A Revised Neural Framework for Face Processing

Abstract

Face perception relies on computations carried out in face-selective cortical areas. These areas have been intensively investigated for two decades, and this work has been guided by an influential neural model suggested by Haxby and colleagues in 2000. Here, we review new findings about face-selective areas that suggest the need for modifications and additions to the Haxby model. We suggest a revised framework based on (a) evidence for multiple routes from early visual areas into the face-processing system, (b) information about the temporal characteristics of these areas, (c) indications that the fusiform face area contributes to the perception of changeable aspects of faces, (d) the greatly elevated responses to dynamic compared with static faces in dorsal face-selective brain areas, and (e) the identification of three new anterior face-selective areas. Together, these findings lead us to suggest that face perception depends on two separate pathways: a ventral stream that represents form information and a dorsal stream driven by motion and form information.

The Definition and Diagnosis of Developmental Prosopagnosia

“…Such work has the potential not only to investigate early influences on the development of face-recognition difficulties, but can also answer other key theoretical questions about the development of the typical adult face-processing system. For instance, many authors accept that there are wellspecified cognitive and neural processes that are dedicated to face-processing over and above other classes of object (Duchaine & Yovel, 2015;Kanwisher, McDermott, & Chun, 1997;Yin, 1969;Yovel & Kanwisher, 2004). It is possible that these systems are more generalized at birth and go through a process of refinement that makes them specialized for face recognition (e.g., Nelson, 2001).…”

A face-selective ventral occipito-temporal map of the human brain with intracerebral potentials

“…Each of these regions is thought to have a definite function, or computational role, as a node in a vast network of face-selective areas (8,13). However, fMRI provides only a hemodynamic (i.e., indirect) measure of neural activity, suffering from wide variations in signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) across brain regions, which has important consequences.…”

Dissecting the visual perception of body shape with the Garner selective attention paradigm

“…A broad distinction that has been proposed to hold for the visual representation of bodies (and faces; Duchaine and Yovel, 2015) is one between static and dynamic cues (Giese & Poggio, 2003;Vangeneugden, Peelen, Tadin, & Battelli, 2014). This is based partly on neural evidence for distinct brain regions that respond preferentially to either silhouettes.…”

“…To date, much of the emphasis in the field of "social vision", which explores the nature of these signals and the neurocognitive mechanisms that exploit them, has been on the face. This has led to what is now a widely accepted "standard model" of face processing (Bruce & Young, 1986;Haxby, Hoffman & Gobbini, 2000) that has broadly held up as new methods and evidence are brought to bear (Young & Bruce, 2011;Calder & Young, 2005;Duchaine & Yovel, 2015).…”