A steady-state visual evoked potential approach to individual face perception: Effect of inversion, contrast-reversal and temporal dynamics

Exploring how musical rhythm entrains brain activity with electroencephalogram frequency-tagging

“…First, instead of searching for coupling across a wide range of frequency bands, we were able to predict the frequency rates at which the activity should take place, based on the periodicity of the performed movement and of the pacing sound. Second, the concentration of these movement-and beat-related activities within very narrow frequency bands improved the signal-to-noise ratio, as this aspect is fundamental to further assessing phase coherence and scalp topographies [31,35,36,62]. Third, instead of calculating coherence across electrodes within the same frequency band, the electrodes of interest were selected based on the scalp topography of these activities, which were identified in the frequency domain.…”

The face evoked steady-state visual potentials are sensitive to the orientation, viewpoint, expression and configuration of the stimuli

“…Recent studies have shown that ADA is also reflected in the reduction of the steady-state visual evoked potentials (SSVEPs) to repeated face stimuli (Rossion and Boremanse, 2011;Rossion et al, 2012). SSVEPs are oscillatory neuro-electric signals that arise in response to periodic stimulation of the visual system, and can be recorded from the human scalp with standard electroencephalographic (EEG) methods (Regan, 1966(Regan, , 2009).…”

“…In the frequency domain, these responses are characterized by a fundamental frequency, corresponding to the driving frequency of the stimulus train, and often a series of related harmonic frequencies. Rossion and Boremanse (2011) and Rossion et al (2012) demonstrated that the continuous repetition of faces elicits a steadystate response at the corresponding fundamental frequency, and that this response is reduced when the same face is repeated, when compared with a condition in which different identity faces are presented in succession. This novel finding suggested that the face-evoked SSVEP reflects activity related to the neural mechanisms engaged in the individuation of faces, and that analyzing steady-state responses may provide further insight into how the human brain processes face-related information (Rossion and Boremanse, 2011).…”

“…Furthermore, it has been also argued previously that drawing parallels between the steady-state response and discrete ERP components is not straightforward. According to Rossion et al (2012), the face-related SSVEP likely reflects high-level processes that contribute to the ERP components taking place below 250 ms (given a 4 Hz stimulation frequency) such as the N170, and also lower-level ones possibly related to the P1 component.…”

“…Regarding the adaptation characteristics of the face-evoked steadystate response, it has been shown that the ADA effect of the SSVEP signal (i.e., its reduction in magnitude to the repetition of the same face when compared with different faces) is reduced (Rossion et al, 2012) or even eliminated (Rossion and Boremanse, 2011) when the faces are turned upside-down. Perceptually, the detrimental effect of inversion on face recognition is disproportionately large when compared with the effect of inverting exemplars of non-face object categories, and hence this transformation is assumed to tap face-specific processing mechanisms (Yin, 1969).…”