Mohamed Tarik N, Neumann Markus F, Schweinberger Stefan R
Department of General Psychology, University of Jena, Germany.
Neuroreport. 2009 May 27;20(8):782-7. doi: 10.1097/WNR.0b013e32832b7e24.
It has been controversial whether the face-sensitive N170 is affected by selective attention. We manipulated attention sensu Lavie's perceptual load theory to short (200 ms) presentations of task-irrelevant unfamiliar faces or houses, while participants identified superimposed target letters 'X' versus 'N'. These targets were strings of either six identical (low load) or six different letters (high load). Under low load, we found a prominent face-selective N170 response. Under high load, however, we not only observed a dramatic reduction of the face N170 but also an unexpected enhancement of the house N170, such that face selectivity was almost completely lost. We conclude that the early stages of face processing indexed by the N170 strongly depend on selective attention.
对面部敏感的N170是否受选择性注意的影响一直存在争议。我们根据拉维的知觉负载理论，对与任务无关的陌生面孔或房屋的短时间（200毫秒）呈现进行注意操控，同时让参与者识别叠加的目标字母“X”与“N”。这些目标是由六个相同字母（低负载）或六个不同字母（高负载）组成的字符串。在低负载条件下，我们发现了显著的面部选择性N170反应。然而，在高负载条件下，我们不仅观察到面部N170大幅降低，还意外地发现房屋N170增强，以至于面部选择性几乎完全丧失。我们得出结论，由N170索引的面部加工早期阶段强烈依赖于选择性注意。
