1
|
Face distortions in prosopometamorphopsia provide new insights into the organization of face perception. Neuropsychologia 2023; 182:108517. [PMID: 36813107 DOI: 10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2023.108517] [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: 03/30/2022] [Revised: 10/08/2022] [Accepted: 02/13/2023] [Indexed: 02/22/2023]
Abstract
Prosopometamorphopsia (PMO) is a striking condition of visual perception in which facial features appear distorted, for example drooping, swelling, or twisting. Although numerous cases have been reported, few of those investigations have carried out formal testing motivated by theories of face perception. However, because PMO involves conscious visual distortions to faces which participants can report, it can be used to probe fundamental questions about face representations. Here we review cases of PMO that address theoretical questions in visual neuroscience including face specificity, inverted face processing, the importance of the vertical midline, dissociable representations for each half of the face, hemispheric specialization, the relationship between face recognition and conscious face perception, and the reference frames that face representations are embedded within. Finally, we list and touch upon eighteen open questions that make clear how much is left to learn about PMO and the potential it has to provide important advances in face perception.
Collapse
|
2
|
Ionta S. Visual Neuropsychology in Development: Anatomo-Functional Brain Mechanisms of Action/Perception Binding in Health and Disease. Front Hum Neurosci 2021; 15:689912. [PMID: 34135745 PMCID: PMC8203289 DOI: 10.3389/fnhum.2021.689912] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/01/2021] [Accepted: 05/06/2021] [Indexed: 12/16/2022] Open
Abstract
Vision is the main entrance for environmental input to the human brain. Even if vision is our most used sensory modality, its importance is not limited to environmental exploration. Rather it has strong links to motor competences, further extending to cognitive and social aspects of human life. These multifaceted relationships are particularly important in developmental age and become dramatically evident in presence of complex deficits originating from visual aberrancies. The present review summarizes the available neuropsychological evidence on the development of visual competences, with a particular focus on the associated visuo-motor integration skills in health and disease. With the aim of supporting future research and interventional settings, the goal of the present review is to constitute a solid base to help the translation of neuropsychological hypotheses into straightforward empirical investigations and rehabilitation/training protocols. This approach will further increase the impact, ameliorate the acceptance, and ease the use and implementation of lab-derived intervention protocols in real-life situations.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- Silvio Ionta
- Sensory-Motor Lab (SeMoLa), Department of Ophthalmology-University of Lausanne, Jules Gonin Eye Hospital-Fondation Asile des Aveugles, Lausanne, Switzerland
| |
Collapse
|
3
|
Blom JD, Ter Meulen BC, Dool J, Ffytche DH. A century of prosopometamorphopsia studies. Cortex 2021; 139:298-308. [PMID: 33865569 DOI: 10.1016/j.cortex.2021.03.001] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/14/2020] [Revised: 01/17/2021] [Accepted: 03/04/2021] [Indexed: 01/19/2023]
Abstract
Prosopometamorphopsia is an extremely rare disorder of visual perception characterised by facial distortions. We here review 81 cases (eight new ones and 73 cases published over the past century) to shed light on the perception of face gestalts. Our analysis indicates that the brain systems underlying the perception of face gestalts have genuine network properties, in the sense that they are widely disseminated and built such that spatially normal perception of faces can be maintained even when large parts of the network are compromised. We found that bilateral facial distortions were primarily associated with right-sided and bilateral occipital lesions, and unilateral facial distortions with lesions ipsilateral to the distorted hemifield and with the splenium of the corpus callosum. We also found tentative evidence for the involvement of the left frontal regions in the fusing of vertical hemi-images of faces, and of right parietal regions in the fusing of horizontal hemi-images. Evidence supporting the remarkable adaptability of the network comes from the relatively high recovery rates that we found, from the ipsilateral hemifield predominance of hemi-prosopometamorphopsia, and from a phenomenon called cerebral asthenopia (heightened visual fatigability) which points to the dynamic nature of compensatory mechanisms maintaining normal face perception, even in chronic cases of prosopometamorphopsia. Finally, our analysis suggests that specialised networks for the representation of face gestalts in familiar-versus-unfamiliar faces and for own-versus-other face may be present, although this is in need of further study.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- Jan Dirk Blom
- Parnassia Psychiatric Institute, The Hague, the Netherlands; Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences, Leiden University, Leiden, the Netherlands; Department of Psychiatry, University of Groningen, Groningen, the Netherlands.
| | | | - Jitze Dool
- Department of Neurology, Onze Lieve Vrouwe Gasthuis, Amsterdam, the Netherlands.
| | - Dominic H Ffytche
- Department of Old Age Psychiatry, Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience, Camberwell, London, UK.
| |
Collapse
|
4
|
Nestor A, Lee ACH, Plaut DC, Behrmann M. The Face of Image Reconstruction: Progress, Pitfalls, Prospects. Trends Cogn Sci 2020; 24:747-759. [PMID: 32674958 PMCID: PMC7429291 DOI: 10.1016/j.tics.2020.06.006] [Citation(s) in RCA: 7] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/28/2020] [Revised: 05/27/2020] [Accepted: 06/15/2020] [Indexed: 10/23/2022]
Abstract
Recent research has demonstrated that neural and behavioral data acquired in response to viewing face images can be used to reconstruct the images themselves. However, the theoretical implications, promises, and challenges of this direction of research remain unclear. We evaluate the potential of this research for elucidating the visual representations underlying face recognition. Specifically, we outline complementary and converging accounts of the visual content, the representational structure, and the neural dynamics of face processing. We illustrate how this research addresses fundamental questions in the study of normal and impaired face recognition, and how image reconstruction provides a powerful framework for uncovering face representations, for unifying multiple types of empirical data, and for facilitating both theoretical and methodological progress.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- Adrian Nestor
- Department of Psychology at Scarborough, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
| | - Andy C H Lee
- Department of Psychology at Scarborough, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada; Rotman Research Institute, Baycrest Centre, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
| | - David C Plaut
- Department of Psychology, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA, USA; Carnegie Mellon Neuroscience Institute, Pittsburgh, PA, USA
| | - Marlene Behrmann
- Department of Psychology, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA, USA; Carnegie Mellon Neuroscience Institute, Pittsburgh, PA, USA
| |
Collapse
|
5
|
Lack of awareness despite complex visual processing: Evidence from event-related potentials in a case of selective metamorphopsia. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 2020; 117:16055-16064. [PMID: 32571942 DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2000424117] [Citation(s) in RCA: 6] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 12/31/2022] Open
Abstract
Visual awareness is thought to result from integration of low- and high-level processing; instances of integration failure provide a crucial window into the cognitive and neural bases of awareness. We present neurophysiological evidence of complex cognitive processing in the absence of awareness, raising questions about the conditions necessary for visual awareness. We describe an individual with a neurodegenerative disease who exhibits impaired visual awareness for the digits 2 to 9, and stimuli presented in close proximity to these digits, due to perceptual distortion. We identified robust event-related potential responses indicating 1) face detection with the N170 component and 2) task-dependent target-word detection with the P3b component, despite no awareness of the presence of faces or target words. These data force us to reconsider the relationship between neural processing and visual awareness; even stimuli processed by a workspace-like cognitive system can remain inaccessible to awareness. We discuss how this finding challenges and constrains theories of visual awareness.
Collapse
|
6
|
Affiliation(s)
- Adrian Nestor
- a Department of Psychology , University of Toronto at Scarborough , Toronto , ON , Canada
| |
Collapse
|
7
|
Barghouthi T, El Husseini N. Prosopometamorphopsia secondary to a left splenium of the corpus callosum infarct. BMJ Case Rep 2018; 2018:bcr-2018-224735. [PMID: 29764831 DOI: 10.1136/bcr-2018-224735] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/03/2022] Open
Affiliation(s)
- Tamara Barghouthi
- Neurology, Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center, Winston-Salem, North Carolina, USA
| | - Nada El Husseini
- Neurology, Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center, Winston-Salem, North Carolina, USA
| |
Collapse
|
8
|
Jung BK, Kim KH, Lee HC, Lee JT, Hwang YH, Kim YW. Prosopometamorphopsia in Acute Ischemic Stroke. ACTA ACUST UNITED AC 2018. [DOI: 10.17340/jkna.2018.1.9] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/06/2022]
|
9
|
Guntupalli JS, Wheeler KG, Gobbini MI. Disentangling the Representation of Identity from Head View Along the Human Face Processing Pathway. Cereb Cortex 2018; 27:46-53. [PMID: 28051770 PMCID: PMC5939212 DOI: 10.1093/cercor/bhw344] [Citation(s) in RCA: 62] [Impact Index Per Article: 10.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/27/2016] [Accepted: 10/19/2016] [Indexed: 11/20/2022] Open
Abstract
Neural models of a distributed system for face perception implicate a network of regions in the ventral visual stream for recognition of identity. Here, we report a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) neural decoding study in humans that shows that this pathway culminates in the right inferior frontal cortex face area (rIFFA) with a representation of individual identities that has been disentangled from variable visual features in different images of the same person. At earlier stages in the pathway, processing begins in early visual cortex and the occipital face area with representations of head view that are invariant across identities, and proceeds to an intermediate level of representation in the fusiform face area in which identity is emerging but still entangled with head view. Three-dimensional, view-invariant representation of identities in the rIFFA may be the critical link to the extended system for face perception, affording activation of person knowledge and emotional responses to familiar faces.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- J Swaroop Guntupalli
- Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH 03755, USA.,Center for Cognitive Neuroscience, Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH, USA
| | - Kelsey G Wheeler
- Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH 03755, USA.,Center for Cognitive Neuroscience, Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH, USA
| | - M Ida Gobbini
- Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH 03755, USA.,Center for Cognitive Neuroscience, Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH, USA.,Department of Specialized, Diagnostic, and Experimental Medicine (DIMES), Medical School, University of Bologna, Bologna 40127, Italy
| |
Collapse
|
10
|
Impairments in the Face-Processing Network in Developmental Prosopagnosia and Semantic Dementia. Cogn Behav Neurol 2016; 28:188-97. [PMID: 26705265 DOI: 10.1097/wnn.0000000000000077] [Citation(s) in RCA: 9] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.1] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/26/2022]
Abstract
BACKGROUND Developmental prosopagnosia (DP) and semantic dementia (SD) may be the two most common neurologic disorders of face processing, but their main clinical and pathophysiologic differences have not been established. To identify those features, we compared patients with DP and SD. METHODS Five patients with DP, five with right temporal-predominant SD, and ten normal controls underwent cognitive, visual perceptual, and face-processing tasks. RESULTS Although the patients with SD were more cognitively impaired than those with DP, the two groups did not differ statistically on the visual perceptual tests. On the face-processing tasks, the DP group had difficulty with configural analysis and they reported relying on serial, feature-by-feature analysis or awareness of salient features to recognize faces. By contrast, the SD group had problems with person knowledge and made semantically related errors. The SD group had better face familiarity scores, suggesting a potentially useful clinical test for distinguishing SD from DP. CONCLUSIONS These two disorders of face processing represent clinically distinguishable disturbances along a right hemisphere face-processing network: DP, characterized by early configural agnosia for faces, and SD, characterized primarily by a multimodal person knowledge disorder. We discuss these preliminary findings in the context of the current literature on the face-processing network; recent studies suggest an additional right anterior temporal, unimodal face familiarity-memory deficit consistent with an "associative prosopagnosia."
Collapse
|
11
|
Axelrod V. On the domain-specificity of the visual and non-visual face-selective regions. Eur J Neurosci 2016; 44:2049-63. [PMID: 27255921 DOI: 10.1111/ejn.13290] [Citation(s) in RCA: 5] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.6] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/15/2015] [Revised: 05/21/2016] [Accepted: 05/24/2016] [Indexed: 11/27/2022]
Abstract
What happens in our brains when we see a face? The neural mechanisms of face processing - namely, the face-selective regions - have been extensively explored. Research has traditionally focused on visual cortex face-regions; more recently, the role of face-regions outside the visual cortex (i.e., non-visual-cortex face-regions) has been acknowledged as well. The major quest today is to reveal the functional role of each this region in face processing. To make progress in this direction, it is essential to understand the extent to which the face-regions, and particularly the non-visual-cortex face-regions, process only faces (i.e., face-specific, domain-specific processing) or rather are involved in a more domain-general cognitive processing. In the current functional MRI study, we systematically examined the activity of the whole face-network during face-unrelated reading task (i.e., written meaningful sentences with content unrelated to faces/people and non-words). We found that the non-visual-cortex (i.e., right lateral prefrontal cortex and posterior superior temporal sulcus), but not the visual cortex face-regions, responded significantly stronger to sentences than to non-words. In general, some degree of sentence selectivity was found in all non-visual-cortex cortex. Present result highlights the possibility that the processing in the non-visual-cortex face-selective regions might not be exclusively face-specific, but rather more or even fully domain-general. In this paper, we illustrate how the knowledge about domain-general processing in face-regions can help to advance our general understanding of face processing mechanisms. Our results therefore suggest that the problem of face processing should be approached in the broader scope of cognition in general.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- Vadim Axelrod
- UCL Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, University College London, London, UK.,The Gonda Multidisciplinary Brain Research Center, Bar Ilan University, Ramat Gan, 52900, Israel
| |
Collapse
|
12
|
Kim R, Jun JS, Baek SH, Yun CH, Park SH. Postictal Prosopometamorphopsia after Focal Status Epilepticus due to Cavernous Hemangioma in the Right Occipital Lobe. J Clin Neurol 2016; 12:371-2. [PMID: 27095527 PMCID: PMC4960224 DOI: 10.3988/jcn.2016.12.3.371] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/07/2015] [Revised: 12/02/2015] [Accepted: 12/03/2015] [Indexed: 11/17/2022] Open
Affiliation(s)
- Ryul Kim
- Department of Neurology, Seoul National University College of Medicine, Seoul National University Hospital, Seoul, Korea
| | - Jin-Sun Jun
- Department of Neurology, Seoul National University College of Medicine, Seoul National University Hospital, Seoul, Korea
| | - Shin-Hye Baek
- Department of Neurology, Seoul National University College of Medicine, Seoul National University Bundang Hospital, Seongnam, Korea
| | - Chang-Ho Yun
- Department of Neurology, Seoul National University College of Medicine, Seoul National University Bundang Hospital, Seongnam, Korea
| | - Seong-Ho Park
- Department of Neurology, Seoul National University College of Medicine, Seoul National University Bundang Hospital, Seongnam, Korea
| |
Collapse
|
13
|
Splenial Corpus Callosum Infarction Presenting with Unilateral Prosopometamorphopsia: A Case Report. Dement Neurocogn Disord 2015. [DOI: 10.12779/dnd.2015.14.2.94] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/27/2022] Open
|
14
|
Prochnow D, Brunheim S, Kossack H, Eickhoff SB, Markowitsch HJ, Seitz RJ. Anterior and posterior subareas of the dorsolateral frontal cortex in socially relevant decisions based on masked affect expressions. F1000Res 2014; 3:212. [PMID: 26236464 PMCID: PMC4516020 DOI: 10.12688/f1000research.4734.1] [Citation(s) in RCA: 6] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.6] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Submit a Manuscript] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Accepted: 07/01/2015] [Indexed: 08/22/2023] Open
Abstract
Socially-relevant decisions are based on clearly recognizable but also not consciously accessible affective stimuli. We studied the role of the dorsolateral frontal cortex (DLFC) in decision-making on masked affect expressions using functional magnetic resonance imaging. Our paradigm permitted us to capture brain activity during a pre-decision phase when the subjects viewed emotional expressions below the threshold of subjective awareness, and during the decision phase, which was based on verbal descriptions as the choice criterion. Using meta-analytic connectivity modeling, we found that the preparatory phase of the decision was associated with activity in a right-posterior portion of the DLFC featuring co-activations in the left-inferior frontal cortex. During the subsequent decision a right-anterior and more dorsal portion of the DLFC became activated, exhibiting a different co-activation pattern. These results provide evidence for partially independent sub-regions within the DLFC, supporting the notion of dual associative processes in intuitive judgments.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- Denise Prochnow
- Department of Neurology, Heinrich-Heine University Düsseldorf, Düsseldorf, D-40225, Germany
| | - Sascha Brunheim
- Department of Neurology, Heinrich-Heine University Düsseldorf, Düsseldorf, D-40225, Germany
| | - Hannes Kossack
- Department of Neurology, Heinrich-Heine University Düsseldorf, Düsseldorf, D-40225, Germany
| | - Simon B. Eickhoff
- Institute for Clinical Neuroscience and Medical Psychology, University of Düsseldorf, Düsseldorf, D-40225, Germany
| | | | - Rüdiger J. Seitz
- Department of Neurology, Heinrich-Heine University Düsseldorf, Düsseldorf, D-40225, Germany
| |
Collapse
|
15
|
Prochnow D, Brunheim S, Kossack H, Eickhoff SB, Markowitsch HJ, Seitz RJ. Anterior and posterior subareas of the dorsolateral frontal cortex in socially relevant decisions based on masked affect expressions. F1000Res 2014; 3:212. [PMID: 26236464 PMCID: PMC4516020 DOI: 10.12688/f1000research.4734.3] [Citation(s) in RCA: 5] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Submit a Manuscript] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Accepted: 07/01/2015] [Indexed: 12/24/2022] Open
Abstract
Socially-relevant decisions are based on clearly recognizable but also not consciously accessible affective stimuli. We studied the role of the dorsolateral frontal cortex (DLFC) in decision-making on masked affect expressions using functional magnetic resonance imaging. Our paradigm permitted us to capture brain activity during a pre-decision phase when the subjects viewed emotional expressions below the threshold of subjective awareness, and during the decision phase, which was based on verbal descriptions as the choice criterion. Using meta-analytic connectivity modeling, we found that the preparatory phase of the decision was associated with activity in a right-posterior portion of the DLFC featuring co-activations in the left-inferior frontal cortex. During the subsequent decision a right-anterior and more dorsal portion of the DLFC became activated, exhibiting a different co-activation pattern. These results provide evidence for partially independent sub-regions within the DLFC, supporting the notion of dual associative processes in intuitive judgments.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- Denise Prochnow
- Department of Neurology, Heinrich-Heine University Düsseldorf, Düsseldorf, D-40225, Germany
| | - Sascha Brunheim
- Department of Neurology, Heinrich-Heine University Düsseldorf, Düsseldorf, D-40225, Germany
| | - Hannes Kossack
- Department of Neurology, Heinrich-Heine University Düsseldorf, Düsseldorf, D-40225, Germany
| | - Simon B Eickhoff
- Institute for Clinical Neuroscience and Medical Psychology, University of Düsseldorf, Düsseldorf, D-40225, Germany
| | - Hans J Markowitsch
- Department of Psychology, Bielefeld University, Bielefeld, D-33615, Germany
| | - Rüdiger J Seitz
- Department of Neurology, Heinrich-Heine University Düsseldorf, Düsseldorf, D-40225, Germany
| |
Collapse
|