Perceptual difficulty modulates the direction of information flow in familiar face recognition

NeuroImage

卷:233

Alexandra Woolgar¹  Farzad Ramezani²  Anina Rich³  Masoud Ghodrati⁴  Hamid Karimi-Rouzbahani⁴ 

[1] Corresponding authors.;

[2] Perception in Action Research Centre and Department of Cognitive Science Macquarie University, Australia;

[3] Department of Computer Science, School of Mathematics, Statistics, and Computer Science, University of Tehran, Iran;

[4] Medical Research Council Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit, University of Cambridge, United Kingdom;

关键词: Face recognition;    Familiar faces;    Multivariate pattern analysis (MVPA);    Representational similarity analysis (RSA);    Informational brain connectivity;   

DOI  :  

来源: DOAJ

【 摘 要 】

Humans are fast and accurate when they recognize familiar faces. Previous neurophysiological studies have shown enhanced representations for the dichotomy of familiar vs. unfamiliar faces. As familiarity is a spectrum, however, any neural correlate should reflect graded representations for more vs. less familiar faces along the spectrum. By systematically varying familiarity across stimuli, we show a neural familiarity spectrum using electroencephalography. We then evaluated the spatiotemporal dynamics of familiar face recognition across the brain. Specifically, we developed a novel informational connectivity method to test whether peri-frontal brain areas contribute to familiar face recognition. Results showed that feed-forward flow dominates for the most familiar faces and top-down flow was only dominant when sensory evidence was insufficient to support face recognition. These results demonstrate that perceptual difficulty and the level of familiarity influence the neural representation of familiar faces and the degree to which peri-frontal neural networks contribute to familiar face recognition.

【 授权许可】

Unknown