4.7 Article

The fusiform face area is tuned for curvilinear patterns with more high-contrasted elements in the upper part

期刊

NEUROIMAGE
卷 31, 期 1, 页码 313-319

出版社

ACADEMIC PRESS INC ELSEVIER SCIENCE
DOI: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2005.12.011

关键词

functional magnetic resonance imaging; face recognition; fusiform gyrus

向作者/读者索取更多资源

The ability to identify conspecifics from the face is of primary interest for human social behavior. Newborns' visual preference for schematic face-like stimuli has been recently related to a sensitivity for visual patterns with a greater number of elements in the upper compared to the lower part. At the adult level, neuroimaging studies have identified a network of cortical areas devoted to the detection and identification of faces. However, whether and how low-level structural properties of face stimuli contribute to the preferential response to faces in these areas remain to be clarified. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), here we investigated whether the adults' face-sensitive cortical areas show a preference for top-heavy patterns, similarly to newborns' preference. Twelve participants were presented with head-shaped and square patterns with either more elements in the upper or the lower vertical part. In the right fusiform gyros ('fusiform face area', FFA), an area showing a preference for faces over other visual object categories, there was a larger activation for curvilinear patterns with more high-contrast elements in the upper part, even though these patterns were not perceived as face stimuli. These findings provide direct evidence that the FFA is tuned for geometrical properties fitting best with the structure of faces, a computational mechanism that might drive the automatic detection of faces in the visual world. (c) 2005 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

作者

我是这篇论文的作者
点击您的名字以认领此论文并将其添加到您的个人资料中。

评论

主要评分

4.7
评分不足

次要评分

新颖性
-
重要性
-
科学严谨性
-
评价这篇论文

推荐

暂无数据
暂无数据