The face-sensitive N170 component in developmental prosopagnosia

Towler, John; Gosling, Angela; Duchaine, Brad; Eimer, Martin

doi:10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2012.10.017

Cited by 60 publications

(63 citation statements)

References 82 publications

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“…In contrast to the acquired form of prosopagnosia, which is caused by acquired brain damage, CP is inborn and there are no evident brain lesions. Also several studies found normal functional brain response to faces in fMRI studies (e.g., Avidan et al, 2005; Avidan and Behrmann, 2009) and EEG studies (e.g., Towler et al, 2012) but subtle differences in connectivity between face processing brain regions for congenital prosopagnosics compared with controls (Avidan et al, 2008). In a single case study of CP, this reduced connectivity could be enhanced by training on spatial integration of mouth and eye regions of faces.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Do congenital prosopagnosia and the other-race effect affect the same face recognition mechanisms?

Esins

Schultz

Wallraven

et al. 2014

Front. Hum. Neurosci.

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Congenital prosopagnosia (CP), an innate impairment in recognizing faces, as well as the other-race effect (ORE), a disadvantage in recognizing faces of foreign races, both affect face recognition abilities. Are the same face processing mechanisms affected in both situations? To investigate this question, we tested three groups of 21 participants: German congenital prosopagnosics, South Korean participants and German controls on three different tasks involving faces and objects. First we tested all participants on the Cambridge Face Memory Test in which they had to recognize Caucasian target faces in a 3-alternative-forced-choice task. German controls performed better than Koreans who performed better than prosopagnosics. In the second experiment, participants rated the similarity of Caucasian faces that differed parametrically in either features or second-order relations (configuration). Prosopagnosics were less sensitive to configuration changes than both other groups. In addition, while all groups were more sensitive to changes in features than in configuration, this difference was smaller in Koreans. In the third experiment, participants had to learn exemplars of artificial objects, natural objects, and faces and recognize them among distractors of the same category. Here prosopagnosics performed worse than participants in the other two groups only when they were tested on face stimuli. In sum, Koreans and prosopagnosic participants differed from German controls in different ways in all tests. This suggests that German congenital prosopagnosics perceive Caucasian faces differently than do Korean participants. Importantly, our results suggest that different processing impairments underlie the ORE and CP.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Do congenital prosopagnosia and the other-race effect affect the same face recognition mechanisms?

Esins

Schultz

Wallraven

et al. 2014

Front. Hum. Neurosci.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…The reduction or absence of face-sensitive N170 components in other individuals suggests a reduced functional specialisation for faces at early perceptual processing stages, which will have obvious knock-on effects on subsequent face recognition processes. A study from our lab (Towler, Gosling, Duchaine, & Eimer, 2012) tested a larger sample (16 DPs and 16 age-matched controls), and found enhanced N170 components to faces versus non-face objects (houses) in both DPs and controls, with no difference in the face-sensitivity of the N170 between these two groups (as shown in Figure 1, top panel). These observations suggest that the perceptual processes involved in the visual discrimination between faces and non-face objects generally operate normally in most individuals with DP.…”

Section: A Posterior-to-anterior Gradient In the Cortical Basis Of Famentioning

confidence: 93%

The Cognitive and Neural Basis of Developmental Prosopagnosia

Towler

Fisher

Eimer

2017

Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology

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Developmental prosopagnosia (DP) is a severe impairment of visual face recognition in the absence of any apparent brain damage. The factors responsible for DP have not yet been fully identified. This article provides a selective review of recent studies investigating cognitive and neural processes that may contribute to the face recognition deficits in DP, focusing primarily on event-related brain potential (ERP) measures of face perception and recognition. Studies that measured the face-sensitive N170 component as a marker of perceptual face processing have shown that the perceptual discrimination between faces and non-face objects is intact in DP. Other N170 studies suggest that faces are not represented in the typical fashion in DP. Individuals with DP appear to have specific difficulties in processing spatial and contrast deviations from canonical upright visualperceptual face templates. The rapid detection of emotional facial expressions appears to be unaffected in DP. ERP studies of the activation of visual memory for individual faces and of the explicit identification of particular individuals have revealed differences between DPs and controls in the timing of these processes and in the links between visual face memory and explicit face recognition. These observations suggest that the speed and efficiency of information propagation through the cortical face network is altered in DP. The nature of the perceptual impairments in DP suggests that atypical visual experience with the eye region of faces over development may be an important contributing factor to DP.

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“…Individuals with DP generally show face-sensitive N170 components, and N170 amplitude differences between faces and non-face objects in DPs are often indistinguishable to those seen in control participants (Towler, Gosling, Duchaine, & Eimer, 2012;Towler, Gosling, Duchaine, & Eimer, 2014). This is consistent with fMRI findings which show that DPs have relatively normal levels of activation within the face-selective regions of the core face processing network that are assumed to generate the N170 (Avidan & Behrmann, 2009;Avidan, Hasson, Malach & Behrmann, 2005;Furl, Garrido, Dolan, Driver, & Duchaine, 2011), and also with the fact that DPs do not have problems distinguishing faces from non-face objects.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 89%

Reduced sensitivity to contrast signals from the eye region in developmental prosopagnosia

Fisher

Towler

Eimer

2016

Cortex

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Contrast-related signals from the eye region are known to be important for the processing of facial identity. Individuals with developmental prosopagnosia (DP) have severe face recognition problems, which may be linked to deficits in the perceptual processing of identity-related information from the eyes. We tested this hypothesis by measuring N170 components in DP participants and age-matched controls in response to face images where the contrast polarity of the eyes and of other face parts was independently manipulated. In different trials, participants fixated either the eye region or the lower part of a face. In the Control group, contrast-reversal of the eyes resulted in enhanced and delayed N170 components, irrespective of the contrast of other face parts and of gaze location. In the DP group, these effects of eye contrast on N170 amplitudes were strongly and significantly reduced, demonstrating that perceptual face processing in DP is less well tuned to contrast information from the eye region. Inverting the contrast of other parts of the face affected N170 amplitudes only when fixation was outside the eye region. This effect did not differ between the two groups, indicating that DPs are not generally insensitive to the contrast polarity of face images. These results provide new evidence that a selective deficit in detecting and analysing identity-related information provided by contrast signals from the eye region may contribute to the face recognition impairment in DP.

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The face-sensitive N170 component in developmental prosopagnosia

Cited by 60 publications

References 82 publications

Do congenital prosopagnosia and the other-race effect affect the same face recognition mechanisms?

Do congenital prosopagnosia and the other-race effect affect the same face recognition mechanisms?

The Cognitive and Neural Basis of Developmental Prosopagnosia

Reduced sensitivity to contrast signals from the eye region in developmental prosopagnosia

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