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Individuating Faces and Common Objects Produces Equal Responses in Putative Face-Processing Areas in the Ventral Occipitotemporal Cortex

Controversy surrounds the proposal that specific human cortical regions in the ventral occipitotemporal cortex, commonly called the fusiform face area (FFA) and occipital face area (OFA), are specialized for face processing. Here, we present findings from an fMRI study of identity discrimination of...

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Autores principales: Haist, Frank, Lee, Kang, Stiles, Joan
Formato: Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Frontiers Research Foundation 2010
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3009480/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21206532
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2010.00181
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author Haist, Frank
Lee, Kang
Stiles, Joan
author_facet Haist, Frank
Lee, Kang
Stiles, Joan
author_sort Haist, Frank
collection PubMed
description Controversy surrounds the proposal that specific human cortical regions in the ventral occipitotemporal cortex, commonly called the fusiform face area (FFA) and occipital face area (OFA), are specialized for face processing. Here, we present findings from an fMRI study of identity discrimination of faces and objects that demonstrates the FFA and OFA are equally responsive to processing stimuli at the level of individuals (i.e., individuation), be they human faces or non-face objects. The FFA and OFA were defined via a passive viewing task as regions that produced greater activation to faces relative to non-face stimuli within the middle fusiform gyrus and inferior occipital gyrus. In the individuation task, participants judged whether sequentially presented images of faces, diverse objects, or wristwatches depicted the identical or a different exemplar. All three stimulus types produced equivalent BOLD activation within the FFA and OFA; that is, there was no face-specific or face-preferential processing. Critically, individuation processing did not eliminate an object superiority effect relative to faces within a region more closely linked to object processing in the lateral occipital complex (LOC), suggesting that individuation processes are reasonably specific to the FFA and OFA. Taken together, these findings challenge the prevailing view that the FFA and OFA are face-specific processing regions, demonstrating instead that they function to individuate – i.e., identify specific individuals – within a category. These findings have significant implications for understanding the function of brain regions widely believed to play an important role in social cognition.
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spelling pubmed-30094802011-01-04 Individuating Faces and Common Objects Produces Equal Responses in Putative Face-Processing Areas in the Ventral Occipitotemporal Cortex Haist, Frank Lee, Kang Stiles, Joan Front Hum Neurosci Neuroscience Controversy surrounds the proposal that specific human cortical regions in the ventral occipitotemporal cortex, commonly called the fusiform face area (FFA) and occipital face area (OFA), are specialized for face processing. Here, we present findings from an fMRI study of identity discrimination of faces and objects that demonstrates the FFA and OFA are equally responsive to processing stimuli at the level of individuals (i.e., individuation), be they human faces or non-face objects. The FFA and OFA were defined via a passive viewing task as regions that produced greater activation to faces relative to non-face stimuli within the middle fusiform gyrus and inferior occipital gyrus. In the individuation task, participants judged whether sequentially presented images of faces, diverse objects, or wristwatches depicted the identical or a different exemplar. All three stimulus types produced equivalent BOLD activation within the FFA and OFA; that is, there was no face-specific or face-preferential processing. Critically, individuation processing did not eliminate an object superiority effect relative to faces within a region more closely linked to object processing in the lateral occipital complex (LOC), suggesting that individuation processes are reasonably specific to the FFA and OFA. Taken together, these findings challenge the prevailing view that the FFA and OFA are face-specific processing regions, demonstrating instead that they function to individuate – i.e., identify specific individuals – within a category. These findings have significant implications for understanding the function of brain regions widely believed to play an important role in social cognition. Frontiers Research Foundation 2010-10-08 /pmc/articles/PMC3009480/ /pubmed/21206532 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2010.00181 Text en Copyright © 2010 Haist, Lee and Stiles. http://www.frontiersin.org/licenseagreement This is an open-access article subject to an exclusive license agreement between the authors and the Frontiers Research Foundation, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original authors and source are credited.
spellingShingle Neuroscience
Haist, Frank
Lee, Kang
Stiles, Joan
Individuating Faces and Common Objects Produces Equal Responses in Putative Face-Processing Areas in the Ventral Occipitotemporal Cortex
title Individuating Faces and Common Objects Produces Equal Responses in Putative Face-Processing Areas in the Ventral Occipitotemporal Cortex
title_full Individuating Faces and Common Objects Produces Equal Responses in Putative Face-Processing Areas in the Ventral Occipitotemporal Cortex
title_fullStr Individuating Faces and Common Objects Produces Equal Responses in Putative Face-Processing Areas in the Ventral Occipitotemporal Cortex
title_full_unstemmed Individuating Faces and Common Objects Produces Equal Responses in Putative Face-Processing Areas in the Ventral Occipitotemporal Cortex
title_short Individuating Faces and Common Objects Produces Equal Responses in Putative Face-Processing Areas in the Ventral Occipitotemporal Cortex
title_sort individuating faces and common objects produces equal responses in putative face-processing areas in the ventral occipitotemporal cortex
topic Neuroscience
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3009480/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21206532
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2010.00181
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