scholarly journals The Fusiform Gyrus Processes Faces Relative to an Overall Face Average and a Person Average

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zarrar Shehzad ◽  
Eunjoo Byeon ◽  
Gregory McCarthy
Keyword(s):  
Brain Activity ◽  
Visual Presentation ◽  
Fusiform Gyrus ◽  
Hemispheric Differences ◽  
Neural Basis ◽  
Face Space ◽  
Face Area ◽  
Average Face ◽  
Face Similarity ◽  
The Right

AbstractWe are highly accurate at recognizing familiar faces even with large variation in visual presentation due to pose, lighting, hairstyle, etc. The neural basis of such within-person face variation has been largely unexplored. Building on prior behavioral work, we hypothesized that learning a person’s average face helps link the different instances of that person’s face into a coherent identity within face-selective regions within ventral occipitotemporal cortex (VOTC). To test this hypothesis, we measured brain activity using fMRI for eight well-known celebrities with 18 naturalistic photos per identity. Each photo was mapped into a face-space using a neural network where the Euclidean distance between photos corresponded with face similarity. We confirmed in a behavioral study that photos closer to a person’s average face in a face-space were judged to look more like that person. fMRI results revealed hemispheric differences in identity processing. The right fusiform face area (FFA) encoded face-likeness with brain signal increasing the closer a photo was to the average of all faces. This suggests that the right FFA pattern matches to an average face template. In contrast, the left FFA and left anterior fusiform gyrus (aFus) encoded person-likeness. The brain signal increased the further a photo was from the person’s average face weighted by the features most relevant for face identification. This suggests that the left FFA and aFUS processes an identity error signal. Our results encourage a new consideration of the left fusiform in face processing, specifically for within-person processing of face identity.

Emotional Reactivity to Visual Content as Revealed by ERP Component Clustering

2015 ◽  
Vol 29 (4) ◽  
pp. 135-146 ◽  
Author(s):  
Miroslaw Wyczesany ◽  
Szczepan J. Grzybowski ◽  
Jan Kaiser
Keyword(s):  
Emotional Reactivity ◽  
Brain Activity ◽  
Affective State ◽  
Occipital Lobe ◽  
Stimulus Onset ◽  
Emotional States ◽  
Neural Basis ◽  
Temporoparietal Junction ◽  
The Right ◽  
The Impact

Abstract. In the study, the neural basis of emotional reactivity was investigated. Reactivity was operationalized as the impact of emotional pictures on the self-reported ongoing affective state. It was used to divide the subjects into high- and low-responders groups. Independent sources of brain activity were identified, localized with the DIPFIT method, and clustered across subjects to analyse the visual evoked potentials to affective pictures. Four of the identified clusters revealed effects of reactivity. The earliest two started about 120 ms from the stimulus onset and were located in the occipital lobe and the right temporoparietal junction. Another two with a latency of 200 ms were found in the orbitofrontal and the right dorsolateral cortices. Additionally, differences in pre-stimulus alpha level over the visual cortex were observed between the groups. The attentional modulation of perceptual processes is proposed as an early source of emotional reactivity, which forms an automatic mechanism of affective control. The role of top-down processes in affective appraisal and, finally, the experience of ongoing emotional states is also discussed.

Multi-Item Discriminability Pattern to Faces in Developmental Prosopagnosia Reveals Distinct Mechanisms of Face Processing

2019 ◽  
Vol 30 (5) ◽  
pp. 2986-2996
Author(s):  
Xue Tian ◽  
Ruosi Wang ◽  
Yuanfang Zhao ◽  
Zonglei Zhen ◽  
Yiying Song ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Face Processing ◽  
Alternative Hypothesis ◽  
Normal Population ◽  
Imaging Study ◽  
Multiple Sources ◽  
Neural Basis ◽  
Face Area ◽  
Normal Individuals ◽  
The Face ◽  
The Right

Abstract Previous studies have shown that individuals with developmental prosopagnosia (DP) show specific deficits in face processing. However, the mechanism underlying the deficits remains largely unknown. One hypothesis suggests that DP shares the same mechanism as normal population, though their faces processing is disproportionally impaired. An alternative hypothesis emphasizes a qualitatively different mechanism of DP processing faces. To test these hypotheses, we instructed DP and normal individuals to perceive faces and objects. Instead of calculating accuracy averaging across stimulus items, we used the discrimination accuracy for each item to construct a multi-item discriminability pattern. We found DP’s discriminability pattern was less similar to that of normal individuals when perceiving faces than perceiving objects, suggesting that DP has qualitatively different mechanism in representing faces. A functional magnetic resonance imaging study was conducted to reveal the neural basis and found that multi-voxel activation patterns for faces in the right fusiform face area and occipital face area of DP were deviated away from the mean activation pattern of normal individuals. Further, the face representation was more heterogeneous in DP, suggesting that deficits of DP may come from multiple sources. In short, our study provides the first direct evidence that DP processes faces qualitatively different from normal population.

scholarly journals FFA and OFA encode distinct types of face identity information

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maria Tsantani ◽  
Nikolaus Kriegeskorte ◽  
Katherine Storrs ◽  
Adrian Lloyd Williams ◽  
Carolyn McGettigan ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Brain Activity ◽  
Activity Patterns ◽  
Brain Regions ◽  
Image Encoding ◽  
Low Level ◽  
Social Traits ◽  
Face Area ◽  
Face Similarity ◽  
And Gender ◽  
High Level

AbstractFaces of different people elicit distinct functional MRI (fMRI) patterns in several face-selective brain regions. Here we used representational similarity analysis to investigate what type of identity-distinguishing information is encoded in three face-selective regions: fusiform face area (FFA), occipital face area (OFA), and posterior superior temporal sulcus (pSTS). We used fMRI to measure brain activity patterns elicited by naturalistic videos of famous face identities, and compared their representational distances in each region with models of the differences between identities. Models included low-level to high-level image-computable properties and complex human-rated properties. We found that the FFA representation reflected perceived face similarity, social traits, and gender, and was well accounted for by the OpenFace model (deep neural network, trained to cluster faces by identity). The OFA encoded low-level image-based properties (pixel-wise and Gabor-jet dissimilarities). Our results suggest that, although FFA and OFA can both discriminate between identities, the FFA representation is further removed from the image, encoding higher-level perceptual and social face information.

Cultural Neuroaesthetics of Delicate Sadness Induced by Noh Masks

2021 ◽  
pp. 122-126
Author(s):  
Naoyuki Osaka
Keyword(s):  
Brain Activity ◽  
Critical Role ◽  
Imaging Study ◽  
Magnetic Resonance Imaging Study ◽  
Aesthetic Experiences ◽  
Common System ◽  
Face Area ◽  
The Social ◽  
Japanese Art ◽  
The Right

As an investigator of how culture interacts with neuroaesthetics in Japanese art, the author’s goal in the article under discussion is to explore the neural mechanisms involved in the social, affective, and cognitive processes of sadness induced by the Noh mask. Why do seemingly negative emotions, such as sadness, play a critical role in aesthetic experiences in the Noh theater? What brain activity is involved in feeling delicate sadness? Sadness induced by faces involves cortical interactions among various brain areas such as the amygdala, striatum, fusiform face area, and insula. The expectation for reward, hidden in the appreciation of the sad mask, might be a social reward. If so, it may be that appreciating sadness masks engages a common system that drives the expectation of negative rewards. The author ran a functional magnetic resonance imaging study in which participants’ brains were scanned while watching sad Noh masks. Results confirmed predictions, revealing activation of the right amygdala while viewing sad masks.

Face categorization in visual scenes may start in a higher order area of the right fusiform gyrus: evidence from dynamic visual stimulation in neuroimaging

2011 ◽  
Vol 106 (5) ◽  
pp. 2720-2736 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fang Jiang ◽  
Laurence Dricot ◽  
Jochen Weber ◽  
Giulia Righi ◽  
Michael J. Tarr ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Face Processing ◽  
Visual Analysis ◽  
Visual Stimulation ◽  
Fusiform Gyrus ◽  
Differential Activation ◽  
Face Area ◽  
Face Categorization ◽  
Visual Scenes ◽  
The Right ◽  
Processing Network

How a visual stimulus is initially categorized as a face by the cortical face-processing network remains largely unclear. In this study we used functional MRI to study the dynamics of face detection in visual scenes by using a paradigm in which scenes containing faces or cars are revealed progressively as they emerge from visual noise. Participants were asked to respond as soon as they detected a face or car during the noise sequence. Among the face-sensitive regions identified based on a standard localizer, a high-level face-sensitive area, the right fusiform face area (FFA), showed the earliest difference between face and car activation. Critically, differential activation in FFA was observed before differential activation in the more posteriorly located occipital face area (OFA). A whole brain analysis confirmed these findings, with a face-sensitive cluster in the right fusiform gyrus being the only cluster showing face preference before successful behavioral detection. Overall, these findings indicate that following generic low-level visual analysis, a face stimulus presented in a gradually revealed visual scene is first detected in the right middle fusiform gyrus, only after which further processing spreads to a network of cortical and subcortical face-sensitive areas (including the posteriorly located OFA). These results provide further evidence for a nonhierarchical organization of the cortical face-processing network.

scholarly journals A Neural Basis for Percept Stabilization in Binocular Rivalry

2008 ◽  
Vol 20 (3) ◽  
pp. 389-399 ◽  
Author(s):  
Philipp Sterzer ◽  
Geraint Rees
Keyword(s):  
Binocular Rivalry ◽  
Brain Activity ◽  
Delay Period ◽  
Behavioral Experiment ◽  
Conscious Perception ◽  
Neural Basis ◽  
Bistable Perception ◽  
Face Area ◽  
Human Participants ◽  
High Level

When the same visual input has conflicting interpretations, conscious perception can alternate spontaneously between each competing percept. Surprisingly, such bistable perception can be stabilized by intermittent stimulus removal, suggesting the existence of perceptual “memory” across interruptions in stimulation. The neural basis of such a process remains unknown. Here, we studied binocular rivalry, one type of bistable perception, in two linked experiments in human participants. First, we showed, in a behavioral experiment using binocular rivalry between face and grating stimuli, that the stabilizing effect of stimulus removal was specific to perceptual alternations evoked by rivalry, and did not occur following physical alternations in the absence of rivalry. We then used functional magnetic resonance imaging to measure brain activity in a variable delay period of stimulus removal. Activity in the fusiform face area during the delay period following removal of rivalrous stimuli was greater following face than grating perception, whereas such a difference was absent during removal of non-rivalrous stimuli. Moreover, activity in areas of fronto-parietal regions during the delay period correlated with the degree to which individual participants tended to experience percept stabilization. Our findings suggest that percept-related activity in specialized extrastriate visual areas help to stabilize perception during perceptual conflict, and that high-level mechanisms may determine the influence of such signals on conscious perception.

scholarly journals The Neural Determinants of Beauty

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Taoxi Yang ◽  
Arusu Formuli ◽  
Marco Paolini ◽  
Semir Zeki
Keyword(s):  
Aesthetic Experience ◽  
Interaction Analysis ◽  
Univariate Analysis ◽  
Neural Basis ◽  
Brain Areas ◽  
Face Area ◽  
Facial Beauty ◽  
Psychophysiological Interaction ◽  
The Aesthetic ◽  
The Right

What are the conditions that determine whether the medial orbito-frontal cortex (mOFC), in which activity correlates with the experience of beauty derived from different sources, becomes co-active with sensory areas of the brain during the experience of sensory beauty? We addressed this question by studying the neural determinants of facial beauty. The perception of faces correlates with activity in a number of brain areas, but only when a face is perceived as beautiful is the mOFC also engaged. The enquiry thus revolved around the question of whether a particular pattern of activity, within or between areas implicated in face perception, emerges when a face is perceived as beautiful, and which determines that there is, as a correlate, activity in mOFC. 17 subjects of both genders viewed and rated facial stimuli according to how beautiful they perceived them to be while the activity in their brains was imaged with functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). A univariate analysis revealed parametrically scaled activity within several areas in which the strength of activity correlated with the declared intensity of the aesthetic experience of faces; the list included the mOFC and two core areas strongly implicated in the perception of faces - the occipital face area (OFA), fusiform face area (FFA)- and, additionally, the cuneus. Multivariate analyses, which reveal the more fine-grained distribution of activity in brain areas, revealed strong and distinctive patterns of activation in the FFA and the cuneus and weaker ones in the OFA and posterior superior temporal sulcus (pSTS). It is only when distinctive patterns emerged in these areas that there was co-activation of the mOFC, in which a strong pattern of activity also emerged during the experience of facial beauty. A psychophysiological interaction analysis with mOFC as the seed area revealed the involvement of the right FFA and the right OFA, but only when faces were experienced as beautiful. We conjecture that these collective patterns of activity constitute the neural basis for the experience of facial beauty, bringing us a step closer to understanding the neural determinants of aesthetic experience.

scholarly journals Separate and Shared Neural Basis of Face Memory and Face Perception in Developmental Prosopagnosia

2021 ◽  
Vol 15 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xiqin Liu ◽  
Xueting Li ◽  
Yiying Song ◽  
Jia Liu
Keyword(s):  
Face Perception ◽  
Memory Task ◽  
Neural Substrates ◽  
Cognitive Disorder ◽  
Behavioral Performance ◽  
Neural Basis ◽  
Face Memory ◽  
Face Area ◽  
Heterogeneous Nature ◽  
The Right

Developmental prosopagnosia (DP), also known as face blindness, is a cognitive disorder with a severe deficit in recognizing faces. However, the heterogeneous nature of DP leads to a longstanding debate on which stages the deficit occurs, face perception (e.g., matching two consecutively presented faces) or face memory (e.g., matching a face to memorized faces). Here, we used the individual difference approach with functional magnetic resonance imaging to explore the neural substrates of DPs’ face perception and face memory that may illuminate DPs’ heterogeneity. Specifically, we measured the behavioral performance of face perception and face memory in a large sample of individuals suffering DP (N = 64) and then associated the behavioral performance with their face-selective neural responses in the core face network (CFN) and the extended face network (EFN), respectively. Behaviorally, we found that DP individuals were impaired in both face perception and face memory; however, there was only a weak correlation between the performances of two tasks. Consistent with this observation, the neural correlate of DPs’ performance in face memory task was localized in the bilateral fusiform face area, whereas DPs’ performance in face perception task was correlated with the face selectivity in the right posterior superior temporal sulcus, suggesting that the neural substrates in the CFN for face memory and face perception were separate in DP. In contrast, shared neural substrates of deficits in face perception and face memory tasks were identified in the EFN, including the right precuneus and the right orbitofrontal cortex. In summary, our study provides one of the first empirical evidence that the separate and shared neural substrates of face perception and face memory were identified in the CFN and EFN, respectively, which may help illuminating DP’s heterogeneous nature.

scholarly journals A face identity hallucination (palinopsia) generated by intracerebral stimulation of the face-selective right lateral fusiform cortex

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jacques Jonas ◽  
Hélène Brissart ◽  
Gabriela Hossu ◽  
Sophie Colnat-Coulbois ◽  
Jean-Pierre Vignal ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Visual Stimulation ◽  
Active Role ◽  
Young Female ◽  
Fusiform Gyrus ◽  
Face Stimulus ◽  
Electrophysiological Response ◽  
Facial Identity ◽  
Face Area ◽  
Electrophysiological Recordings ◽  
The Right

AbstractWe report the case of a patient (MB, young female human subject) who systematically experiences confusion between perceived facial identities when electrically stimulated inside the lateral section of the right fusiform gyrus. In the presence of a face stimulus (an experimenter or a photograph), intracerebral electrical stimulation in this region generates a perceptual hallucination of an individual facial part integrated within the whole perceived face, i.e. facial palinopsia. In the presence of a distracting stimulus (visual scene or object picture), the patient also experiences an individual face percept superimposed on the non-face stimulus. The stimulation site evoking this category-selective transient palinopsia is localized in a region showing highly selective responses to faces both with functional magnetic resonance imaging (“Fusiform Face Area”, “FFA”) and intracerebral electrophysiological recordings during fast periodic visual stimulation (FPVS). Importantly, the largest electrophysiological response to fast periodic changes of facial identity is also found at this location. Altogether, these observations suggest that a local face-selective region of the right lateral fusiform gyrus suffices to generate a vivid percept of an individual face, supporting the active role of this region in individual face representation.

scholarly journals Adjudicating between face-coding models with individual-face fMRI responses

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Johan D. Carlin ◽  
Nikolaus Kriegeskorte
Keyword(s):  
Functional Mri ◽  
Visual Information ◽  
Computational Models ◽  
Dimensional Space ◽  
Brain Activity ◽  
Distance Matrix ◽  
Face Space ◽  
Face Area ◽  
Activation Profile ◽  
Response Preferences

AbstractThe perceptual representation of individual faces is often explained with reference to a norm-based face space. In such spaces, individuals are encoded as vectors where identity is primarily conveyed by direction and distinctiveness by eccentricity. Here we measured human fMRI responses and psychophysical similarity judgments of individual face exemplars, which were generated as realistic 3D animations using a computer-graphics model. We developed and evaluated multiple neurobiologically plausible computational models, each of which predicts a representational distance matrix and a regional-mean activation profile for 24 face stimuli. In the fusiform face area, a face-space coding model with sigmoidal ramp tuning provided a better account of the data than one based on exemplar tuning. However, an image-processing model with weighted banks of Gabor filters performed similarly. Accounting for the data required the inclusion of a measurement-level population averaging mechanism that approximates how fMRI voxels locally average distinct neuronal tunings. Our study demonstrates the importance of comparing multiple models and of modeling the measurement process in computational neuroimaging.Author SummaryHumans recognize conspecifics by their faces. Understanding how faces are recognized is an open computational problem with relevance to theories of perception, social cognition, and the engineering of computer vision systems. Here we measured brain activity with functional MRI while human participants viewed individual faces. We developed multiple computational models inspired by known response preferences of single neurons in the primate visual cortex. We then compared these neuronal models to patterns of brain activity corresponding to individual faces. The data were consistent with a model where neurons respond to directions in a high-dimensional space of faces. It also proved essential to model how functional MRI voxels locally average the responses of tens of thousands of neurons. The study highlights the challenges in adjudicating between alternative computational theories of visual information processing.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document