonardo, 18, 170–178) has developed a computer-implemented caricature generator based on a holistic theory of caricature. A face is represented by 37 lines, based on a fixed set of 169 points. Caricatures are produced by exaggerating all metric differences between a face and a norm. Anticaricatures can be created by reducing all the differences between a face and a norm. Caricatures of familiar faces were identified more quickly than veridical line drawings, which were identified more quickly than anticaricatures. There was no difference in identification accuracy for the three types of representation. The best likeness was considered to be a caricature. We discuss the implications of these results for how faces are mentally represented. The results are consistent with a holistic theory of encoding in which distinctive aspects of a face are represented by comparison with a norm. We suggest that this theory may be appropriate for classes of visual stimuli, other than faces, whose members share a configuration definable by a fixed set of points.

The Anatomical Basis of Prosopagnosia

Article

Jun 1974

J.C. Meadows

Evidence is presented that patients with prosopagnosia have right anterior inferior occipital lesions in the region of the occipital temporal junction. Many if not all cases have an additional lesion in the left hemisphere; this is often but apparently not always symmetrical with the right hemisphere lesion. This evidence is discussed in relation to the anatomical connections of these regions and the results of experiments in animals.

The Assessment And Analysis Of Handedness: The Edinburgh Inventory

Article

Apr 1971
NEUROPSYCHOLOGIA

R.C. Oldfield

The need for a simply applied quantitative assessment of handedness is discussed and some previous forms reviewed. An inventory of 20 items with a set of instructions and response- and computational-conventions is proposed and the results obtained from a young adult population numbering some 1100 individuals are reported. The separate items are examined from the point of view of sex, cultural and socio-economic factors which might appertain to them and also of their inter-relationship to each other and to the measure computed from them all. Criteria derived from these considerations are then applied to eliminate 10 of the original 20 items and the results recomputed to provide frequency-distribution and cumulative frequency functions and a revised item-analysis. The difference of incidence of handedness between the sexes is discussed.

Face recognition by brain-injured patients: A dissociable ability?

Article

Dec 1970
NEUROPSYCHOLOGIA

Robert K. Yin

Patients with right posterior cerebral injuries did more poorly than patients with other unilateral injuries and normal control subjects in recognizing different faces. When the faces were presented upside-down, however, those with the other unilateral injuries did worse than the right posterior group and the normal controls. This dissociation between upright and inverted presentations was not found with pictures of another common object, houses of similar architecture. The results support the notion that, among the disorders caused by right posterior injuries, there does exist a material-specific deficit in recognizing faces.

A Case of Prosopagnosia With Some Preserved Covert Remembrance of Familiar Faces

Article

Aug 1983

This paper presents the detailed analysis of a case of prosopagnosia in a 54-year-old male farmer following bioccipital vascular disease. In-depth clinical investigations confirmed the diagnosis of prosopagnosia and revealed the absence of any associated defect, except for a slight aspecific disturbance of the short-term memory. Further study of this case indicated that the trouble was not concerned with the class of complex visual stimuli, was not even concerned with facial expressions or unknown faces, was not a perceptual defect, but was related mainly to the operation of individualization. The memory hypothesis was thus retained and supported. Moreover, exploration of the difficulty indicated that the deficiency was limited to defective access to conscious information concerning faces and information associated with these faces (name, context, etc.), effectively stored in memory.

Impaired identification of faces and places with agnosia for colors

Article

Sep 1955

C. A. Pallis

The defect of function in visual agnosia

Article

Apr 1956

Configural Coding, Expertise, and the Right Hemisphere Advantage for Face Recognition

Abstract

No full-text available

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