Dataset Information

The Fusiform Face Area Plays a Greater Role in Holistic Processing for Own-Race Faces Than Other-Race Faces.

ABSTRACT: Own-race faces are recognized more effectively than other-race faces. This phenomenon is referred to as other-race effect (ORE). Existing behavioral evidence suggests that one of the possible causes of ORE is that own-race faces are processed more holistically than other-race faces. However, little is known about whether such differences in processing also produce distinctive neural responses in the cortical face processing network. To bridge this gap, the present study used fMRI methodology and the composite face paradigm to examine the response patterns of the traditional face-preferential cortical areas (i.e., the bilateral fusiform face areas [FFA] and the bilateral occipital face areas [OFA]) elicited by own-race faces and other-race faces. We found that the right FFA exhibited a neural composite face effect only for own-race faces but not for other-race faces, even with the absence of the race-related difference in behavior composite face effect. These findings suggest that the right FFA plays a greater role in holistic processing of individual own-race faces than other-race faces. They also suggest that the neural composite effect observed in the right FFA is not the exact neural counterpart of the behavioral face composite effect. The findings of the present study revealed that, along the pathway of the bottom-up face processing, own-race faces and other-race faces presented the holistic processing difference as early as when they were processed in the right FFA.

SUBMITTER: Zhou G

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5992462 | biostudies-literature | 2018

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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The Fusiform Face Area Plays a Greater Role in Holistic Processing for Own-Race Faces Than Other-Race Faces.

Zhou Guifei G Liu Jiangang J Xiao Naiqi G NG Wu Si Jia SJ Li Hong H Lee Kang K

Frontiers in human neuroscience 20180601

Own-race faces are recognized more effectively than other-race faces. This phenomenon is referred to as other-race effect (ORE). Existing behavioral evidence suggests that one of the possible causes of ORE is that own-race faces are processed more holistically than other-race faces. However, little is known about whether such differences in processing also produce distinctive neural responses in the cortical face processing network. To bridge this gap, the present study used fMRI methodology and ...[more]

PMID: 29910716

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Project description:Rationale: Face expertise is a pivotal social skill. Developmental prosopagnosia (DP), i.e., the inability to recognize faces without a history of brain damage, affects about 2% of the general population, and is a renowned model system of the face-processing network. Within this network, the right Fusiform Face Area (FFA), is particularly involved in face identity processing and may therefore be a key element in DP. Neural representations within the FFA have been examined with Representational Similarity Analysis (RSA), a data-analytical framework in which multi-unit measures of brain activity are assessed with correlation analysis. Objectives: Our study intended to scrutinize modifications of FFA-activation during face encoding and maintenance based on RSA. Methods: Thirteen participants with DP (23-70 years) and 12 healthy control subjects (19-62 years) participated in a functional MRI study, including morphological MRI, a functional FFA-localizer and a modified Sternberg paradigm probing face memory encoding and maintenance. Memory maintenance of one, two, or four faces represented low, medium, and high memory load. We examined conventional activation differences in response to working memory load and applied RSA to compute individual correlation-matrices on the voxel level. Group correlation-matrices were compared via Donsker's random walk analysis. Results: On the functional level, increased memory load entailed both a higher absolute FFA-activation level and a higher degree of correlation between activated voxels. Both aspects were deficient in DP. Interestingly, control participants showed a homogeneous degree of correlation for successful trials during the experiment. In DP-participants, correlation levels between FFA-voxels were significantly lower and were less sustained during the experiment. In behavioral terms, DP-participants performed poorer and had longer reaction times in relation to DP-severity. Furthermore, correlation levels were negatively correlated with reaction times for the most demanding high load condition. Conclusion: We suggest that participants with DP fail to generate robust and maintained neural representations in the FFA during face encoding and maintenance, in line with poorer task performance and prolonged reaction times. In DP, alterations of neural coding in the FFA might therefore explain curtailing in working memory and contribute to impaired long-term memory and mental imagery.

Dataset Information

The Fusiform Face Area Plays a Greater Role in Holistic Processing for Own-Race Faces Than Other-Race Faces.

Publications

The Fusiform Face Area Plays a Greater Role in Holistic Processing for Own-Race Faces Than Other-Race Faces.

Similar Datasets

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