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Bate S, Murray E, Bennetts RJ. Familial Transmission of Developmental Prosopagnosia: New Case Reports from an Extended Family and Identical Twins. Brain Sci 2024; 14:49. [PMID: 38248264 PMCID: PMC10813035 DOI: 10.3390/brainsci14010049] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/06/2023] [Revised: 12/13/2023] [Accepted: 12/31/2023] [Indexed: 01/23/2024] Open
Abstract
Existing evidence suggests that developmental prosopagnosia (DP) is a surprisingly prevalent condition, with some individuals describing lifelong difficulties with facial identity recognition. Together with case reports of multiple family members with the condition, this evidence suggests that DP is inherited in at least some instances. Here, we offer some novel case series that further support the heritability of the condition. First, we describe five adult siblings who presented to our lab with symptoms of DP. Second, for the first known time in the literature, we describe a pair of adult identical twins who contacted us in the belief that they both experience DP. The condition was confirmed in three of the five siblings (with minor symptoms observed in the remaining two) and in both twins. Supplementary assessments suggested that all individuals also experienced some degree of difficulty with facial identity perception, but that object recognition was preserved. These findings bolster the evidence supporting the heritability of DP and suggest that it can be a specific impairment in some cases.
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Affiliation(s)
- Sarah Bate
- Department of Psychology, Bournemouth University, Poole BH12 5BB, UK
| | - Ebony Murray
- Department of Psychological Sciences, School of Natural and Social Sciences, University of Gloucestershire, Cheltenham GL50 4AZ, UK;
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2
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Streri A, de Hevia MD. How do human newborns come to understand the multimodal environment? Psychon Bull Rev 2023; 30:1171-1186. [PMID: 36862372 DOI: 10.3758/s13423-023-02260-y] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Accepted: 02/18/2023] [Indexed: 03/03/2023]
Abstract
For a long time, newborns were considered as human beings devoid of perceptual abilities who had to learn with effort everything about their physical and social environment. Extensive empirical evidence gathered in the last decades has systematically invalidated this notion. Despite the relatively immature state of their sensory modalities, newborns have perceptions that are acquired, and are triggered by, their contact with the environment. More recently, the study of the fetal origins of the sensory modes has revealed that in utero all the senses prepare to operate, except for the vision mode, which is only functional starting from the first minutes after birth. This discrepancy between the maturation of the different senses leads to the question of how human newborns come to understand our multimodal and complex environment. More precisely, how the visual mode interacts with the tactile and auditory modes from birth. After having defined the tools that newborns use to interact with other sensory modalities, we review studies across different fields of research such as the intermodal transfer between touch and vision, auditory-visual speech perception, and the existence of links between the dimensions of space, time, and number. Overall, evidence from these studies supports the idea that human newborns are spontaneously driven, and cognitively equipped, to link information collected by the different sensory modes in order to create a representation of a stable world.
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Affiliation(s)
- Arlette Streri
- Université Paris Cité, CNRS, Integrative Neuroscience and Cognition Center, F-75006, Paris, France
| | - Maria Dolores de Hevia
- Université Paris Cité, CNRS, Integrative Neuroscience and Cognition Center, F-75006, Paris, France.
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3
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Cheon J, Baek S, Paik SB. Invariance of object detection in untrained deep neural networks. Front Comput Neurosci 2022; 16:1030707. [DOI: 10.3389/fncom.2022.1030707] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/29/2022] [Accepted: 10/13/2022] [Indexed: 11/06/2022] Open
Abstract
The ability to perceive visual objects with various types of transformations, such as rotation, translation, and scaling, is crucial for consistent object recognition. In machine learning, invariant object detection for a network is often implemented by augmentation with a massive number of training images, but the mechanism of invariant object detection in biological brains—how invariance arises initially and whether it requires visual experience—remains elusive. Here, using a model neural network of the hierarchical visual pathway of the brain, we show that invariance of object detection can emerge spontaneously in the complete absence of learning. First, we found that units selective to a particular object class arise in randomly initialized networks even before visual training. Intriguingly, these units show robust tuning to images of each object class under a wide range of image transformation types, such as viewpoint rotation. We confirmed that this “innate” invariance of object selectivity enables untrained networks to perform an object-detection task robustly, even with images that have been significantly modulated. Our computational model predicts that invariant object tuning originates from combinations of non-invariant units via random feedforward projections, and we confirmed that the predicted profile of feedforward projections is observed in untrained networks. Our results suggest that invariance of object detection is an innate characteristic that can emerge spontaneously in random feedforward networks.
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Peykarjou S, Langeloh M, Baccolo E, Rossion B, Pauen S. Superior neural individuation of mother's than stranger's faces by five months of age. Cortex 2022; 155:264-276. [PMID: 36044787 DOI: 10.1016/j.cortex.2022.07.011] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/25/2021] [Revised: 12/22/2021] [Accepted: 07/07/2022] [Indexed: 01/23/2023]
Abstract
Human adults are better at recognizing different views of a given face as belonging to the same person when that person is familiar rather than unfamiliar. To clarify the developmental origin of this well-established phenomenon, one group of five-month-olds (N = 22) was presented with pictures of four different unfamiliar female faces at a fixed rate (6 Hz, 166 msec stimulus onset asynchrony), interrupted every 5th stimulus (1.2 Hz) by either their mother's face (mother oddball condition) or, in different stimulation sequences, a stranger's face (stranger oddball condition). In another group of five-month-olds (N = 17), stimulation sequences were reversed such that their mothers' or a given stranger's face were repeated at 6 Hz and interrupted every 5 stimuli by pictures of different female faces (mother standard, stranger standard conditions, respectively). Twelve variable images of each identity served as stimulus material. Besides clear frequency-tagged EEG responses at the 6 Hz stimulation rate over the medial occipital region in all conditions, significant activity at 1.2 Hz and harmonics (2.4 Hz, etc.) was observed in this region, reflecting selective responses to facial identity across changes of views. This effect was strongest when the mother's face was immediately repeated at every stimulation cycle (mother standard). Overall, these observations point to an early developmental advantage of identifying a familiar face presented from different views during immediate stimulus repetition.
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Affiliation(s)
| | - Miriam Langeloh
- Department of Psychology, Heidelberg University, Heidelberg, Germany; Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, Leipzig, Germany
| | - Elisa Baccolo
- Università Degli Studi di Milano-Bicocca, Milan, Italy
| | - Bruno Rossion
- Université de Lorraine, CNRS, CRAN, Nancy, France; Université de Lorraine, CHRU-Nancy, Service de Neurologie, Nancy, France
| | - Sabina Pauen
- Department of Psychology, Heidelberg University, Heidelberg, Germany
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5
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Li M, Huang H, Guo B, Meng M. Distinct response properties between the FFA to faces and the PPA to houses. Brain Behav 2022; 12:e2706. [PMID: 35848943 PMCID: PMC9392545 DOI: 10.1002/brb3.2706] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Submit a Manuscript] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/22/2021] [Revised: 05/24/2022] [Accepted: 06/25/2022] [Indexed: 11/09/2022] Open
Abstract
INTRODUCTION The object recognition system involves both selectivity to specific object category and invariance to changes in low-level visual features. Mounting neuroimaging evidence supports that brain areas in the ventral temporal cortex, such as the FFA and PPA, respond preferentially to faces and houses, respectively. However, how regions in human ventral temporal cortex partitioned and functionally organized to selectively and invariantly respond to different object categories remains unclear. What are the changes of response properties at the intersection of adjacent but distinctively-selective regions? METHOD Here, we conducted an fMRI study and three-pronged analyses to compare the brain mapping relationships between the FFA to faces and the PPA to houses. Specifically, we examined: 1) the response properties of object selectivity to the preferred category; 2) the response properties of invariance to contrast and a concurrently presented non-preferred category; 3) whether there are asymmetrical changes of response properties across the boundary from the FFA to PPA versus from the PPA to FFA. RESULTS We found that the response properties of FFA are highly selective and reliably invariant, whereas the responses of PPA vary with the image contrast and concurrently presented face. Moreover, the response properties across the boundary between the FFA and PPA are asymmetrical from face-selective to house-selective relative to from house-selective to face-selective. CONCLUSIONS These results convergently revealed distinct response properties between the FFA to faces and the PPA to houses, implying a combination of spatially discrete domain-specific and relatively distributed domain-general organization mapping in human ventral temporal cortex.
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Affiliation(s)
- Mengjin Li
- Philosophy and Social Science Laboratory of Reading and Development in Children and Adolescents (South China Normal University), Ministry of Education, Guangzhou, China.,Guangdong Key Laboratory of Mental Health and Cognitive Science, School of Psychology, South China Normal University, Guangzhou, China
| | - Hong Huang
- Philosophy and Social Science Laboratory of Reading and Development in Children and Adolescents (South China Normal University), Ministry of Education, Guangzhou, China.,Guangdong Key Laboratory of Mental Health and Cognitive Science, School of Psychology, South China Normal University, Guangzhou, China
| | - Bingbing Guo
- School of Teacher Education, Nanjing Xiaozhuang University, Nanjing, China
| | - Ming Meng
- Philosophy and Social Science Laboratory of Reading and Development in Children and Adolescents (South China Normal University), Ministry of Education, Guangzhou, China
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6
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Guellai B, Streri A. Mouth Movements as Possible Cues of Social Interest at Birth: New Evidences for Early Communicative Behaviors. Front Psychol 2022; 13:831733. [PMID: 35719528 PMCID: PMC9198453 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2022.831733] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/08/2021] [Accepted: 04/25/2022] [Indexed: 11/13/2022] Open
Abstract
Previous studies evidenced that different interactive contexts modulate the visual attention of newborns. In the present study, we investigated newborns' motor feedback as an additional cue to neonates' expression of interest. Using videos of interactive faces and a familiarization-test procedure, three different groups of newborns were assigned to three different conditions (i.e., one condition with a talking face during familiarization and silently moving faces at test, silently moving/silently moving condition, or talking/static condition). Following studies on neonatal imitation, mouth movements were analyzed as indicators of social interest. We expected the occurrence of mouth movements in the newborns to differ according to different conditions: (a) whether or not the face in front of them was talking and (b) if the person had been already seen or was new. Results revealed that a talking face elicited more motor feedback from the newborns than a silent one and that there was no difference in front of the familiar face or the novel one. Finally, frequencies of mouth movements were greater, and latencies of appearance of the first mouth movement were shorter, in front of a static vs. a dynamic face. These results are congruent with the idea of the existence of "a sense" for interaction at birth, and therefore new approaches in newborn studies are discussed.
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Affiliation(s)
- Bahia Guellai
- LECD, Université Paris Nanterre, Institut Universitaire de France, Nanterre, France
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7
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Dai R, Huang Z, Weng X, He S. Early visual exposure primes future cross-modal specialization of the fusiform face area in tactile face processing in the blind. Neuroimage 2022; 253:119062. [PMID: 35263666 DOI: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2022.119062] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/11/2021] [Revised: 02/21/2022] [Accepted: 03/05/2022] [Indexed: 10/18/2022] Open
Abstract
The fusiform face area (FFA) is a core cortical region for face information processing. Evidence suggests that its sensitivity to faces is largely innate and tuned by visual experience. However, how experience in different time windows shape the plasticity of the FFA remains unclear. In this study, we investigated the role of visual experience at different time points of an individual's early development in the cross-modal face specialization of the FFA. Participants (n = 74) were classified into five groups: congenital blind, early blind, late blind, low vision, and sighted control. Functional magnetic resonance imaging data were acquired when the participants haptically processed carved faces and other objects. Our results showed a robust and highly consistent face-selective activation in the FFA region in the early blind participants, invariant to size and level of abstraction of the face stimuli. The cross-modal face activation in the FFA was much less consistent in other groups. These results suggest that early visual experience primes cross-modal specialization of the FFA, and even after the absence of visual experience for more than 14 years in early blind participants, their FFA can engage in cross-modal processing of face information.
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Affiliation(s)
- Rui Dai
- State Key Laboratory of Brain and Cognitive Science, Institute of Biophysics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China
| | - Zirui Huang
- Center for Consciousness Science, Department of Anesthesiology, University of Michigan Medical School, Ann Arbor, MI 48109, USA
| | - Xuchu Weng
- Institute for Brain Research and Rehabilitation, South China Normal University, Guangzhou 510631, China.
| | - Sheng He
- State Key Laboratory of Brain and Cognitive Science, Institute of Biophysics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China; CAS Center for Excellence in Brain Science and Intelligence Technology, Shanghai, 20031, China; University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China; School of Artificial Intelligence, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China.
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8
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Carnevali L, Gui A, Jones EJH, Farroni T. Face Processing in Early Development: A Systematic Review of Behavioral Studies and Considerations in Times of COVID-19 Pandemic. Front Psychol 2022; 13:778247. [PMID: 35250718 PMCID: PMC8894249 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2022.778247] [Citation(s) in RCA: 13] [Impact Index Per Article: 6.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/21/2021] [Accepted: 01/21/2022] [Indexed: 12/17/2022] Open
Abstract
Human faces are one of the most prominent stimuli in the visual environment of young infants and convey critical information for the development of social cognition. During the COVID-19 pandemic, mask wearing has become a common practice outside the home environment. With masks covering nose and mouth regions, the facial cues available to the infant are impoverished. The impact of these changes on development is unknown but is critical to debates around mask mandates in early childhood settings. As infants grow, they increasingly interact with a broader range of familiar and unfamiliar people outside the home; in these settings, mask wearing could possibly influence social development. In order to generate hypotheses about the effects of mask wearing on infant social development, in the present work, we systematically review N = 129 studies selected based on the most recent PRISMA guidelines providing a state-of-the-art framework of behavioral studies investigating face processing in early infancy. We focused on identifying sensitive periods during which being exposed to specific facial features or to the entire face configuration has been found to be important for the development of perceptive and socio-communicative skills. For perceptive skills, infants gradually learn to analyze the eyes or the gaze direction within the context of the entire face configuration. This contributes to identity recognition as well as emotional expression discrimination. For socio-communicative skills, direct gaze and emotional facial expressions are crucial for attention engagement while eye-gaze cuing is important for joint attention. Moreover, attention to the mouth is particularly relevant for speech learning. We discuss possible implications of the exposure to masked faces for developmental needs and functions. Providing groundwork for further research, we encourage the investigation of the consequences of mask wearing for infants' perceptive and socio-communicative development, suggesting new directions within the research field.
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Affiliation(s)
- Laura Carnevali
- Department of Developmental Psychology and Socialization, University of Padua, Padua, Italy
| | - Anna Gui
- Centre for Brain and Cognitive Development, Birkbeck, University of London, London, United Kingdom
| | - Emily J. H. Jones
- Centre for Brain and Cognitive Development, Birkbeck, University of London, London, United Kingdom
| | - Teresa Farroni
- Department of Developmental Psychology and Socialization, University of Padua, Padua, Italy
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9
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Zhou X, Vyas S, Ning J, Moulson MC. Naturalistic Face Learning in Infants and Adults. Psychol Sci 2021; 33:135-151. [PMID: 34919451 DOI: 10.1177/09567976211030630] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/16/2022] Open
Abstract
Everyday face recognition presents a difficult challenge because faces vary naturally in appearance as a result of changes in lighting, expression, viewing angle, and hairstyle. We know little about how humans develop the ability to learn faces despite natural facial variability. In the current study, we provide the first examination of attentional mechanisms underlying adults' and infants' learning of naturally varying faces. Adults (n = 48) and 6- to 12-month-old infants (n = 48) viewed videos of models reading a storybook; the facial appearance of these models was either high or low in variability. Participants then viewed the learned face paired with a novel face. Infants showed adultlike prioritization of face over nonface regions; both age groups fixated the face region more in the high- than low-variability condition. Overall, however, infants showed less ability to resist contextual distractions during learning, which potentially contributed to their lack of discrimination between the learned and novel faces. Mechanisms underlying face learning across natural variability are discussed.
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Affiliation(s)
| | - Shruti Vyas
- Department of Psychology, Ryerson University
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10
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Yetter M, Robert S, Mammarella G, Richmond B, Eldridge MAG, Ungerleider LG, Yue X. Curvilinear features are important for animate/inanimate categorization in macaques. J Vis 2021; 21:3. [PMID: 33798259 PMCID: PMC8024783 DOI: 10.1167/jov.21.4.3] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 01/04/2023] Open
Abstract
The current experiment investigated the extent to which perceptual categorization of animacy (i.e., the ability to discriminate animate and inanimate objects) is facilitated by image-based features that distinguish the two object categories. We show that, with nominal training, naïve macaques could classify a trial-unique set of 1000 novel images with high accuracy. To test whether image-based features that naturally differ between animate and inanimate objects, such as curvilinear and rectilinear information, contribute to the monkeys’ accuracy, we created synthetic images using an algorithm that distorted the global shape of the original animate/inanimate images while maintaining their intermediate features (Portilla & Simoncelli, 2000). Performance on the synthesized images was significantly above chance and was predicted by the amount of curvilinear information in the images. Our results demonstrate that, without training, macaques can use an intermediate image feature, curvilinearity, to facilitate their categorization of animate and inanimate objects.
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Affiliation(s)
- Marissa Yetter
- Laboratory of Brain and Cognition, NIMH/NIH, Bethesda, MD, USA.,
| | - Sophia Robert
- Laboratory of Brain and Cognition, NIMH/NIH, Bethesda, MD, USA.,
| | | | - Barry Richmond
- Laboratory of Neuropsychology, NIMH/NIH, Bethesda, MD, USA.,
| | | | | | - Xiaomin Yue
- Laboratory of Brain and Cognition, NIMH/NIH, Bethesda, MD, USA.,
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11
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Minio-Paluello I, Porciello G, Pascual-Leone A, Baron-Cohen S. Face individual identity recognition: a potential endophenotype in autism. Mol Autism 2020; 11:81. [PMID: 33081830 PMCID: PMC7576748 DOI: 10.1186/s13229-020-00371-0] [Citation(s) in RCA: 11] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/16/2019] [Accepted: 08/11/2020] [Indexed: 12/14/2022] Open
Abstract
BACKGROUND Face individual identity recognition skill is heritable and independent of intellectual ability. Difficulties in face individual identity recognition are present in autistic individuals and their family members and are possibly linked to oxytocin polymorphisms in families with an autistic child. While it is reported that developmental prosopagnosia (i.e., impaired face identity recognition) occurs in 2-3% of the general population, no prosopagnosia prevalence estimate is available for autism. Furthermore, an autism within-group approach has not been reported towards characterizing impaired face memory and to investigate its possible links to social and communication difficulties. METHODS The present study estimated the prevalence of prosopagnosia in 80 autistic adults with no intellectual disability, investigated its cognitive characteristics and links to autism symptoms' severity, personality traits, and mental state understanding from the eye region by using standardized tests and questionnaires. RESULTS More than one third of autistic participants showed prosopagnosia. Their face memory skill was not associated with their symptom's severity, empathy, alexithymia, or general intelligence. Face identity recognition was instead linked to mental state recognition from the eye region only in autistic individuals who had prosopagnosia, and this relationship did not depend on participants' basic face perception skills. Importantly, we found that autistic participants were not aware of their face memory skills. LIMITATIONS We did not test an epidemiological sample, and additional work is necessary to establish whether these results generalize to the entire autism spectrum. CONCLUSIONS Impaired face individual identity recognition meets the criteria to be a potential endophenotype in autism. In the future, testing for face memory could be used to stratify autistic individuals into genetically meaningful subgroups and be translatable to autism animal models.
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Affiliation(s)
- Ilaria Minio-Paluello
- Department of Psychology, Sapienza University of Rome, Rome, Italy.
- IRCCS Fondazione Santa Lucia, Rome, Italy.
- Institute of Cognitive Sciences and Technologies, National Research Council, Rome, Italy.
| | - Giuseppina Porciello
- Department of Psychology, Sapienza University of Rome, Rome, Italy
- IRCCS Fondazione Santa Lucia, Rome, Italy
| | - Alvaro Pascual-Leone
- Hinda and Arthur Marcus Institute for Aging Research and Center for Memory Health, Hebrew SeniorLife, Boston, MA, USA
- Department of Neurology, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA
- Guttmann Brain Health Institute, Institut Guttmann de Neurorehabilitació, Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona, Badalona, Spain
| | - Simon Baron-Cohen
- Autism Research Centre, Department of Psychiatry, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK
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12
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Rossion B, Retter TL, Liu‐Shuang J. Understanding human individuation of unfamiliar faces with oddball fast periodic visual stimulation and electroencephalography. Eur J Neurosci 2020; 52:4283-4344. [DOI: 10.1111/ejn.14865] [Citation(s) in RCA: 29] [Impact Index Per Article: 7.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/04/2020] [Revised: 05/19/2020] [Accepted: 05/30/2020] [Indexed: 01/08/2023]
Affiliation(s)
- Bruno Rossion
- CNRS, CRAN UMR7039 Université de Lorraine F‐54000Nancy France
- Service de Neurologie, CHRU‐Nancy Université de Lorraine F‐54000Nancy France
| | - Talia L. Retter
- Department of Behavioural and Cognitive Sciences Faculty of Language and Literature Humanities, Arts and Education University of Luxembourg Luxembourg Luxembourg
| | - Joan Liu‐Shuang
- Institute of Research in Psychological Science Institute of Neuroscience Université de Louvain Louvain‐la‐Neuve Belgium
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13
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Ratan Murty NA, Teng S, Beeler D, Mynick A, Oliva A, Kanwisher N. Visual experience is not necessary for the development of face-selectivity in the lateral fusiform gyrus. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 2020; 117:23011-23020. [PMID: 32839334 PMCID: PMC7502773 DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2004607117] [Citation(s) in RCA: 39] [Impact Index Per Article: 9.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 02/08/2023] Open
Abstract
The fusiform face area responds selectively to faces and is causally involved in face perception. How does face-selectivity in the fusiform arise in development, and why does it develop so systematically in the same location across individuals? Preferential cortical responses to faces develop early in infancy, yet evidence is conflicting on the central question of whether visual experience with faces is necessary. Here, we revisit this question by scanning congenitally blind individuals with fMRI while they haptically explored 3D-printed faces and other stimuli. We found robust face-selective responses in the lateral fusiform gyrus of individual blind participants during haptic exploration of stimuli, indicating that neither visual experience with faces nor fovea-biased inputs is necessary for face-selectivity to arise in the lateral fusiform gyrus. Our results instead suggest a role for long-range connectivity in specifying the location of face-selectivity in the human brain.
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Affiliation(s)
- N Apurva Ratan Murty
- Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139
- McGovern Institute for Brain Research, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139
- The Center for Brains, Minds, and Machines, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139
| | - Santani Teng
- The Smith-Kettlewell Eye Research Institute, San Francisco, CA 94115
- Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139
| | - David Beeler
- Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139
- McGovern Institute for Brain Research, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139
| | - Anna Mynick
- Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139
- McGovern Institute for Brain Research, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139
| | - Aude Oliva
- Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139
| | - Nancy Kanwisher
- Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139;
- McGovern Institute for Brain Research, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139
- The Center for Brains, Minds, and Machines, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139
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14
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Lochy A, Schiltz C, Rossion B. The right hemispheric dominance for face perception in preschool children depends on the visual discrimination level. Dev Sci 2020; 23:e12914. [PMID: 31618490 PMCID: PMC7379294 DOI: 10.1111/desc.12914] [Citation(s) in RCA: 12] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/31/2019] [Revised: 05/31/2019] [Accepted: 10/08/2019] [Indexed: 01/08/2023]
Abstract
The developmental origin of human adults' right hemispheric dominance in response to face stimuli remains unclear, in particular because young infants' right hemispheric advantage in face-selective response is no longer present in preschool children, before written language acquisition. Here we used fast periodic visual stimulation (FPVS) with scalp electroencephalography (EEG) to test 52 preschool children (5.5 years old) at two different levels of face discrimination: discrimination of faces against objects, measuring face-selectivity, or discrimination between individual faces. While the contrast between faces and nonface objects elicits strictly bilateral occipital responses in children, strengthening previous observations, discrimination of individual faces in the same children reveals a strong right hemispheric lateralization over the occipitotemporal cortex. Picture-plane inversion of the face stimuli significantly decreases the individual discrimination response, although to a much smaller extent than in older children and adults tested with the same paradigm. However, there is only a nonsignificant trend for a decrease in right hemispheric lateralization with inversion. There is no relationship between the right hemispheric lateralization in individual face discrimination and preschool levels of readings abilities. The observed difference in the right hemispheric lateralization obtained in the same population of children with two different paradigms measuring neural responses to faces indicates that the level of visual discrimination is a key factor to consider when making inferences about the development of hemispheric lateralization of face perception in the human brain.
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Affiliation(s)
- Aliette Lochy
- Cognitive Science and Assessment InstituteEducation, Culture, Cognition, and Society Research UnitUniversity of LuxemburgEsch‐sur AlzetteLuxembourg
| | - Christine Schiltz
- Cognitive Science and Assessment InstituteEducation, Culture, Cognition, and Society Research UnitUniversity of LuxemburgEsch‐sur AlzetteLuxembourg
| | - Bruno Rossion
- IPSYUniversité Catholique de LouvainLouvain‐La‐NeuveBelgium
- CNRSCRANUniversité de LorraineNancyFrance
- CHRU‐NancyUniversité de LorraineNancyFrance
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Wang Q, Zhu GP, Yi L, Cui XX, Wang H, Wei RY, Hu BL. A Review of Functional Near-Infrared Spectroscopy Studies of Motor and Cognitive Function in Preterm Infants. Neurosci Bull 2019; 36:321-329. [PMID: 31713716 DOI: 10.1007/s12264-019-00441-1] [Citation(s) in RCA: 7] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.4] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/29/2019] [Accepted: 07/23/2019] [Indexed: 11/29/2022] Open
Abstract
Preterm infants are vulnerable to brain injuries, and have a greater chance of experiencing neurodevelopmental disorders throughout development. Early screening for motor and cognitive functions is critical to assessing the developmental trajectory in preterm infants, especially those who may have motor or cognitive deficits. The brain imaging technology functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) is a portable and low-cost method of assessing cerebral hemodynamics, making it suitable for large-scale use even in remote and underdeveloped areas. In this article, we review peer-reviewed, scientific fNIRS studies of motor performance, speech perception, and facial recognition in preterm infants. fNIRS provides a link between hemodynamic activity and the development of brain functions in preterm infants. Research using fNIRS has shown different patterns of hemoglobin change during some behavioral tasks in early infancy. fNIRS helps to promote our understanding of the developmental mechanisms of brain function in preterm infants when performing motor or cognitive tasks in a less-restricted environment.
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Affiliation(s)
- Quan Wang
- Key Laboratory of Spectral Imaging Technology, Xi'an Institute of Optics and Precision Mechanics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Xi'an, 710119, China.
- Key Laboratory of Biomedical Spectroscopy of Xi'an, Xi'an Institute of Optics and Precision Mechanics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Xi'an, 710119, China.
- Child Study Center, Yale School of Medicine, Yale University, New Haven, CT, 06520, USA.
| | - Guang-Pu Zhu
- Key Laboratory of Spectral Imaging Technology, Xi'an Institute of Optics and Precision Mechanics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Xi'an, 710119, China
- University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100049, China
- Key Laboratory of Biomedical Spectroscopy of Xi'an, Xi'an Institute of Optics and Precision Mechanics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Xi'an, 710119, China
| | - Li Yi
- School of Psychological and Cognitive Sciences and Beijing Key Laboratory of Behavior and Mental Health, Peking University, Beijing, 100871, China
| | - Xin-Xin Cui
- Key Laboratory of Spectral Imaging Technology, Xi'an Institute of Optics and Precision Mechanics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Xi'an, 710119, China
- Key Laboratory of Biomedical Spectroscopy of Xi'an, Xi'an Institute of Optics and Precision Mechanics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Xi'an, 710119, China
| | - Hui Wang
- Key Laboratory of Spectral Imaging Technology, Xi'an Institute of Optics and Precision Mechanics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Xi'an, 710119, China
- University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100049, China
- Key Laboratory of Biomedical Spectroscopy of Xi'an, Xi'an Institute of Optics and Precision Mechanics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Xi'an, 710119, China
| | - Ru-Yi Wei
- Key Laboratory of Spectral Imaging Technology, Xi'an Institute of Optics and Precision Mechanics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Xi'an, 710119, China
| | - Bing-Liang Hu
- Key Laboratory of Biomedical Spectroscopy of Xi'an, Xi'an Institute of Optics and Precision Mechanics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Xi'an, 710119, China.
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Ichikawa H, Nakato E, Igarashi Y, Okada M, Kanazawa S, Yamaguchi MK, Kakigi R. A longitudinal study of infant view-invariant face processing during the first 3-8 months of life. Neuroimage 2018; 186:817-824. [PMID: 30529397 DOI: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2018.11.031] [Citation(s) in RCA: 8] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/12/2018] [Revised: 10/26/2018] [Accepted: 11/20/2018] [Indexed: 11/27/2022] Open
Abstract
View-invariant face processing emerges early in life. A previous study (Nakato et al., 2009) measured infant hemodynamic responses to faces from the frontal and profile views in the bilateral temporal areas, which have been reported to be involved in face processing using near-infrared spectroscopy. It was reported that 5-month-old infants showed increased oxyhemoglobin (oxy-Hb) responses to frontal faces, but not to profile faces. In contrast, 8-month-old infants displayed increased oxy-Hb responses to profile faces as well as to frontal faces. In this study, we used the experimental method developed in the previous study to investigate the development of view-invariant face processing, every month for 5 months (from the first 3-8 months of life). We longitudinally measured hemodynamic responses to faces from the frontal and profile views in 14 infants. The longitudinal measurements allowed us to investigate individual differences in each participant. We modeled each infant's hemodynamic oxy-Hb responses to frontal and profile faces using linear regression analysis. Processing of profile faces emerged later and underwent larger improvements than that of frontal faces. We also found an anticorrelation between the speed of improvement in face processing and the hemodynamic response to faces at the age of 3- months. Group analysis of the averaged hemodynamic data from the 14 infants using linear regression revealed that the processing of profile faces emerged between 5 and 6 months of age. Infant view-invariant face processing developed first for frontal faces. This was followed by the emergence of processing of profile faces.
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Affiliation(s)
- Hiroko Ichikawa
- Department of Psychology, Chuo University, Hachioji, Tokyo, 192-0393, Japan; Research and Development Initiative, Chuo University, Chiyoda, Tokyo, 112-8551, Japan; Japan Society for the Promotion of Sciences, Chiyoda, Tokyo, 102-8471, Japan.
| | - Emi Nakato
- Research and Development Initiative, Chuo University, Chiyoda, Tokyo, 112-8551, Japan; Department of Integrative Physiology, National Institute for Physiological Sciences, Okazaki, Aichi, 444-8585, Japan
| | - Yasuhiko Igarashi
- Graduate School of Frontier Sciences, The University of Tokyo, Kashiwa, Chiba, 277-8561, Japan
| | - Masato Okada
- Graduate School of Frontier Sciences, The University of Tokyo, Kashiwa, Chiba, 277-8561, Japan; RIKEN Brain Science Institute, Wako, Saitama, 351-0106, Japan
| | - So Kanazawa
- Department of Psychology, Japan Women's University, Kawasaki, Kanagawa, 214-8565, Japan
| | - Masami K Yamaguchi
- Department of Psychology, Chuo University, Hachioji, Tokyo, 192-0393, Japan
| | - Ryusuke Kakigi
- Department of Integrative Physiology, National Institute for Physiological Sciences, Okazaki, Aichi, 444-8585, Japan
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17
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Growing a social brain. Nat Hum Behav 2018; 2:624-636. [PMID: 31346259 DOI: 10.1038/s41562-018-0384-6] [Citation(s) in RCA: 145] [Impact Index Per Article: 24.2] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/26/2017] [Revised: 06/12/2018] [Accepted: 06/19/2018] [Indexed: 12/20/2022]
Abstract
It has long been assumed that social animals, such as humans, are born with a brain system that has evolved to support social affiliation. However, the evidence does not necessarily support this assumption. Alternatively, social animals can be defined as those who cannot survive alone and rely on members from their group to regulate their ongoing physiology (or allostasis). The rather simple evolutionary constraint of social dependency for survival can be sufficient to make the social environment vitally salient, and to provide the ultimate driving force for socially crafted brain development and learning. In this Perspective, we propose a framework for sociality and specify a set of hypotheses on the mechanisms of social development and underlying neural systems. The theoretical shift proposed here implies that profound human characteristics, including but not limited to sociality, are acquired at an early age, while social interactions provide key wiring instructions that determine brain development.
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18
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Bohn M, Zimmermann L, Call J, Tomasello M. The social-cognitive basis of infants’ reference to absent entities. Cognition 2018; 177:41-48. [DOI: 10.1016/j.cognition.2018.03.024] [Citation(s) in RCA: 14] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/29/2016] [Revised: 03/19/2018] [Accepted: 03/30/2018] [Indexed: 11/26/2022]
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19
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Right but not left hemispheric discrimination of faces in infancy. Nat Hum Behav 2017; 2:67-79. [DOI: 10.1038/s41562-017-0249-4] [Citation(s) in RCA: 40] [Impact Index Per Article: 5.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/27/2017] [Accepted: 10/19/2017] [Indexed: 11/08/2022]
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20
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Leo I, Angeli V, Lunghi M, Dalla Barba B, Simion F. Newborns' Face Recognition: The Role of Facial Movement. INFANCY 2017. [DOI: 10.1111/infa.12197] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/27/2022]
Affiliation(s)
- Irene Leo
- Department of Developmental Psychology; University of Padova
| | | | - Marco Lunghi
- Department of Developmental Psychology; University of Padova
| | | | - Francesca Simion
- Department of Developmental Psychology; University of Padova
- Center for Cognitive Neuroscience; University of Padova
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21
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Mongillo P, Scandurra A, Kramer RSS, Marinelli L. Recognition of human faces by dogs (Canis familiaris) requires visibility of head contour. Anim Cogn 2017; 20:881-890. [PMID: 28653115 DOI: 10.1007/s10071-017-1108-4] [Citation(s) in RCA: 11] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.6] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/31/2017] [Revised: 06/14/2017] [Accepted: 06/20/2017] [Indexed: 01/03/2023]
Abstract
Researchers have suggested that dogs are able to recognise human faces, but conclusive evidence has yet to be found. Experiment 1 of this study investigated whether dogs can recognise humans using visual information from the face/head region, and whether this also occurs in conditions of suboptimal visibility of the face. Dogs were presented with their owner's and a stranger's heads, protruding through openings of an apparatus in opposite parts of the experimental setting. Presentations occurred in conditions of either optimal or suboptimal visibility; the latter featured non-frontal orientation, uneven illumination and invisibility of outer contours of the heads. Instances where dogs approached their owners with a higher frequency than predicted by chance were considered evidence of recognition. This occurred only in the optimal condition. With a similar paradigm, Experiment 2 investigated which of the alterations in visibility that characterised the suboptimal condition accounted for dogs' inability to recognise owners. Dogs approached their owners more frequently than predicted by chance if outer head contours were visible, but not if heads were either frontally oriented or evenly illuminated. Moreover, male dogs were slightly better at recognition than females. These findings represent the first clear demonstration that dogs can recognise human faces and that outer face elements are crucial for such a task, complementing previous research on human face processing in dogs. Parallels with face recognition abilities observed in other animal species, as well as with human infants, point to the relevance of these results from a comparative standpoint.
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Affiliation(s)
- Paolo Mongillo
- Department of Comparative Biomedicine and Food Science, University of Padova, Viale dell'Università 16, 35020, Legnaro, PD, Italy.
| | - Anna Scandurra
- Department of Comparative Biomedicine and Food Science, University of Padova, Viale dell'Università 16, 35020, Legnaro, PD, Italy
| | - Robin S S Kramer
- Department of Psychology, Trent University, Peterborough, ON, K9J 7B8, Canada
| | - Lieta Marinelli
- Department of Comparative Biomedicine and Food Science, University of Padova, Viale dell'Università 16, 35020, Legnaro, PD, Italy
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22
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Nordt M, Weigelt S. Face recognition is similarly affected by viewpoint in school-aged children and adults. PeerJ 2017; 5:e3253. [PMID: 28533951 PMCID: PMC5438580 DOI: 10.7717/peerj.3253] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/21/2016] [Accepted: 03/31/2017] [Indexed: 11/20/2022] Open
Abstract
There is an ongoing debate on the question when face processing abilities mature. One aspect that has been part of this debate is the ability to recognize faces in and across different viewpoints. Here, we tested 128 participants consisting of school-age children (ages, 5–10 years) and adults (ages, 19–37 years) in two experiments to investigate the effects of different viewpoints (including front, three-quarter, profile view) on face recognition during development. Furthermore, we compared recognition performance for faces to that of another object category (cars). In the first experiment (n = 88) we tested if the pattern of performance for faces presented in different viewpoints is similar in school-aged children and adults. Participants completed a two-alternative-forced-choice (2AFC) memory task comprising images of both faces and cars in front, three-quarter and profile view, which were presented in the same viewpoint during learning and testing. In the second experiment (n = 40) we tested if face recognition is similarly affected by viewpoint changes in children and adults. In this experiment the 2AFC memory task included a change of viewpoint between learning and testing. While in both experiments we found higher recognition performance for faces with increasing age, the overall pattern of both viewpoint and viewpoint-change-effects and also the difference between view-change- and no-change-conditions was similar across age groups. In contrast to faces, no viewpoint effects were observed in cars (experiment 1), viewpoint change effects, however, were similar for cars and faces (experiment 2). In sum, our results suggest early maturity of the ability to recognize faces in and across different viewpoints.
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Affiliation(s)
- Marisa Nordt
- Department of Developmental Neuropsychology, Institute of Psychology, Ruhr-Universität Bochum, Bochum, Germany
| | - Sarah Weigelt
- Department of Developmental Neuropsychology, Institute of Psychology, Ruhr-Universität Bochum, Bochum, Germany
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23
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Abstract
A wealth of evidence from behavioural, neuropsychological and neuroimaging research supports the view that face recognition is reliant upon a domain-specific network that does not process words. In contrast, the recent many-to-many model of visual recognition posits that brain areas involved in word and face recognition are functionally integrated. Developmental prosopagnosia (DP) is characterised by severe deficits in the recognition of faces, which the many-to-many model predicts should negatively affect word recognition. Alternatively, domain-specific accounts suggest that impairments in face and word processing need not go hand in hand. To test these possibilities, we ran a battery of 7 tasks examining word processing in a group of DP cases and controls. One of our prosopagnosia cases exhibited a severe reading impairment with delayed response times during reading aloud tasks, but not lexical decision tasks. Overall, however, we found no evidence of global word processing deficits in DP, consistent with a dissociation account for face and word processing.
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Sugden NA, Moulson MC. Hey Baby, what's “up”? One- and 3-Month-Olds Experience Faces Primarily Upright but Non-Upright Faces Offer the Best Views. Q J Exp Psychol (Hove) 2017; 70:959-969. [DOI: 10.1080/17470218.2016.1154581] [Citation(s) in RCA: 9] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 10/22/2022]
Abstract
Experience has been theorized to shape how we process faces. Frequent face types are better discriminated and processed using expert-level holistic strategies while less frequent types are less well discriminated and processed using less mature featural strategies. Although experience is probably influencing the development of face processing, it is unclear what aspects of experience are most influential. The current study utilized infant-perspective head-mounted cameras to capture infants’ daily lives at 1 and 3 months of age to measure the perceptual qualities of frequent and infrequent face types. We examined experience with upright (i.e., frequently experienced) and inverted (i.e., infrequently experienced) faces. A large majority (88%) of all face exposure was to upright faces. Most faces, regardless of orientation, were viewed near to the infant, alone in the field of view, and in a frontal viewpoint (i.e., an “ideal view”). Although they were less frequent than upright faces, proportionally more non-upright faces were viewed in an “ideal view”. At this young age, nearly all faces, even non-upright faces, are seen in ways that facilitate processing.
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Affiliation(s)
- Nicole A. Sugden
- Department of Psychology, Ryerson University, Toronto, ON, Canada
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25
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Hyde DC, Flom R, Porter CL. Behavioral and Neural Foundations of Multisensory Face-Voice Perception in Infancy. Dev Neuropsychol 2017; 41:273-292. [PMID: 28059567 DOI: 10.1080/87565641.2016.1255744] [Citation(s) in RCA: 5] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 10/20/2022]
Abstract
In this article, we describe behavioral and neurophysiological evidence for infants' multimodal face-voice perception. We argue that the behavioral development of face-voice perception, like multimodal perception more broadly, is consistent with the intersensory redundancy hypothesis (IRH). Furthermore, we highlight that several recently observed features of the neural responses in infants converge with the behavioral predictions of the intersensory redundancy hypothesis. Finally, we discuss the potential benefits of combining brain and behavioral measures to study multisensory processing, as well as some applications of this work for atypical development.
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Affiliation(s)
- Daniel C Hyde
- a Department of Psychology , University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign , Champaign , Illinois
| | - Ross Flom
- b Department of Psychology , Brigham Young University , Provo , Utah
| | - Chris L Porter
- c School of Family Life , Brigham Young University , Provo , Utah
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26
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Nordt M, Hoehl S, Weigelt S. The use of repetition suppression paradigms in developmental cognitive neuroscience. Cortex 2016; 80:61-75. [DOI: 10.1016/j.cortex.2016.04.002] [Citation(s) in RCA: 37] [Impact Index Per Article: 4.6] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/12/2015] [Revised: 02/29/2016] [Accepted: 04/04/2016] [Indexed: 10/21/2022]
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27
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Royer J, Blais C, Barnabé-Lortie V, Carré M, Leclerc J, Fiset D. Efficient visual information for unfamiliar face matching despite viewpoint variations: It's not in the eyes! Vision Res 2016; 123:33-40. [PMID: 27179558 DOI: 10.1016/j.visres.2016.04.004] [Citation(s) in RCA: 8] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/19/2015] [Revised: 04/07/2016] [Accepted: 04/15/2016] [Indexed: 10/21/2022]
Abstract
Faces are encountered in highly diverse angles in real-world settings. Despite this considerable diversity, most individuals are able to easily recognize familiar faces. The vast majority of studies in the field of face recognition have nonetheless focused almost exclusively on frontal views of faces. Indeed, a number of authors have investigated the diagnostic facial features for the recognition of frontal views of faces previously encoded in this same view. However, the nature of the information useful for identity matching when the encoded face and test face differ in viewing angle remains mostly unexplored. The present study addresses this issue using individual differences and bubbles, a method that pinpoints the facial features effectively used in a visual categorization task. Our results indicate that the use of features located in the center of the face, the lower left portion of the nose area and the center of the mouth, are significantly associated with individual efficiency to generalize a face's identity across different viewpoints. However, as faces become more familiar, the reliance on this area decreases, while the diagnosticity of the eye region increases. This suggests that a certain distinction can be made between the visual mechanisms subtending viewpoint invariance and face recognition in the case of unfamiliar face identification. Our results further support the idea that the eye area may only come into play when the face stimulus is particularly familiar to the observer.
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Affiliation(s)
- Jessica Royer
- Département de Psychologie et Psychoéducation, Université du Québec en Outaouais, Gatineau, Canada; Centre de Recherche en Neuropsychologie et Cognition, Montréal, Canada
| | - Caroline Blais
- Département de Psychologie et Psychoéducation, Université du Québec en Outaouais, Gatineau, Canada; Centre de Recherche en Neuropsychologie et Cognition, Montréal, Canada
| | - Vincent Barnabé-Lortie
- School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, Canada
| | - Mélissa Carré
- Département de Psychologie et Psychoéducation, Université du Québec en Outaouais, Gatineau, Canada
| | - Josiane Leclerc
- Département de Psychologie et Psychoéducation, Université du Québec en Outaouais, Gatineau, Canada
| | - Daniel Fiset
- Département de Psychologie et Psychoéducation, Université du Québec en Outaouais, Gatineau, Canada; Centre de Recherche en Neuropsychologie et Cognition, Montréal, Canada.
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28
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Bulf H, Brenna V, Valenza E, Johnson SP, Turati C. Many faces, one rule: the role of perceptual expertise in infants' sequential rule learning. Front Psychol 2015; 6:1595. [PMID: 26539142 PMCID: PMC4612650 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2015.01595] [Citation(s) in RCA: 19] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.1] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/22/2015] [Accepted: 10/02/2015] [Indexed: 11/13/2022] Open
Abstract
Rule learning is a mechanism that allows infants to recognize and generalize rule-like patterns, such as ABB or ABA. Although infants are better at learning rules from speech vs. non-speech, rule learning can be applied also to frequently experienced visual stimuli, suggesting that perceptual expertise with material to be learned is critical in enhancing rule learning abilities. Yet infants' rule learning has never been investigated using one of the most commonly experienced visual stimulus category available in infants' environment, i.e., faces. Here, we investigate 7-month-olds' ability to extract rule-like patterns from sequences composed of upright faces and compared their results to those of infants who viewed inverted faces, which presumably are encountered far less frequently than upright faces. Infants were habituated with face triads in either an ABA or ABB condition followed by a test phase with ABA and ABB triads composed of faces that differed from those showed during habituation. When upright faces were used, infants generalized the pattern presented during habituation to include the new face identities showed during testing, but when inverted faces were presented, infants failed to extract the rule. This finding supports the idea that perceptual expertise can modulate 7-month-olds' abilities to detect rule-like patterns.
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Affiliation(s)
- Hermann Bulf
- Dipartimento di Psicologia, University of Milano-BicoccaMilano, Italy
- Milan Center of Neuroscience (NeuroMI)Milano, Italy
| | - Viola Brenna
- Dipartimento di Psicologia, University of Milano-BicoccaMilano, Italy
| | - Eloisa Valenza
- Dipartimento di Psicologia dello Sviluppo e della Socializzazione, Università degli Studi di PadovaPadova, Italy
- Interdepartmental Center for Cognitive Science, Università degli Studi di PadovaPadova, Italy
| | - Scott P. Johnson
- Department of Psychology, University of CaliforniaLos Angeles, Los Angeles, CA, USA
| | - Chiara Turati
- Dipartimento di Psicologia, University of Milano-BicoccaMilano, Italy
- Milan Center of Neuroscience (NeuroMI)Milano, Italy
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29
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Robbins RA, Coltheart M. The relative importance of heads, bodies, and movement to person recognition across development. J Exp Child Psychol 2015; 138:1-14. [DOI: 10.1016/j.jecp.2015.04.006] [Citation(s) in RCA: 12] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/13/2013] [Revised: 04/13/2015] [Accepted: 04/15/2015] [Indexed: 11/28/2022]
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30
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Teubert M, Lohaus A, Fassbender I, Vöhringer IA, Suhrke J, Poloczek S, Freitag C, Lamm B, Teiser J, Keller H, Knopf M, Schwarzer G. Moderation of Stimulus Material on the Prediction of IQ with Infants' Performance in the Visual Expectation Paradigm: Do Greebles Make the Task More Challenging? INFANT AND CHILD DEVELOPMENT 2015. [DOI: 10.1002/icd.1897] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/09/2022]
Affiliation(s)
- Manuel Teubert
- University of Bielefeld; Department of Psychology, Developmental Psychology; Bielefeld Germany
| | - Arnold Lohaus
- University of Bielefeld; Department of Psychology, Developmental Psychology; Bielefeld Germany
| | - Ina Fassbender
- University of Bielefeld; Department of Psychology, Developmental Psychology; Bielefeld Germany
| | - Isabel A. Vöhringer
- Goethe-University Frankfurt am Main; Department of Psychology, Developmental Psychology; Frankfurt am Main Germany
| | - Janina Suhrke
- Justus-Liebig-University Giessen; Department of Psychology, Developmental Psychology; Giessen Germany
| | - Sonja Poloczek
- Goethe-University Frankfurt am Main; Department of Psychology, Developmental Psychology; Frankfurt am Main Germany
| | - Claudia Freitag
- Justus-Liebig-University Giessen; Department of Psychology, Developmental Psychology; Giessen Germany
| | - Bettina Lamm
- University of Osnabrück; Department of Psychology, Development and Culture; Osnabrück Germany
| | - Johanna Teiser
- University of Osnabrück; Department of Psychology, Development and Culture; Osnabrück Germany
| | - Heidi Keller
- University of Osnabrück; Department of Psychology, Development and Culture; Osnabrück Germany
| | - Monika Knopf
- Goethe-University Frankfurt am Main; Department of Psychology, Developmental Psychology; Frankfurt am Main Germany
| | - Gudrun Schwarzer
- Justus-Liebig-University Giessen; Department of Psychology, Developmental Psychology; Giessen Germany
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31
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Pascalis O, Kelly DJ. The Origins of Face Processing in Humans: Phylogeny and Ontogeny. PERSPECTIVES ON PSYCHOLOGICAL SCIENCE 2015; 4:200-9. [PMID: 26158945 DOI: 10.1111/j.1745-6924.2009.01119.x] [Citation(s) in RCA: 84] [Impact Index Per Article: 9.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/29/2022]
Abstract
Faces are crucial for nonverbal communication in humans and related species. From the first moments of life, newborn infants prefer to look at human faces over almost any other form of stimuli. Since this finding was first observed, there has been much debate regarding the "special" nature of face processing. Researchers have put forward numerous developmental models that attempt to account for this early preference and subsequent maturation of the face processing system. In this article, we review these models and their supporting evidence drawing on literature from developmental, evolutionary, and comparative psychology. We conclude that converging data from these fields strongly suggests that face processing is conducted by a dedicated and complex neural system, is not human specific, and is unlikely to have emerged recently in evolutionary history.
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32
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Simion F, Giorgio ED. Face perception and processing in early infancy: inborn predispositions and developmental changes. Front Psychol 2015; 6:969. [PMID: 26217285 PMCID: PMC4496551 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2015.00969] [Citation(s) in RCA: 70] [Impact Index Per Article: 7.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/28/2015] [Accepted: 06/28/2015] [Indexed: 12/05/2022] Open
Abstract
From birth it is critical for our survival to identify social agents and conspecifics. Among others stimuli, faces provide the required information. The present paper will review the mechanisms subserving face detection and face recognition, respectively, over development. In addition, the emergence of the functional and neural specialization for face processing as an experience-dependent process will be documented. Overall, the present work highlights the importance of both inborn predispositions and the exposure to certain experiences, shortly after birth, to drive the system to become functionally specialized to process faces in the first months of life.
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Affiliation(s)
- Francesca Simion
- Department of Developmental and Social Psychology, University of Padova, Padova, Italy
- Center for Cognitive Neuroscience, University of Padova, Padova, Italy
| | - Elisa Di Giorgio
- CIMeC, Center for Mind/Brain Sciences, University of Trento, Trento, Italy
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33
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Bortolon C, Capdevielle D, Raffard S. Face recognition in schizophrenia disorder: A comprehensive review of behavioral, neuroimaging and neurophysiological studies. Neurosci Biobehav Rev 2015; 53:79-107. [PMID: 25800172 DOI: 10.1016/j.neubiorev.2015.03.006] [Citation(s) in RCA: 76] [Impact Index Per Article: 8.4] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/11/2014] [Revised: 02/11/2015] [Accepted: 03/12/2015] [Indexed: 12/20/2022]
Abstract
Facial emotion processing has been extensively studied in schizophrenia patients while general face processing has received less attention. The already published reviews do not address the current scientific literature in a complete manner. Therefore, here we tried to answer some questions that remain to be clarified, particularly: are the non-emotional aspects of facial processing in fact impaired in schizophrenia patients? At the behavioral level, our key conclusions are that visual perception deficit in schizophrenia patients: are not specific to faces; are most often present when the cognitive (e.g. attention) and perceptual demands of the tasks are important; and seems to worsen with the illness chronification. Although, currently evidence suggests impaired second order configural processing, more studies are necessary to determine whether or not holistic processing is impaired in schizophrenia patients. Neural and neurophysiological evidence suggests impaired earlier levels of visual processing, which might involve the deficits in interaction of the magnocellular and parvocellular pathways impacting on further processing. These deficits seem to be present even before the disorder out-set. Although evidence suggests that this deficit may be not specific to faces, further evidence on this question is necessary, in particularly more ecological studies including context and body processing.
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Affiliation(s)
- Catherine Bortolon
- Epsylon Laboratory, EA 4556 Montpellier, France; University Department of Adult Psychiatry, CHU Montpellier, Montpellier, France.
| | - Delphine Capdevielle
- University Department of Adult Psychiatry, CHU Montpellier, Montpellier, France; French National Institute of Health and Medical Research (INSERM), U1061 Pathologies of the Nervous System: Epidemiological and Clinical Research, La Colombiere Hospital, 34093 Montpellier Cedex 5, France
| | - Stéphane Raffard
- Epsylon Laboratory, EA 4556 Montpellier, France; University Department of Adult Psychiatry, CHU Montpellier, Montpellier, France
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Osher DE, Saxe RR, Koldewyn K, Gabrieli JDE, Kanwisher N, Saygin ZM. Structural Connectivity Fingerprints Predict Cortical Selectivity for Multiple Visual Categories across Cortex. Cereb Cortex 2015; 26:1668-83. [PMID: 25628345 DOI: 10.1093/cercor/bhu303] [Citation(s) in RCA: 99] [Impact Index Per Article: 11.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/14/2022] Open
Abstract
A fundamental and largely unanswered question in neuroscience is whether extrinsic connectivity and function are closely related at a fine spatial grain across the human brain. Using a novel approach, we found that the anatomical connectivity of individual gray-matter voxels (determined via diffusion-weighted imaging) alone can predict functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) responses to 4 visual categories (faces, objects, scenes, and bodies) in individual subjects, thus accounting for both functional differentiation across the cortex and individual variation therein. Furthermore, this approach identified the particular anatomical links between voxels that most strongly predict, and therefore plausibly define, the neural networks underlying specific functions. These results provide the strongest evidence to date for a precise and fine-grained relationship between connectivity and function in the human brain, raise the possibility that early-developing connectivity patterns may determine later functional organization, and offer a method for predicting fine-grained functional organization in populations who cannot be functionally scanned.
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Affiliation(s)
- David E Osher
- McGovern Institute for Brain Research, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, Boston University, Boston, MA, USA
| | - Rebecca R Saxe
- McGovern Institute for Brain Research, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA
| | - Kami Koldewyn
- McGovern Institute for Brain Research, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA School of Psychology, Bangor University, Gwynedd, UK
| | - John D E Gabrieli
- McGovern Institute for Brain Research, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA
| | - Nancy Kanwisher
- McGovern Institute for Brain Research, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA
| | - Zeynep M Saygin
- McGovern Institute for Brain Research, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA
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Guellai B, Mersad K, Streri A. Suprasegmental information affects processing of talking faces at birth. Infant Behav Dev 2014; 38:11-9. [PMID: 25531944 DOI: 10.1016/j.infbeh.2014.11.003] [Citation(s) in RCA: 6] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.6] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/22/2014] [Revised: 09/29/2014] [Accepted: 11/20/2014] [Indexed: 11/25/2022]
Abstract
From birth, newborns show a preference for faces talking a native language compared to silent faces. The present study addresses two questions that remained unanswered by previous research: (a) Does the familiarity with the language play a role in this process and (b) Are all the linguistic and paralinguistic cues necessary in this case? Experiment 1 extended newborns' preference for native speakers to non-native ones. Given that fetuses and newborns are sensitive to the prosodic characteristics of speech, Experiments 2 and 3 presented faces talking native and nonnative languages with the speech stream being low-pass filtered. Results showed that newborns preferred looking at a person who talked to them even when only the prosodic cues were provided for both languages. Nonetheless, a familiarity preference for the previously talking face is observed in the "normal speech" condition (i.e., Experiment 1) and a novelty preference in the "filtered speech" condition (Experiments 2 and 3). This asymmetry reveals that newborns process these two types of stimuli differently and that they may already be sensitive to a mismatch between the articulatory movements of the face and the corresponding speech sounds.
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Affiliation(s)
- Bahia Guellai
- Laboratoire Ethologie Cognition Développement (LECD), Université Paris Ouest Nanterre La Défense (UPOND), Nanterre, France.
| | - Karima Mersad
- Université Paris Descartes, Laboratoire Psychologie de la Perception (LPP), UMR CNRS 8158, Centre Biomédical des Saints-Pères, Paris, France
| | - Arlette Streri
- Centre d'Etudes Atomiques-Neurospin-INSERM, Gif/Yvette, France
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Watson TL, Robbins RA, Best CT. Infant perceptual development for faces and spoken words: an integrated approach. Dev Psychobiol 2014; 56:1454-81. [PMID: 25132626 PMCID: PMC4231232 DOI: 10.1002/dev.21243] [Citation(s) in RCA: 19] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.9] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/20/2013] [Accepted: 06/24/2014] [Indexed: 11/10/2022]
Abstract
There are obvious differences between recognizing faces and recognizing spoken words or phonemes that might suggest development of each capability requires different skills. Recognizing faces and perceiving spoken language, however, are in key senses extremely similar endeavors. Both perceptual processes are based on richly variable, yet highly structured input from which the perceiver needs to extract categorically meaningful information. This similarity could be reflected in the perceptual narrowing that occurs within the first year of life in both domains. We take the position that the perceptual and neurocognitive processes by which face and speech recognition develop are based on a set of common principles. One common principle is the importance of systematic variability in the input as a source of information rather than noise. Experience of this variability leads to perceptual tuning to the critical properties that define individual faces or spoken words versus their membership in larger groupings of people and their language communities. We argue that parallels can be drawn directly between the principles responsible for the development of face and spoken language perception.
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Affiliation(s)
- Tamara L Watson
- School of Social Science and Psychology, University of Western SydneyNew South Wales, Australia
- MARCS Institute, University of Western SydneyNew South Wales, Australia
| | - Rachel A Robbins
- School of Social Science and Psychology, University of Western SydneyNew South Wales, Australia
| | - Catherine T Best
- MARCS Institute, University of Western SydneyNew South Wales, Australia
- School of Humanities and Communication Arts, University of Western SydneyNew South Wales, Australia
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Crookes K, Robbins RA. No childhood development of viewpoint-invariant face recognition: Evidence from 8-year-olds and adults. J Exp Child Psychol 2014; 126:103-11. [DOI: 10.1016/j.jecp.2014.03.010] [Citation(s) in RCA: 9] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.9] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/05/2013] [Revised: 03/19/2014] [Accepted: 03/27/2014] [Indexed: 10/25/2022]
Affiliation(s)
- Kate Crookes
- ARC Centre of Excellence in Cognition and Its Disorders, School of Psychology, University of Western Australia, Crawley, WA 6009, Australia.
| | - Rachel A Robbins
- School of Social Sciences and Psychology, University of Western Sydney, Penrith, NSW 2751, Australia; The MARCS Institute, University of Western Sydney, Penrith, NSW 2751, Australia
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Pitteri E, Mongillo P, Carnier P, Marinelli L, Huber L. Part-based and configural processing of owner's face in dogs. PLoS One 2014; 9:e108176. [PMID: 25251285 PMCID: PMC4177116 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0108176] [Citation(s) in RCA: 30] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/05/2014] [Accepted: 08/26/2014] [Indexed: 11/18/2022] Open
Abstract
Dogs exhibit characteristic looking patterns when looking at human faces but little is known about what the underlying cognitive mechanisms are and how much these are influenced by individual experience. In Experiment 1, seven dogs were trained in a simultaneous discrimination procedure to assess whether they could discriminate a) the owner's face parts (eyes, nose or mouth) presented in isolation and b) whole faces where the same parts were covered. Dogs discriminated all the three parts of the owner's face presented in isolation, but needed fewer sessions to reach the learning criterion for the eyes than for both nose and mouth. Moreover, covering the eyes region significantly disrupted face discriminability compared to the whole face condition while such difference was not found when the nose or mouth was hidden. In Experiment 2, dogs were presented with manipulated images of the owner's face (inverted, blurred, scrambled, grey-scale) to test the relative contribution of part-based and configural processing in the discrimination of human faces. Furthermore, by comparing the dogs enrolled in the previous experiment and seven ‘naïve’ dogs we examined if the relative contribution of part-based and configural processing was affected by dogs' experience with the face stimuli. Naïve dogs discriminated the owner only when configural information was provided, whereas expert dogs could discriminate the owner also when part-based processing was necessary. The present study provides the first evidence that dogs can discriminate isolated internal features of a human face and corroborate previous reports of salience of the eyes region for human face processing. Although the reliance on part-perception may be increased by specific experience, our findings suggest that human face discrimination by dogs relies mainly on configural rather than on part-based elaboration.
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Affiliation(s)
- Elisa Pitteri
- Department of Comparative Biomedicine and Food Science, University of Padova, Legnaro, PD, Italy
| | - Paolo Mongillo
- Department of Comparative Biomedicine and Food Science, University of Padova, Legnaro, PD, Italy
| | - Paolo Carnier
- Department of Comparative Biomedicine and Food Science, University of Padova, Legnaro, PD, Italy
| | - Lieta Marinelli
- Department of Comparative Biomedicine and Food Science, University of Padova, Legnaro, PD, Italy
- * E-mail:
| | - Ludwig Huber
- Messerli Research Institute, University of Veterinary Medicine Vienna, Medical University of Vienna, and University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria
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Kobayashi M, Otsuka Y, Kanazawa S, Yamaguchi MK, Kakigi R. The processing of faces across non-rigid facial transformation develops at 7 month of age: a fNIRS-adaptation study. BMC Neurosci 2014; 15:81. [PMID: 24965204 PMCID: PMC4230271 DOI: 10.1186/1471-2202-15-81] [Citation(s) in RCA: 17] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/19/2013] [Accepted: 06/19/2014] [Indexed: 12/01/2022] Open
Abstract
BACKGROUND Using near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS), our previous neural adaptation studies found that infants' bilateral temporal regions process facial identity (FiHN 5:153, 2011). In addition, we revealed that size-invariant processing of facial identity develops by 5 months of age (NR 23:984-988, 2012), while view-invariant processing develops around 7 months of age (FiHN 5:153, 2011). The aim in the current study was to examine whether infants' brains process facial identity across the non-rigid transformation of facial features by using the neural adaptation paradigm. We used NIRS to compare hemodynamic changes in the bilateral temporal areas of 5- to 6-month-olds and 7- to 8-month-olds during presentations of an identical face and of different faces. RESULTS We found that (1) the oxyhemoglobin concentration around the T5 and T6 positions increased significantly during the presentation of different faces only in 7- to 8-month-olds and (2) 7- to 8-month-olds, but not 5- to 6-month-olds, showed attenuation in these channels to the presentation of the same face rather than to the presentation of different faces, regardless of non-rigid changes in facial features. CONCLUSIONS Our results suggest that the processing of facial identity with non-rigid facial transformation develops around 7 months after birth.
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Affiliation(s)
- Megumi Kobayashi
- Department of Integrative Physiology, National Institute for Physiological Sciences, 38 Nishigo-Naka, Myodaiji, Okazaki, Aichi 444-8585, Japan
- Japan Society for the Promotion of Science, 5-3-1, Koujimachi, Chiyoda, Tokyo 102-0083, Japan
| | - Yumiko Otsuka
- School of Psychology, The University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW 2006, Australia
| | - So Kanazawa
- Department of Psychology, Japan Women’s University, 1-1-1, Nishi-ikuta, Tama, Kawasaki, Kanagawa 214-8565, Japan
| | - Masami K Yamaguchi
- Department of Psychology, Chuo University, 742-1, Higashi-nakano, Hachioji, Tokyo 192-0393, Japan
| | - Ryusuke Kakigi
- Department of Integrative Physiology, National Institute for Physiological Sciences, 38 Nishigo-Naka, Myodaiji, Okazaki, Aichi 444-8585, Japan
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Fassbender I, Lohaus A, Thomas H, Teubert M, Vierhaus M, Lamm B, Freitag C, Graf F, Keller H, Schwarzer G, Knopf M. African Versus Caucasian Faces in a Visual Expectation Paradigm. JOURNAL OF CROSS-CULTURAL PSYCHOLOGY 2014. [DOI: 10.1177/0022022114537555] [Citation(s) in RCA: 5] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/15/2022]
Abstract
This article focuses on sequence learning on the Visual Expectation Paradigm (VExP) using human faces as stimulus material. For a sample of 133 Caucasian German infants assessed longitudinally at 3 and 6 months of age, a previous study has shown that the response latency of 6-month-old infants was shorter when the infants solved the task with Caucasian own-race faces in contrast to African other-race faces. The advantage for own-race faces occurs at the same age the Other-Race-Effect (ORE) has been reported to emerge. As studies on ORE development have shown the phenomenon in infants from various cultural backgrounds, the follow-up question to be answered here is whether the performance differences on the VExP can also be found in other than Caucasian infants. As a complement to the German sample, 30 African infants from Cameroon were assessed longitudinally with the same VExP task at ages 3 and 6 months. Our results indicate that perception differences between own-race and other-race faces influence performance on the VExP in both samples. As expected, the Cameroonian infants improved performance on the VExP from 3 to 6 months only in their own-race African faces condition.
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Affiliation(s)
| | | | - Hoben Thomas
- Pennsylvania State University, University Park, USA
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41
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Vida MD, Wilson HR, Maurer D. Bandwidths for the perception of head orientation decrease during childhood. Vision Res 2014; 98:72-82. [PMID: 24674736 DOI: 10.1016/j.visres.2014.03.005] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/10/2013] [Revised: 03/06/2014] [Accepted: 03/10/2014] [Indexed: 11/24/2022]
Abstract
Adults use the orientation of people's heads as a cue to the focus of their attention. We examined developmental changes in mechanisms underlying sensitivity to head orientation during childhood. Eight-, 10-, 12-year-olds, and adults were adapted to a frontal face view or a 20° left or right side view before judging the orientation of a face at or near frontal. After frontal adaptation, there were no age differences in judgments of head orientation. However, after adaptation to a 20° left or right side view, aftereffects were larger and sensitivity to head orientation was lower in 8- and 10-year-olds than in adults, with no difference between 12-year-olds and adults. A computational model indicates that these results can be modeled as a consequence of decreasing neural tuning bandwidths and decreasing additive internal noise during childhood, and/or as a consequence of increasing inhibition during childhood. These results provide the first evidence that neural mechanisms underlying sensitivity to head orientation undergo considerable refinement during childhood.
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Affiliation(s)
- Mark D Vida
- McMaster University, 1280 Main Street West, Hamilton, ON, L8S 4L8, Canada.
| | - Hugh R Wilson
- York University, 4700 Keele Street, Toronto, ON M3J 1P3, Canada.
| | - Daphne Maurer
- McMaster University, 1280 Main Street West, Hamilton, ON, L8S 4L8, Canada.
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42
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Bulf H, Valenza E, Turati C. How a hat may affect 3-month-olds' recognition of a face: an eye-tracking study. PLoS One 2013; 8:e82839. [PMID: 24349378 PMCID: PMC3859627 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0082839] [Citation(s) in RCA: 5] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/26/2013] [Accepted: 10/28/2013] [Indexed: 11/18/2022] Open
Abstract
Recent studies have shown that infants' face recognition rests on a robust face representation that is resilient to a variety of facial transformations such as rotations in depth, motion, occlusion or deprivation of inner/outer features. Here, we investigated whether 3-month-old infants' ability to represent the invariant aspects of a face is affected by the presence of an external add-on element, i.e. a hat. Using a visual habituation task, three experiments were carried out in which face recognition was investigated by manipulating the presence/absence of a hat during face encoding (i.e. habituation phase) and face recognition (i.e. test phase). An eye-tracker system was used to record the time infants spent looking at face-relevant information compared to the hat. The results showed that infants' face recognition was not affected by the presence of the external element when the type of the hat did not vary between the habituation and test phases, and when both the novel and the familiar face wore the same hat during the test phase (Experiment 1). Infants' ability to recognize the invariant aspects of a face was preserved also when the hat was absent in the habituation phase and the same hat was shown only during the test phase (Experiment 2). Conversely, when the novel face identity competed with a novel hat, the hat triggered the infants' attention, interfering with the recognition process and preventing the infants' preference for the novel face during the test phase (Experiment 3). Findings from the current study shed light on how faces and objects are processed when they are simultaneously presented in the same visual scene, contributing to an understanding of how infants respond to the multiple and composite information available in their surrounding environment.
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Affiliation(s)
- Hermann Bulf
- Department of Psychology, University of Milano-Bicocca, Milano, Italy
| | - Eloisa Valenza
- Department of Developmental and Socialization Psychology, University of Padova, Padova, Italy
- Interdepartmental Center for Cognitive Science, University of Padova, Padova, Italy
| | - Chiara Turati
- Department of Psychology, University of Milano-Bicocca, Milano, Italy
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43
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Maurer D, Werker JF. Perceptual narrowing during infancy: A comparison of language and faces. Dev Psychobiol 2013; 56:154-78. [PMID: 24519366 DOI: 10.1002/dev.21177] [Citation(s) in RCA: 151] [Impact Index Per Article: 13.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/30/2013] [Accepted: 09/30/2013] [Indexed: 11/08/2022]
Affiliation(s)
- Daphne Maurer
- Department of Psychology; McMaster University; 1280 Main Street West Hamilton Ontario L8S 4K1 Canada
| | - Janet F. Werker
- Department of Psychology, University of British Columbia; 2136 West Mall Vancouver British Columbia V6T 1Z4 Canada
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Carbon CC, Grüter M, Grüter T. Age-dependent face detection and face categorization performance. PLoS One 2013; 8:e79164. [PMID: 24116236 PMCID: PMC3792936 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0079164] [Citation(s) in RCA: 16] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/04/2013] [Accepted: 09/19/2013] [Indexed: 11/20/2022] Open
Abstract
Empirical studies on the development of face processing skills with age show inconsistent patterns concerning qualitative vs. quantitative changes over time or the age range for peak cognitive performance. In the present study, we tested the proficiency in face detection and face categorization with a large sample of participants (N = 312; age range: 2-88 yrs). As test objects, we used so-called Mooney faces, two-tone (black and white) images of faces lacking critical information of a local, featural and relational nature, reflecting difficult real world face processing conditions. We found that performance in the assessment of gender and age from Mooney faces increases up to about age 15, and decreases from 65 years on. The implications of these findings are discussed in the light of classic and recent findings from face development literature.
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Affiliation(s)
- Claus-Christian Carbon
- University of Bamberg, Department of General Psychology and Methodology, Bamberg, Germany
- Graduate School of Affective and Cognitive Sciences, Bamberg, Germany
| | - Martina Grüter
- University of Bamberg, Department of General Psychology and Methodology, Bamberg, Germany
| | - Thomas Grüter
- University of Bamberg, Department of General Psychology and Methodology, Bamberg, Germany
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Weigelt S, Koldewyn K, Dilks DD, Balas B, McKone E, Kanwisher N. Domain-specific development of face memory but not face perception. Dev Sci 2013; 17:47-58. [DOI: 10.1111/desc.12089] [Citation(s) in RCA: 74] [Impact Index Per Article: 6.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/18/2012] [Accepted: 04/16/2013] [Indexed: 11/30/2022]
Affiliation(s)
- Sarah Weigelt
- Department of Brain and Cognitive Science; Massachusetts Institute of Technology; USA
- Department of Psychology; Ruhr-Universität Bochum; Germany
| | - Kami Koldewyn
- Department of Brain and Cognitive Science; Massachusetts Institute of Technology; USA
| | - Daniel D. Dilks
- Department of Brain and Cognitive Science; Massachusetts Institute of Technology; USA
| | - Benjamin Balas
- Department of Brain and Cognitive Science; Massachusetts Institute of Technology; USA
- Department of Psychology; North Dakota State University; USA
| | - Elinor McKone
- Department of Psychology; Australian National University; Australia
| | - Nancy Kanwisher
- Department of Brain and Cognitive Science; Massachusetts Institute of Technology; USA
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Durand K, Baudouin JY, Lewkowicz DJ, Goubet N, Schaal B. Eye-catching odors: olfaction elicits sustained gazing to faces and eyes in 4-month-old infants. PLoS One 2013; 8:e70677. [PMID: 24015175 PMCID: PMC3756010 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0070677] [Citation(s) in RCA: 34] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.1] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/05/2013] [Accepted: 06/21/2013] [Indexed: 12/01/2022] Open
Abstract
This study investigated whether an odor can affect infants' attention to visually presented objects and whether it can selectively direct visual gaze at visual targets as a function of their meaning. Four-month-old infants (n = 48) were exposed to their mother's body odors while their visual exploration was recorded with an eye-movement tracking system. Two groups of infants, who were assigned to either an odor condition or a control condition, looked at a scene composed of still pictures of faces and cars. As expected, infants looked longer at the faces than at the cars but this spontaneous preference for faces was significantly enhanced in presence of the odor. As expected also, when looking at the face, the infants looked longer at the eyes than at any other facial regions, but, again, they looked at the eyes significantly longer in the presence of the odor. Thus, 4-month-old infants are sensitive to the contextual effects of odors while looking at faces. This suggests that early social attention to faces is mediated by visual as well as non-visual cues.
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Affiliation(s)
- Karine Durand
- Developmental Ethology and Cognitive Psychology Group, Center for Smell, Taste and Food Science, Dijon, France
| | - Jean-Yves Baudouin
- Developmental Ethology and Cognitive Psychology Group, Center for Smell, Taste and Food Science, Dijon, France
- Institut Universitaire de France, Paris, France
| | - David J. Lewkowicz
- Department of Psychology, Florida Atlantic University, Boca Raton, Florida, United States of America
| | - Nathalie Goubet
- Department of Psychology, Gettysburg College, Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, United States of America
| | - Benoist Schaal
- Developmental Ethology and Cognitive Psychology Group, Center for Smell, Taste and Food Science, Dijon, France
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47
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Otsuka Y. Face recognition in infants: A review of behavioral and near-infrared spectroscopic studies. JAPANESE PSYCHOLOGICAL RESEARCH 2013. [DOI: 10.1111/jpr.12024] [Citation(s) in RCA: 32] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.9] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/30/2022]
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48
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de Heering A, Maurer D. Face memory deficits in patients deprived of early visual input by bilateral congenital cataracts. Dev Psychobiol 2012. [PMID: 23192566 DOI: 10.1002/dev.21094] [Citation(s) in RCA: 69] [Impact Index Per Article: 5.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/10/2022]
Affiliation(s)
- Adélaïde de Heering
- Visual Development Lab, Department of Psychology; Neuroscience & Behaviour, McMaster University; 1280 Main Street West Hamilton Ontario, Canada L8S4L8
| | - Daphne Maurer
- Visual Development Lab, Department of Psychology; Neuroscience & Behaviour, McMaster University; 1280 Main Street West Hamilton Ontario, Canada L8S4L8
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Abstract
Holistic integration of faces has been widely studied. More recently, investigations have explored whether similar processing is used for human bodies. Here we show that holistic processing, as measured by the composite task, does occur for bodies but is stronger for left and right halves than for top and bottom halves. We also found composite effects for left–right halves of inverted bodies. Standard composite effects were found for top halves of faces, tested as a control. We argue that our results suggest that holistic processing of faces and bodies might not exclusively occur for identification, but instead may also have evolved to aid communication and/or decisions about mate choice (through judging symmetry).
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Affiliation(s)
- Rachel A. Robbins
- Macquarie Centre for Cognitive Science, Macquarie University, Sydney, NSW, Australia
- School of Social Science and Psychology, University of Western Sydney, Sydney, NSW, Australia
| | - Max Coltheart
- Macquarie Centre for Cognitive Science, Macquarie University, Sydney, NSW, Australia
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50
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Di Giorgio E, Turati C, Altoè G, Simion F. Face detection in complex visual displays: An eye-tracking study with 3- and 6-month-old infants and adults. J Exp Child Psychol 2012; 113:66-77. [DOI: 10.1016/j.jecp.2012.04.012] [Citation(s) in RCA: 61] [Impact Index Per Article: 5.1] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/08/2011] [Revised: 04/26/2012] [Accepted: 04/30/2012] [Indexed: 11/25/2022]
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