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fMRI evidence that hyper-caricatured faces activate object-selective cortex

Many brain imaging studies have looked at the cortical responses to object categories and faces. A popular way to manipulate face stimuli is by using a “face space,” a high dimensional representation of individual face images, with the average face located at the origin. However, how the brain respo...

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Autores principales: Elson, Ryan, Schluppeck, Denis, Johnston, Alan
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Frontiers Media S.A. 2023
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9878608/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36710782
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.1035524
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author Elson, Ryan
Schluppeck, Denis
Johnston, Alan
author_facet Elson, Ryan
Schluppeck, Denis
Johnston, Alan
author_sort Elson, Ryan
collection PubMed
description Many brain imaging studies have looked at the cortical responses to object categories and faces. A popular way to manipulate face stimuli is by using a “face space,” a high dimensional representation of individual face images, with the average face located at the origin. However, how the brain responds to faces that deviate substantially from average has not been much explored. Increasing the distance from the average (leading to increased caricaturing) could increase neural responses in face-selective regions, an idea supported by results from non-human primates. Here, we used a face space based on principal component analysis (PCA) to generate faces ranging from average to heavily caricatured. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), we first independently defined face-, object- and scene-selective areas with a localiser scan and then measured responses to parametrically caricatured faces. We also included conditions in which the images of faces were inverted. Interestingly in the right fusiform face area (FFA), we found that the patterns of fMRI response were more consistent as caricaturing increased. However, we found no consistent effect of either caricature level or facial inversion on the average fMRI response in the FFA or face-selective regions more broadly. In contrast, object-selective regions showed an increase in both the consistency of response pattern and the average fMRI response with increasing caricature level. This shows that caricatured faces recruit processing from regions typically defined as object-selective, possibly through enhancing low-level properties that are characteristic of objects.
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spelling pubmed-98786082023-01-27 fMRI evidence that hyper-caricatured faces activate object-selective cortex Elson, Ryan Schluppeck, Denis Johnston, Alan Front Psychol Psychology Many brain imaging studies have looked at the cortical responses to object categories and faces. A popular way to manipulate face stimuli is by using a “face space,” a high dimensional representation of individual face images, with the average face located at the origin. However, how the brain responds to faces that deviate substantially from average has not been much explored. Increasing the distance from the average (leading to increased caricaturing) could increase neural responses in face-selective regions, an idea supported by results from non-human primates. Here, we used a face space based on principal component analysis (PCA) to generate faces ranging from average to heavily caricatured. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), we first independently defined face-, object- and scene-selective areas with a localiser scan and then measured responses to parametrically caricatured faces. We also included conditions in which the images of faces were inverted. Interestingly in the right fusiform face area (FFA), we found that the patterns of fMRI response were more consistent as caricaturing increased. However, we found no consistent effect of either caricature level or facial inversion on the average fMRI response in the FFA or face-selective regions more broadly. In contrast, object-selective regions showed an increase in both the consistency of response pattern and the average fMRI response with increasing caricature level. This shows that caricatured faces recruit processing from regions typically defined as object-selective, possibly through enhancing low-level properties that are characteristic of objects. Frontiers Media S.A. 2023-01-12 /pmc/articles/PMC9878608/ /pubmed/36710782 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.1035524 Text en Copyright © 2023 Elson, Schluppeck and Johnston. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
spellingShingle Psychology
Elson, Ryan
Schluppeck, Denis
Johnston, Alan
fMRI evidence that hyper-caricatured faces activate object-selective cortex
title fMRI evidence that hyper-caricatured faces activate object-selective cortex
title_full fMRI evidence that hyper-caricatured faces activate object-selective cortex
title_fullStr fMRI evidence that hyper-caricatured faces activate object-selective cortex
title_full_unstemmed fMRI evidence that hyper-caricatured faces activate object-selective cortex
title_short fMRI evidence that hyper-caricatured faces activate object-selective cortex
title_sort fmri evidence that hyper-caricatured faces activate object-selective cortex
topic Psychology
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9878608/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36710782
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.1035524
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