The effects of rotation and inversion on face processing in prosopagnosia

Abstract

The current study investigated the sensitivity of face recognition to two changes of the stimulus, a rotation in depth and an inversion, by comparing the performance of two prosopagnosic patients, RN and CR, with non-neurological control subjects on a face-matching task. The control subjects showed an effect of depth rotation, with errors and reaction times increasing systematically with rotation angle, and the traditional inversion effect, with errors and reaction times increasing under inverted conditions. In contrast, RN showed no effect of rotation or inversion on his error data but did show a less sensitively graded effect of rotation and the traditional inversion effect on reaction times. CR did not show a graded effect of rotation on his errors or reaction times. Although CR showed the traditional inversion effect on his error data, he displayed an inversion superiority effect on his reaction time data, which supports the claim that the damaged holistic processing systems continue to dominate face processing in prosopagnosia even though they are malfunctioning. These results suggest that the damage that occurs to the ventral temporal cortex in prosopagnosia may have forced the patients to rely on sources of information that are not dependent on the view of the face and, moreover, cannot be adapted to deal with rotated faces under both upright and inverted conditions.

Configural processing in autism and its relationship to face processing

“…The disproportionate face versus object inversion effect is taken to reflect the fact that upright faces are processed globally or as a whole with extraction of the second-order relational features-when faces are inverted, the whole or configuration is no longer available and a more part-based system is utilized, leading to the observed decrement in performance (Farah, Tanaka, & Drain, 1996;Maurer et al, 2002;Moscovitch & Moscovitch, 2000). Consistent with this, prosopagnosic individuals often do not show the face inversion effect in tasks requiring face discrimination and may even do better on inverted than upright faces presumably because their part-based strategy can proceed unhampered by attempts at configural processing (Behrmann et al, 2005;Farah et al, 1996;Marotta, McKeeff, & Behrmann, 2002).…”

A Qualitative Impairment in Face Perception in Alzheimer’s Disease: Evidence from a Reduced Face Inversion Effect

“…MMSE 28.76 (1.1) [26][27][28][29][30] 25.17 (2.5) [20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29] [75][76][77][78][79][80] 74.39 (4.5) [63][64][65][66][67][68][69][70][71][72][73][74][75][76][77][78][79][80] p < 0.01 Verbal fluency "P" in 2 min 23.96 (7.7) 14.78 (4.6) [6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18]…”

What does visual agnosia tell us about perceptual organization and its relationship to object perception?

“…and R.N., both of whom are right-handed and English-speaking, consented to participate. Both had been diagnosed as having visual agnosia and had participated in several previous studies (Behrmann, in press;Behrmann & Kimchi, in press;Gauthier, Behrmann, & Tarr, 1999;Marotta, Behrmann, & Genovese, 2001;Marotta, McKeeff, & Behrmann, 2002). Because extensive information is available about them in these other publications, we present only a short review of their biographical and medical histories.…”

“…read 95/120 words correctly with a 241-ms slope (Mycroft, Behrmann, & Kay, 2002). Both patients were also significantly impaired at face recognition (see Gauthier et al, 1999;Marotta et al, 2002).…”