scholarly journals Faces in commonly experienced configurations enter awareness faster due to their curvature relative to fixation

PeerJ ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 4 ◽  
pp. e1565 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pieter Moors ◽  
Johan Wagemans ◽  
Lee de-Wit
Keyword(s):  
Fusiform Face Area ◽  
General Shape ◽  
Continuous Flash Suppression ◽  
Face Area ◽  
Contrast Adaptation ◽  
Neuroimaging Study ◽  
Face Stimuli ◽  
High Level ◽  
Visual Properties ◽  
Processing Mechanisms

The extent to which perceptually suppressed face stimuli are still processed has been extensively studied using the continuous flash suppression paradigm (CFS). Studies that rely on breaking CFS (b-CFS), in which the time it takes for an initially suppressed stimulus to become detectable is measured, have provided evidence for relatively complex processing of invisible face stimuli. In contrast, adaptation and neuroimaging studies have shown that perceptually suppressed faces are only processed for a limited set of features, such as its general shape. In this study, we asked whether perceptually suppressed face stimuli presented in their commonly experienced configuration would break suppression faster than when presented in an uncommonly experienced configuration. This study was motivated by a recent neuroimaging study showing that commonly experienced face configurations are more strongly represented in the fusiform face area. Our findings revealed that faces presented in commonly experienced configurations indeed broke suppression faster, yet this effect did not interact with face inversion suggesting that, in a b-CFS context, perceptually suppressed faces are potentially not processed by specialized (high-level) face processing mechanisms. Rather, our pattern of results is consistent with an interpretation based on the processing of more basic visual properties such as convexity.

scholarly journals Characterizing the response to face pareidolia in human category-selective visual cortex

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Susan G Wardle ◽  
Kiley Seymour ◽  
Jessica Taubert
Keyword(s):  
Face Detection ◽  
Temporal Cortex ◽  
Visual Features ◽  
Activation Patterns ◽  
Lateral Occipital Complex ◽  
Face Area ◽  
Visual Areas ◽  
Ventral Pathway ◽  
High Level ◽  
Visual Properties

AbstractThe neural mechanisms underlying face and object recognition are understood to originate in ventral occipital-temporal cortex. A key feature of the functional architecture of the visual ventral pathway is its category-selectivity, yet it is unclear how category-selective regions process ambiguous visual input which violates category boundaries. One example is the spontaneous misperception of faces in inanimate objects such as the Man in the Moon, in which an object belongs to more than one category and face perception is divorced from its usual diagnostic visual features. We used fMRI to investigate the representation of illusory faces in category-selective regions. The perception of illusory faces was decodable from activation patterns in the fusiform face area (FFA) and lateral occipital complex (LOC), but not from other visual areas. Further, activity in FFA was strongly modulated by the perception of illusory faces, such that even objects with vastly different visual features were represented similarly if all images contained an illusory face. The results show that the FFA is broadly-tuned for face detection, not finely-tuned to the homogenous visual properties that typically distinguish faces from other objects. A complete understanding of high-level vision will require explanation of the mechanisms underlying natural errors of face detection.

scholarly journals Horizontal tuning for faces originates in high-level Fusiform Face Area

2016 ◽  
Vol 81 ◽  
pp. 1-11 ◽  
Author(s):  
Valerie Goffaux ◽  
Felix Duecker ◽  
Lars Hausfeld ◽  
Christine Schiltz ◽  
Rainer Goebel
Keyword(s):  
Fusiform Face Area ◽  
Face Area ◽  
High Level

scholarly journals Erratum to “Adaptation in the fusiform face area (FFA): Image or Person?” [Vision Research 49 (23) (2009) 2800–2807]

2010 ◽  
Vol 50 (15) ◽  
pp. e1-e3 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xiaokun Xu ◽  
Xiaomin Yue ◽  
Mark D. Lescroart ◽  
Irving Biederman ◽  
Jiye G. Kim
Keyword(s):  
Vision Research ◽  
Fusiform Face Area ◽  
Face Area

P34. Working memory for faces in congenital prosopagnosia: altered neural representations in the fusiform face area

2018 ◽  
Vol 129 (8) ◽  
pp. e80-e81
Author(s):  
A. Haeger ◽  
C. Pouzat ◽  
V. Luecken ◽  
K. N’Diaye ◽  
C.E. Elger ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Working Memory ◽  
Fusiform Face Area ◽  
Face Area ◽  
Neural Representations ◽  
Congenital Prosopagnosia

Learning to See Biological Motion: Brain Activity Parallels Behavior

2004 ◽  
Vol 16 (9) ◽  
pp. 1669-1679 ◽  
Author(s):  
Emily D. Grossman ◽  
Randolph Blake ◽  
Chai-Youn Kim
Keyword(s):  
Neural Activity ◽  
Biological Motion ◽  
Brain Activity ◽  
Daily Practice ◽  
Superior Temporal Sulcus ◽  
Fusiform Face Area ◽  
Face Area ◽  
Perceptual Performance ◽  
Trained Observers ◽  
Posterior Superior Temporal Sulcus

Individuals improve with practice on a variety of perceptual tasks, presumably reflecting plasticity in underlying neural mechanisms. We trained observers to discriminate biological motion from scrambled (nonbiological) motion and examined whether the resulting improvement in perceptual performance was accompanied by changes in activation within the posterior superior temporal sulcus and the fusiform “face area,” brain areas involved in perception of biological events. With daily practice, initially naive observers became more proficient at discriminating biological from scrambled animations embedded in an array of dynamic “noise” dots, with the extent of improvement varying among observers. Learning generalized to animations never seen before, indicating that observers had not simply memorized specific exemplars. In the same observers, neural activity prior to and following training was measured using functional magnetic resonance imaging. Neural activity within the posterior superior temporal sulcus and the fusiform “face area” reflected the participants' learning: BOLD signals were significantly larger after training in response both to animations experienced during training and to novel animations. The degree of learning was positively correlated with the amplitude changes in BOLD signals.

The fusiform face area and occipital face area show sensitivity to spatial relations in faces

2009 ◽  
Vol 30 (4) ◽  
pp. 721-733 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gillian Rhodes ◽  
Patricia T. Michie ◽  
Matthew E. Hughes ◽  
Graham Byatt
Keyword(s):  
Spatial Relations ◽  
Fusiform Face Area ◽  
Face Area ◽  
Occipital Face Area
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