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Zhao B, Liu Y, Wang Z, Zhang Q, Bai X. Long-Term Bridge Training Induces Functional Plasticity Changes in the Brain of Early-Adult Individuals. Behav Sci (Basel) 2024; 14:469. [PMID: 38920802 PMCID: PMC11200855 DOI: 10.3390/bs14060469] [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: 04/11/2024] [Revised: 05/17/2024] [Accepted: 05/29/2024] [Indexed: 06/27/2024] Open
Abstract
The aim of this study was to investigate the impact of extended bridge expertise on rapid perceptual processing and brain functional plasticity in early adulthood, utilizing functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). In this investigation, we compared 6 high-level college bridge players with 25 college students lacking bridge experience, assessing their intelligence and working memory. Additionally, we scrutinized behavioral performance and whole-brain activation patterns during an image perceptual judgment task. Findings indicated significant group and interaction effects at the behavioral level. Bridge players exhibited prolonged reaction times and enhanced accuracy on card tasks. At the neural level, the activation level of bridge players in the occipital lobe exceeded that of ordinary college students, with more pronounced group effects in the motor area and inferior parietal lobule during card tasks. This implies that bridge expertise in early adulthood induces functional plasticity changes in regions associated with visual processing and automated mathematical computation.
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Affiliation(s)
- Bingjie Zhao
- Key Research Base of Humanities and Social Sciences of the Ministry of Education, Academy of Psychology and Behavior, Tianjin Normal University, Tianjin 300387, China
- Faculty of Psychology, Tianjin Normal University, Tianjin 300387, China
| | - Yan Liu
- Institute of Sports Science, Tianjin Normal University, Tianjin 300387, China
| | - Zheng Wang
- Inner Mongolia Mental Health Center, Brain Hospital of Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, Hohhot 010000, China
- School of Psychology, Inner Mongolia Normal University, Hohhot 010000, China
| | - Qihan Zhang
- Key Research Base of Humanities and Social Sciences of the Ministry of Education, Academy of Psychology and Behavior, Tianjin Normal University, Tianjin 300387, China
- Faculty of Psychology, Tianjin Normal University, Tianjin 300387, China
| | - Xuejun Bai
- Key Research Base of Humanities and Social Sciences of the Ministry of Education, Academy of Psychology and Behavior, Tianjin Normal University, Tianjin 300387, China
- Faculty of Psychology, Tianjin Normal University, Tianjin 300387, China
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McGugin RW, Sunday MA, Gauthier I. The neural correlates of domain-general visual ability. Cereb Cortex 2023; 33:4280-4292. [PMID: 36045003 DOI: 10.1093/cercor/bhac342] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 4.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/06/2022] [Revised: 08/01/2022] [Accepted: 08/02/2022] [Indexed: 11/12/2022] Open
Abstract
People vary in their general ability to compare, identify, and remember objects. Research using latent variable modeling identifies a domain-general visual recognition ability (called o) that reflects correlations among different visual tasks and categories. We measure associations between a psychometrically-sensitive measure of o and a neurometrically-sensitive measure of visual sensitivity to shape. We report evidence for distributed neural correlates of o using functional and anatomical regions-of-interest (ROIs) as well as whole brain analyses. Neural selectivity to shape is associated with o in several regions of the ventral pathway, as well as additional foci in parietal and premotor cortex. Multivariate analyses suggest the distributed effects in ventral cortex reflect a common mechanism. The network of brain areas where neural selectivity predicts o is similar to that evoked by the most informative features for object recognition in prior work, showing convergence of 2 different approaches on identifying areas that support the best object recognition performance. Because o predicts performance across many visual tasks for both novel and familiar objects, we propose that o could predict the magnitude of neural changes in task-relevant areas following experience with specific task and object category.
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Affiliation(s)
- Rankin W McGugin
- Department of Psychology, Vanderbilt University, 301 Wilson Hall, Nashville, TN 37240, United States
| | - Mackenzie A Sunday
- Department of Psychology, Vanderbilt University, 301 Wilson Hall, Nashville, TN 37240, United States
| | - Isabel Gauthier
- Department of Psychology, Vanderbilt University, 301 Wilson Hall, Nashville, TN 37240, United States
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3
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O’Hearn K, Lynn A. Age differences and brain maturation provide insight into heterogeneous results in autism spectrum disorder. Front Hum Neurosci 2023; 16:957375. [PMID: 36819297 PMCID: PMC9934814 DOI: 10.3389/fnhum.2022.957375] [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: 05/31/2022] [Accepted: 11/07/2022] [Indexed: 02/05/2023] Open
Abstract
Studies comparing individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) to typically developing (TD) individuals have yielded inconsistent results. These inconsistencies reflect, in part, atypical trajectories of development in children and young adults with ASD compared to TD peers. These different trajectories alter group differences between children with and without ASD as they age. This paper first summarizes the disparate trajectories evident in our studies and, upon further investigation, laboratories using the same recruiting source. These studies indicated that cognition improves into adulthood typically, and is associated with the maturation of striatal, frontal, and temporal lobes, but these age-related improvements did not emerge in the young adults with ASD. This pattern - of improvement into adulthood in the TD group but not in the group with ASD - occurred in both social and non-social tasks. However, the difference between TD and ASD trajectories was most robust on a social task, face recognition. While tempting to ascribe this uneven deficit to the social differences in ASD, it may also reflect the prolonged typical development of social cognitive tasks such as face recognition into adulthood. This paper then reviews the evidence on age-related and developmental changes from other studies on ASD. The broader literature also suggests that individuals with ASD do not exhibit the typical improvements during adolescence on skills important for navigating the transition to adulthood. These skills include execution function, social cognition and communication, and emotional recognition and self-awareness. Relatedly, neuroimaging studies indicate arrested or atypical brain maturation in striatal, frontal, and temporal regions during adolescence in ASD. This review not only highlights the importance of a developmental framework and explicit consideration of age and/or stage when studying ASD, but also the potential importance of adolescence on outcomes in ASD.
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Affiliation(s)
- Kirsten O’Hearn
- Department of Physiology and Pharmacology, Atrium Health Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center, Winston-Salem, NC, United States,*Correspondence: Kirsten O’Hearn,
| | - Andrew Lynn
- Department of Special Education, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN, United States
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Kanwisher N, Gupta P, Dobs K. CNNs reveal the computational implausibility of the expertise hypothesis. iScience 2023; 26:105976. [PMID: 36794151 PMCID: PMC9923184 DOI: 10.1016/j.isci.2023.105976] [Citation(s) in RCA: 5] [Impact Index Per Article: 5.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/13/2022] [Revised: 11/07/2022] [Accepted: 01/11/2023] [Indexed: 01/15/2023] Open
Abstract
Face perception has long served as a classic example of domain specificity of mind and brain. But an alternative "expertise" hypothesis holds that putatively face-specific mechanisms are actually domain-general, and can be recruited for the perception of other objects of expertise (e.g., cars for car experts). Here, we demonstrate the computational implausibility of this hypothesis: Neural network models optimized for generic object categorization provide a better foundation for expert fine-grained discrimination than do models optimized for face recognition.
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Affiliation(s)
- Nancy Kanwisher
- Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA,McGovern Institute for Brain Research, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA
| | - Pranjul Gupta
- Department of Psychology, Justus-Liebig University Giessen, 35394 Giessen, Germany
| | - Katharina Dobs
- Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA,McGovern Institute for Brain Research, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA,Department of Psychology, Justus-Liebig University Giessen, 35394 Giessen, Germany,Center for Mind, Brain and Behavior (CMBB), University of Marburg and Justus-Liebig University, 35032 Marburg, Germany,Corresponding author
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5
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Li CH, Wang MY, Kuo BC. The effects of stimulus inversion on the neural representations of Chinese character and face recognition. Neuropsychologia 2022; 164:108090. [PMID: 34801520 DOI: 10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2021.108090] [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: 07/10/2020] [Revised: 11/02/2021] [Accepted: 11/16/2021] [Indexed: 10/19/2022]
Abstract
This study investigates whether stimulus inversion influences neural responses of Chinese character recognition similarly to its effect on face recognition in category-selective and object-related brain areas using functional magnetic resonance imaging. Participants performed a one-back matching task for simple (one radical) and compound (two radicals) Chinese characters and faces with upright and inverted orientations. Inverted stimuli produced slower response times with stronger activity within the fusiform gyrus (FG) than upright stimuli for faces and Chinese characters. While common inversion-related activation was identified in the left FG among stimulus types, we observed a significant inter-regional correlation between the left FG and the intraparietal sulcus for face inversion. Importantly, analyses of region-of-interest (ROI) multivariate pattern classification showed that classifiers trained on face inversion can decode the representations of character inversion in the character-selective ROI. However, this was not true for face inversion in face-selective ROIs when the classifiers were trained on characters. Similar activity patterns for character and face inversion were observed in the object-related ROIs. We also showed higher decoding accuracy for upright stimuli in the face-selective ROI than in the character-selective ROI but this was not true for inverted ones or when patterns were examined in the object-related ROIs. Together, our results support shared and distinct configural representations for character and face recognition in category-selective and object-related brain areas.
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Affiliation(s)
- Chun-Hui Li
- Department of Psychology, National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan
| | - Man-Ying Wang
- Department of Psychology, Soochow University, Taipei, Taiwan
| | - Bo-Cheng Kuo
- Department of Psychology, National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan.
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Chen C, Lou Y, Li H, Yuan J, Yang J, Winskel H, Qin S. Distinct neural-behavioral correspondence within face processing and attention networks for the composite face effect. Neuroimage 2021; 246:118756. [PMID: 34848297 DOI: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2021.118756] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/11/2021] [Revised: 11/14/2021] [Accepted: 11/22/2021] [Indexed: 11/29/2022] Open
Abstract
The composite face effect (CFE) is recognized as a hallmark for holistic face processing, but our knowledge remains sparse about its cognitive and neural loci. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging with independent localizer and complete composite face task, we here investigated its neural-behavioral correspondence within face processing and attention networks. Complementing classical comparisons, we adopted a dimensional reduction approach to explore the core cognitive constructs of the behavioral CFE measurement. Our univariate analyses found an alignment effect in regions associated with both the extended face processing network and attention networks. Further representational similarity analyses based on the Euclidian distances among all experimental conditions were used to identify cortical regions with reliable neural-behavioral correspondences. Multidimensional scaling and hierarchical clustering analyses for neural-behavioral correspondence data revealed two principal components underlying the behavioral CFE effect, which fit best to the neural responses in the bilateral insula and medial frontal gyrus. These findings highlight the distinct neurocognitive contributions of both face processing and attentional networks to the behavioral CFE outcome, which bridge the gaps between face recognition and attentional control models.
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Affiliation(s)
- Changming Chen
- School of Education, Chongqing Normal University, Chongqing 401331, China
| | - Yixue Lou
- Department of Psychology, Faculty of Education and Psychology, University of Jyvaskyla, Jyväskylä 40014, Finland; Faculty of Psychology, Southwest University, Chongqing 400715, China
| | - Hong Li
- School of Psychology, South China Normal University, Guangzhou 510631, China; Institute of Brain and Psychological Sciences, Sichuan Normal University, Chengdu 610066, China.
| | - Jiajin Yuan
- Institute of Brain and Psychological Sciences, Sichuan Normal University, Chengdu 610066, China.
| | - Jiemin Yang
- Institute of Brain and Psychological Sciences, Sichuan Normal University, Chengdu 610066, China
| | - Heather Winskel
- Psychology, James Cook University, Singapore Campus, 387380, Singapore
| | - Shaozheng Qin
- State Key Laboratory of Cognitive Neuroscience and Learning and IDG/McGovern Institute for Brain Research, Beijing Normal University, Beijing 100875, China; Chinese Institute for Brain Research, Beijing, China
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Kok EM, Sorger B, van Geel K, Gegenfurtner A, van Merriënboer JJG, Robben SGF, de Bruin ABH. Holistic processing only? The role of the right fusiform face area in radiological expertise. PLoS One 2021; 16:e0256849. [PMID: 34469467 PMCID: PMC8409609 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0256849] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/27/2020] [Accepted: 08/18/2021] [Indexed: 11/18/2022] Open
Abstract
Radiologists can visually detect abnormalities on radiographs within 2s, a process that resembles holistic visual processing of faces. Interestingly, there is empirical evidence using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) for the involvement of the right fusiform face area (FFA) in visual-expertise tasks such as radiological image interpretation. The speed by which stimuli (e.g., faces, abnormalities) are recognized is an important characteristic of holistic processing. However, evidence for the involvement of the right FFA in holistic processing in radiology comes mostly from short or artificial tasks in which the quick, ‘holistic’ mode of diagnostic processing is not contrasted with the slower ‘search-to-find’ mode. In our fMRI study, we hypothesized that the right FFA responds selectively to the ‘holistic’ mode of diagnostic processing and less so to the ‘search-to-find’ mode. Eleven laypeople and 17 radiologists in training diagnosed 66 radiographs in 2s each (holistic mode) and subsequently checked their diagnosis in an extended (10-s) period (search-to-find mode). During data analysis, we first identified individual regions of interest (ROIs) for the right FFA using a localizer task. Then we employed ROI-based ANOVAs and obtained tentative support for the hypothesis that the right FFA shows more activation for radiologists in training versus laypeople, in particular in the holistic mode (i.e., during 2s trials), and less so in the search-to-find mode (i.e., during 10-s trials). No significant correlation was found between diagnostic performance (diagnostic accuracy) and brain-activation level within the right FFA for both, short-presentation and long-presentation diagnostic trials. Our results provide tentative evidence from a diagnostic-reasoning task that the FFA supports the holistic processing of visual stimuli in participants’ expertise domain.
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Affiliation(s)
- Ellen M. Kok
- School of Health Professions Education, Maastricht University, Maastricht, The Netherlands
- Department of Education, Utrecht University, Utrecht, The Netherlands
- * E-mail:
| | - Bettina Sorger
- Department of Cognitive Neuroscience, Maastricht University, Maastricht, The Netherlands
| | - Koos van Geel
- School of Health Professions Education, Maastricht University, Maastricht, The Netherlands
| | - Andreas Gegenfurtner
- School of Health Professions Education, Maastricht University, Maastricht, The Netherlands
- Department of Methods in Learning Research, University of Augsburg, Augsburg, Germany
| | | | - Simon G. F. Robben
- School of Health Professions Education, Maastricht University, Maastricht, The Netherlands
- Department of Radiology, Maastricht University Medical Center, Maastricht, The Netherlands
| | - Anique B. H. de Bruin
- School of Health Professions Education, Maastricht University, Maastricht, The Netherlands
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Foster C, Bülthoff I, Bartels A, Zhao M. Investigating holistic face processing within and outside of face-responsive brain regions. Neuroimage 2020; 226:117565. [PMID: 33221444 DOI: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2020.117565] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/26/2020] [Revised: 09/18/2020] [Accepted: 11/10/2020] [Indexed: 10/23/2022] Open
Abstract
It has been shown that human faces are processed holistically (i.e. as indecomposable wholes, rather than by their component parts) and this holistic face processing is linked to brain activity in face-responsive brain regions. Although several brain regions outside of the face-responsive network are also sensitive to relational processing and perceptual grouping, whether these non-face-responsive regions contribute to holistic processing remains unclear. Here, we investigated holistic face processing in the composite face paradigm both within and outside of face-responsive brain regions. We recorded participants' brain activity using fMRI while they performed a composite face task. Behavioural results indicate that participants tend to judge the same top face halves as different when they are aligned with different bottom face halves but not when they are misaligned, demonstrating a composite face effect. Neuroimaging results revealed significant differences in responses to aligned and misaligned faces in the lateral occipital complex (LOC), and trends in the anterior part of the fusiform face area (FFA2) and transverse occipital sulcus (TOS), suggesting that these regions are sensitive to holistic versus part-based face processing. Furthermore, the retrosplenial cortex (RSC) and the parahippocampal place area (PPA) showed a pattern of neural activity consistent with a holistic representation of face identity, which also correlated with the strength of the behavioural composite face effect. These results suggest that neural activity in brain regions both within and outside of the face-responsive network contributes to the composite-face effect.
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Affiliation(s)
- Celia Foster
- Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics, Tübingen, Germany; International Max Planck Research School for Cognitive and Systems Neuroscience, University of Tübingen, Tübingen, Germany.
| | | | - Andreas Bartels
- Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics, Tübingen, Germany; Centre for Integrative Neuroscience, Tübingen, Germany; Department of Psychology, University of Tübingen, Tübingen, Germany; Bernstein Center for Computational Neuroscience, Tübingen, Germany
| | - Mintao Zhao
- Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics, Tübingen, Germany; School of Psychology, University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK.
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Maimon-Mor RO, Makin TR. Is an artificial limb embodied as a hand? Brain decoding in prosthetic limb users. PLoS Biol 2020; 18:e3000729. [PMID: 32511238 PMCID: PMC7302856 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pbio.3000729] [Citation(s) in RCA: 25] [Impact Index Per Article: 6.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/08/2019] [Revised: 06/18/2020] [Accepted: 05/20/2020] [Indexed: 02/07/2023] Open
Abstract
The potential ability of the human brain to represent an artificial limb as a body part (embodiment) has been inspiring engineers, clinicians, and scientists as a means to optimise human-machine interfaces. Using functional MRI (fMRI), we studied whether neural embodiment actually occurs in prosthesis users' occipitotemporal cortex (OTC). Compared with controls, different prostheses types were visually represented more similarly to each other, relative to hands and tools, indicating the emergence of a dissociated prosthesis categorisation. Greater daily life prosthesis usage correlated positively with greater prosthesis categorisation. Moreover, when comparing prosthesis users' representation of their own prosthesis to controls' representation of a similar looking prosthesis, prosthesis users represented their own prosthesis more dissimilarly to hands, challenging current views of visual prosthesis embodiment. Our results reveal a use-dependent neural correlate for wearable technology adoption, demonstrating adaptive use-related plasticity within the OTC. Because these neural correlates were independent of the prostheses' appearance and control, our findings offer new opportunities for prosthesis design by lifting restrictions imposed by the embodiment theory for artificial limbs.
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Affiliation(s)
- Roni O. Maimon-Mor
- Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, University College London, London, United Kingdom
- WIN Centre, Nuffield Department of Clinical Neuroscience, University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom
| | - Tamar R. Makin
- Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, University College London, London, United Kingdom
- WIN Centre, Nuffield Department of Clinical Neuroscience, University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom
- Wellcome Centre for Human Neuroimaging, University College London, London, United Kingdom
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Representational similarity analysis reveals atypical age-related changes in brain regions supporting face and car recognition in autism. Neuroimage 2020; 209:116322. [PMID: 31786166 DOI: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2019.116322] [Citation(s) in RCA: 11] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/04/2019] [Revised: 10/25/2019] [Accepted: 10/29/2019] [Indexed: 11/21/2022] Open
Abstract
BACKGROUND Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is associated with atypical activation in the ventral stream during face processing. The current study further characterizes the development of face processing in ASD using a multivoxel pattern analysis, which assesses the similarity in the representation of exemplars from the same category. METHODS Ninety-two children, adolescents and adults - with and without ASD - performed the Cambridge Face Memory Test, the Australian Face Memory Test, and a matched car memory test. Regions of interest during these tasks included Fusiform Face Area (FFA), based on the literature, and additional, structurally-defined regions in the ventral stream. Group differences in the patterns of activity within these ROIs when memorizing exemplars were examined using a representational similarity analysis (RSA). RESULTS The RSA revealed significant interactions between age group and diagnostic group in R FFA, with increasing similarity within a category (faces, cars) into adulthood typically but not in those with ASD. This pattern was also evident in structurally defined ventral stream regions, namely L inferior frontal gyrus (IFG), bilateral temporoparietal junction (TPJ), L inferior temporal lobule, and the R fusiform gyrus. CONCLUSIONS The specialization of face and object processing from adolescence to adulthood evident in typical development may be impaired in ASD, undermining the ability to reach adult-level visual processing in those with ASD.
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