Frontal contributions to face processing differences in autism: Evidence from fMRI of inverted face processing

AbstractFunctional neuroimaging studies of face processing deficits in autism have typically focused on visual processing regions, such as the fusiform face area (FFA), which have shown reduced activity in autism spectrum disorders (ASD), though inconsistently. We recently reported reduced activity in the inferior frontal region in ASD, implicating impaired mirror-neuron systems during face processing. In the present study, we used fMRI during a face processing task in which subjects had to match faces presented in the upright versus inverted position. Typically developing (TD) children showed a classic behavioral inversion effect, increased reaction time for inverted faces, while this effect was significantly reduced in ASD subjects. The fMRI data showed similar responses in the fusiform face area for ASD and TD children, with both groups demonstrating increased activation for inverted faces. However, the groups did differ in several brain regions implicated in social cognition, particularly prefrontal cortex and amygdala. These data suggest that the behavioral differences in processing upright versus inverted faces for TD children are related not to visual information processing but to the social significance of the stimuli. Our results are consistent with other recent studies implicating frontal and limbic dysfunction during face processing in autism. (JINS, 2008, 14, 922–932.)

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Attentional Weighting in the Face Processing Network: A Magnetic Response Image-guided Magnetoencephalography Study Using Multiple Cyclic Entrainments

Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience ◽

10.1162/jocn_a_01428 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 31 (10) ◽

pp. 1573-1588 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

Eelke de Vries ◽

Daniel Baldauf

Keyword(s):

Face Processing ◽

Visual Processing ◽

Magnetic Response ◽

Fusiform Face Area ◽

Facial Identity ◽

Image Guided ◽

Face Area ◽

The Face ◽

Occipital Face Area ◽

Processing Network

We recorded magnetoencephalography using a neural entrainment paradigm with compound face stimuli that allowed for entraining the processing of various parts of a face (eyes, mouth) as well as changes in facial identity. Our magnetic response image-guided magnetoencephalography analyses revealed that different subnodes of the human face processing network were entrained differentially according to their functional specialization. Whereas the occipital face area was most responsive to the rate at which face parts (e.g., the mouth) changed, and face patches in the STS were mostly entrained by rhythmic changes in the eye region, the fusiform face area was the only subregion that was strongly entrained by the rhythmic changes in facial identity. Furthermore, top–down attention to the mouth, eyes, or identity of the face selectively modulated the neural processing in the respective area (i.e., occipital face area, STS, or fusiform face area), resembling behavioral cue validity effects observed in the participants' RT and detection rate data. Our results show the attentional weighting of the visual processing of different aspects and dimensions of a single face object, at various stages of the involved visual processing hierarchy.

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Encoding deficit during face processing within the fusiform face area in schizophrenia

European Psychiatry ◽

10.1016/j.eurpsy.2007.01.1193 ◽

2007 ◽

Vol 22 ◽

pp. S86

Author(s):

S. Walther ◽

A. Federspiel ◽

H. Horn ◽

P. Bianchi ◽

R. Wiest ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Face Processing ◽

Fusiform Face Area ◽

Face Area

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Disentangling the representation of identity from head view along the human face processing pathway

10.1101/045823 ◽

2016 ◽

Cited By ~ 3

Author(s):

J. Swaroop Guntupalli ◽

Kelsey G. Wheeler ◽

M. Ida Gobbini

Keyword(s):

Visual Cortex ◽

Frontal Cortex ◽

Face Perception ◽

Face Processing ◽

Visual Features ◽

Fusiform Face Area ◽

Invariant Representation ◽

Face Area ◽

Early Visual Cortex ◽

Occipital Face Area

AbstractNeural 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 an fMRI neural decoding study in humans that shows that this pathway culminates in a 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 (OFA) with representations of head view that are invariant across identities, and proceeds to an intermediate level of representation in the fusiform face area (FFA) 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.Significance StatementIn this fMRI decoding experiment, we address how face images are processed in successive stages to disentangle the view-invariant representation of identity from variable visual features. Representations in early visual cortex and the occipital face area distinguish head views, invariant across identities. An intermediate level of representation in the fusiform face area distinguishes identities but still is entangled with head view. The face-processing pathway culminates in the right inferior frontal area with representation of view-independent identity. This paper clarifies the homologies between the human and macaque face processing systems. The findings show further, however, the importance of the inferior frontal cortex in decoding face identity, a result that has not yet been reported in the monkey literature.

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Human face-selective cortex does not distinguish between members of a racial outgroup

10.31234/osf.io/53kad ◽

2019 ◽

Author(s):

Niv Reggev ◽

Kirstan Brodie ◽

Mina Cikara ◽

Jason Mitchell

Keyword(s):

Neural Activity ◽

Visual Processing ◽

Neural Representation ◽

Human Face ◽

Fusiform Face Area ◽

Total N ◽

Face Area ◽

Repetition Suppression ◽

Homogeneity Effect ◽

Outgroup Homogeneity

People often fail to individuate members of social outgroups, a phenomenon known as the outgroup homogeneity effect. Here, we used fMRI repetition suppression to investigate the neural representation underlying this effect. In a pre-registered study, White human perceivers (N = 29) responded to pairs of faces depicting White or Black targets. In each pair, the second face depicted either the same target as the first face, a different target from the same race, or a scrambled face outline. We localized face-selective neural regions via an independent task, and demonstrated that neural activity in the fusiform face area distinguished different faces only when targets belonged to the perceivers’ racial ingroup (White). By contrast, face-selective cortex did not discriminate between other-race individuals. Moreover, across two studies (total N = 67) perceivers were slower to discriminate between different outgroup members and remembered them to a lesser extent. Together, these results suggest that the outgroup homogeneity effect arises when early-to-mid-level visual processing results in an erroneous overlap of representations of outgroup members.

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Dissociation between overt and unconscious face processing in fusiform face area

NeuroImage ◽

10.1016/j.neuroimage.2003.08.038 ◽

2004 ◽

Vol 21 (1) ◽

pp. 75-83 ◽

Cited By ~ 33

Author(s):

Christoph Lehmann ◽

Thomas Mueller ◽

Andrea Federspiel ◽

Daniela Hubl ◽

Gerhard Schroth ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Face Processing ◽

Fusiform Face Area ◽

Face Area

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Modulation of the Fusiform Face Area following Minimal Exposure to Motivationally Relevant Faces: Evidence of In-group Enhancement (Not Out-group Disregard)

Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience ◽

10.1162/jocn_a_00016 ◽

2011 ◽

Vol 23 (11) ◽

pp. 3343-3354 ◽

Cited By ~ 106

Author(s):

Jay J. Van Bavel ◽

Dominic J. Packer ◽

William A. Cunningham

Keyword(s):

Visual Processing ◽

Group Versus ◽

Experimental Manipulation ◽

Task Instruction ◽

Social Category ◽

Fusiform Face Area ◽

Perceptual Cues ◽

Face Area ◽

Task Instructions ◽

Subordinate Level

Studies have shown that fusiform face area (FFA) activity increases with visual expertise. We present an fMRI study showing that faces from a social category made relevant by an experimental manipulation (members of an experimentally created in-group) preferentially recruited the FFA even when they were matched in exposure to face stimuli from a less significant social category (members of an experimentally created out-group). Faces were randomly assigned to groups and fully counterbalanced so that no perceptual cues allowed participants to visually distinguish category membership. The results revealed a pattern of in-group enhancement (not out-group disregard), such that the FFA was selectively engaged following the presentation of in-group compared with out-group or unaffiliated control faces even when the intergroup distinction was arbitrary, and exposure to in-group and out-group faces was equivalent and brief. In addition, individual differences in FFA activity for in-group versus out-group faces were correlated with recognition memory differences for in-group and out-group faces. The effects of group membership on the FFA were not affected by task instruction to respond to in-group or out-group members and were functionally dissociated from early visual processing in the primary visual cortex. This study provides evidence that the FFA is sensitive to top–down influences and may be involved in subordinate level (vs. superordinate level) encoding of stimuli in the absence of long-term exposure or explicit task instructions.

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Reduced repetition suppression to faces in the fusiform face area of adults with autism spectrum conditions

Journal of Vision ◽

10.1167/15.12.1210 ◽

2015 ◽

Vol 15 (12) ◽

pp. 1210 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Michael Ewbank ◽

Philip Pell ◽

Thomas Powell ◽

Elisabeth von em Hagen ◽

Simon Baron-Cohen ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Autism Spectrum ◽

Autism Spectrum Conditions ◽

Fusiform Face Area ◽

Adults With Autism ◽

Face Area ◽

Repetition Suppression

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Joint encoding of facial identity, orientation, gaze, and expression in the middle dorsal face area

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences ◽

10.1073/pnas.2108283118 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 118 (33) ◽

pp. e2108283118

Author(s):

Zetian Yang ◽

Winrich A. Freiwald

Keyword(s):

Face Processing ◽

Visual Processing ◽

Large Fraction ◽

Three Dimensions ◽

Head Orientation ◽

Core Network ◽

Facial Identity ◽

The Core ◽

Face Area ◽

Processing Network

The last two decades have established that a network of face-selective areas in the temporal lobe of macaque monkeys supports the visual processing of faces. Each area within the network contains a large fraction of face-selective cells. And each area encodes facial identity and head orientation differently. A recent brain-imaging study discovered an area outside of this network selective for naturalistic facial motion, the middle dorsal (MD) face area. This finding offers the opportunity to determine whether coding principles revealed inside the core network would generalize to face areas outside the core network. We investigated the encoding of static faces and objects, facial identity, and head orientation, dimensions which had been studied in multiple areas of the core face-processing network before, as well as facial expressions and gaze. We found that MD populations form a face-selective cluster with a degree of selectivity comparable to that of areas in the core face-processing network. MD encodes facial identity robustly across changes in head orientation and expression, it encodes head orientation robustly against changes in identity and expression, and it encodes expression robustly across changes in identity and head orientation. These three dimensions are encoded in a separable manner. Furthermore, MD also encodes the direction of gaze in addition to head orientation. Thus, MD encodes both structural properties (identity) and changeable ones (expression and gaze) and thus provides information about another animal’s direction of attention (head orientation and gaze). MD contains a heterogeneous population of cells that establish a multidimensional code for faces.

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