The neural basis of face recognition? Tim Andrews

Familiar Unfamiliar Hancock, Bruce and Burton (2000) Trends in Cognitive Sciences 4: Jenkins, White, Van Monfort, Burton (2011) Cognition 121:

Outline 1.Which areas of the brain respond to images of faces? 2.Are these regions selective for the identity of the face? 3.Which aspects of the face are important for representing facial identity? 4.Is an image-invariant neural code used to represent information about identity? 5.Are face-selective regions sufficient for face recognition?

Face localiser scan

fMRI analysis - modelling the data

Face-selective regions FFA: fusiform face area OFA: occipital face area STS: superior temporal sulcus zscore OFA STS FFA Haxby, Hoffman & Gobbini, TICS 4: (2000) Bruce & Young (1986) Br. J. Psychology 77: Calder & Young, Nature Reviews Neuroscience 6: (2005)

Outline 1.Which areas of the brain respond to images of faces? 2.Are these regions selective for the identity of the face? 3.Which aspects of the face are important for representing facial identity? 4.Is an image-invariant neural code used to represent information about identity? 5.Are face-selective regions sufficient for face recognition?

fMR-adaptation Grill-Spector, Henson & Martin (2006) Trends Cog Sci 10: Krekelberg, Boynton and van Wezel (2006) Trends Neurosci 29:

fMR-adaptation Grill-Spector et al (1999) Neuron 24: Henson et al. (2000) Science 287: Andrews & Ewbank, Neuroimage 23: (2004) Grill-Spector, Henson & Martin (2006) Trends Cog Sci 10: 14-23

Andrews, Clarke, Pell, Hartley (2010) Neuroimage 49: fMR- adaptation to intact, but not scrambled faces

Andrews, Clarke, Pell, Hartley (2010) Neuroimage 49: No adaptation to images of places

Outline 1.Which areas of the brain respond to images of faces? 2.Are these regions selective for the identity of the face? 3.Which aspects of the face are important for representing facial identity? 4.Is an image-invariant neural code used to represent information about identity? 5.Are face-selective regions sufficient for face recognition?

Internal and external features

fMR-adaptation to internal and external features of familiar faces Andrews, Davies-Thompson, Kingstone & Young (2010) J. Neuroscience 30:

Adaptation to internal and external features of unfamiliar faces FFAOFASTS Andrews, Davies-Thompson, Kingstone & Young (2010) J. Neuroscience 30:

Composite face images

Adaptation to composite familiar faces same internal, same external same internal, diff. external diff. internal, same external diff. internal, diff. external Andrews, Davies-Thompson, Kingstone & Young (2010) J. Neuroscience 30:

Adaptation to composite unfamiliar faces same internal, same external same internal, diff. external diff. internal, same external diff. internal, diff. external Andrews, Davies-Thompson, Kingstone & Young (2010) J. Neuroscience 30:

The Illusion! The Presidential Illusion! FFAOFASTS Sinha and Poggio (1996) Nature 384:404 Sinha and Poggio (2002) Perception 31:131

Face to Face Coalition! FFAOFASTS Andrews and Thompson (2010) iPerception 1: 28-30

Outline 1.Which areas of the brain respond to images of faces? 2.Are these regions selective for the identity of the face? 3.Which aspects of the face are important for representing facial identity? 4.Is an image-invariant neural code used to represent information about identity? 5.Are face-selective regions sufficient for face recognition?

Familiar Unfamiliar

Experiment 1: same identity FFA Image invariant adaptation Davies-Thompson, Newling and Andrews (2012) Cerebral Cortex in press

Experiment 2: different identity FFA Image invariant adaptation Davies-Thompson, Newling and Andrews (2012) Cerebral Cortex in press

Experiment 1: same identity FFA Image invariant adaptation Davies-Thompson, Newling and Andrews (2012) Cerebral Cortex in press

Experiment 2: different identity FFA Image invariant adaptation Davies-Thompson, Newling and Andrews (2012) Cerebral Cortex in press

Experiment 1 Image invariant adaptation Experiment 2

Outline 1.Which areas of the brain respond to images of faces? 2.Are these regions selective for the identity of the face? 3.Which aspects of the face are important for representing facial identity? 4.Is an image-invariant neural code used to represent information about identity? 5.Are face-selective regions sufficient for face recognition?

Case Study - JJ  17 year old male  Complete loss of vision following head trauma  Visual acuity recovered after 5 days, but he retained a specific deficit in colour and face perception  10 days after injury, battery of visual tests revealed normal acuity, stereopsis, motion discrimination, contrast sensitivity, object/place recognition, but still had abnormal colour vision and remained densely prosopagnosic.  After 4 months he showed a complete recovery of colour and face perception.

Structural MRI revealed no obvious lesion

1

Normal functional responses in face-selective regions FFA STS OFAFFA Pre-recoveryPost-recoveryControls

Normal adaptation to faces in prosopagnosic patient! same different

Conclusions

Thanks to… Jodie Davies-Thompson Andy Young Heidi Baseler Andre Gouws Simon Hickman Alan Kingstone Tony Morland Peter Thompson Wellcome Trust ESRC

JJ – face perception % correct27/0204/0314/0321/0328/0304/0422/06 Benton Face Recognition Test90.7 Cambridge Face Memory Test85.0 Emotion Recognition Test Eye Gaze Sensitivity Test Sex Discrimination Test Unfamiliar Face Matching Test Familiar Face Recognition Test Forced Choice Face Recognition Test Famous Caricature Test Visual Imagery Test100 Face Texture Test100 Face Size Test100 Face Shape Test

JJ – non-face object perception % correct27/0204/0314/0321/0328/0304/0422/06 National Adult Reading Test (NART)23/5017/50 Warrington Recognition Memory Test100 Famous Buildings Test85.0 Name Recognition Test Car Recognition Test Famous London Landmarks Test88.8 Common Objects Test100