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Contrast polarity and face recognition in the human fusiform gyrus

Nature Neuroscience volume 2, pages 574–580 (1999)Cite this article

Abstract

Functional imaging has revealed face-responsive visual areas in the human fusiform gyrus, but their role in recognizing familiar individuals remains controversial. Face recognition is particularly impaired by reversing contrast polarity of the image, even though this preserves all edges and spatial frequencies. Here, combined influences of familiarity and priming on face processing were examined as contrast polarity was manipulated. Our fMRI results show that bilateral posterior areas in fusiform gyrus responded more strongly for faces with positive than with negative contrast polarity. An anterior, right-lateralized fusiform region is activated when a given face stimulus becomes recognizable as a well-known individual.

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Figure 1: Four example face stimuli, each illustrating one condition.
Figure 2: The same four faces as in Fig.1 with reversed contrast polarity.
Figure 3: Activation for all face conditions versus the fixation baseline.
Figure 4: Activations for the main effect of positive versus negative face stimuli, pooling over fame.
Figure 5: Activation produced by the interaction between fame and contrast polarity (specifically, voxels with a larger positive versus negative difference for famous than unknown faces).
Figure 6: The effect of previous exposure to the corresponding positive on the fMRI response to famous face negatives.

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Acknowledgements

The functional imaging laboratory and R.J.D. were supported by the Wellcome Trust, N.G. by the Fyssen Foundation, G.C.B. by the National Science Foundation, and J.D. by the Human Frontiers Science Program.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Wellcome Department of Cognitive Neurology, Institute of Neurology, 12 Queen Square, London, WC1N 3BG, UK

    Nathalie George & Raymond J. Dolan

  2. Neurologische Klinik, Universitat Dusseldorf, Postfach 10 10 07, 40001 Dusseldorf, Germany

    Gereon R. Fink

  3. Department of Psychology, University of South Carolina, Columbia, 29208, South Carolina, USA

    Gordon C. Baylis

  4. Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, University College London, 17 Queen Square, London, WC1N 3AR, UK

    Charlotte Russell & Jon Driver

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  1. Nathalie George
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Correspondence to Raymond J. Dolan.

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George, N., Dolan, R., Fink, G. et al. Contrast polarity and face recognition in the human fusiform gyrus . Nat Neurosci 2, 574–580 (1999). https://doi.org/10.1038/9230

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