Bieniek Magdalena M, Bennett Patrick J, Sekuler Allison B, Rousselet Guillaume A
Institute of Neuroscience and Psychology, College of Medical, Veterinary and Life Sciences, University of Glasgow, 58 Hillhead Street, Glasgow, G12 8QB, UK.
Department of Psychology, Neuroscience and Behaviour, McMaster University, Hamilton, ON, Canada.
Eur J Neurosci. 2016 Jul;44(2):1804-14. doi: 10.1111/ejn.13100. Epub 2015 Nov 14.
How early does the brain decode object categories? Addressing this question is critical to constrain the type of neuronal architecture supporting object categorization. In this context, much effort has been devoted to estimating face processing speed. With onsets estimated from 50 to 150 ms, the timing of the first face-sensitive responses in humans remains controversial. This controversy is due partially to the susceptibility of dynamic brain measurements to filtering distortions and analysis issues. Here, using distributions of single-trial event-related potentials (ERPs), causal filtering, statistical analyses at all electrodes and time points, and effective correction for multiple comparisons, we present evidence that the earliest categorical differences start around 90 ms following stimulus presentation. These results were obtained from a representative group of 120 participants, aged 18-81, who categorized images of faces and noise textures. The results were reliable across testing days, as determined by test-retest assessment in 74 of the participants. Furthermore, a control experiment showed similar ERP onsets for contrasts involving images of houses or white noise. Face onsets did not change with age, suggesting that face sensitivity occurs within 100 ms across the adult lifespan. Finally, the simplicity of the face-texture contrast, and the dominant midline distribution of the effects, suggest the face responses were evoked by relatively simple image properties and are not face specific. Our results provide a new lower benchmark for the earliest neuronal responses to complex objects in the human visual system.
大脑多早能够解码物体类别？解决这个问题对于限制支持物体分类的神经元结构类型至关重要。在这种背景下，人们付出了很多努力来估计面部处理速度。据估计，人类首次对面部敏感反应的起始时间在50到150毫秒之间，这一时间仍存在争议。这种争议部分归因于动态脑测量对滤波失真和分析问题的敏感性。在这里，我们使用单次试验事件相关电位（ERP）的分布、因果滤波、对所有电极和时间点的统计分析以及对多重比较的有效校正，提出证据表明最早的类别差异在刺激呈现后约90毫秒开始出现。这些结果来自一组具有代表性的120名参与者，年龄在18至81岁之间，他们对面部图像和噪声纹理进行分类。通过对74名参与者的重测评估确定，结果在不同测试日是可靠的。此外，一项对照实验表明，涉及房屋图像或白噪声的对比具有相似的ERP起始时间。面部起始时间不随年龄变化，这表明在整个成年期内，面部敏感性在100毫秒内就会出现。最后，面部-纹理对比的简单性以及效应的主要中线分布表明，面部反应是由相对简单的图像属性诱发的，并非面部特有的。我们的结果为人类视觉系统中对复杂物体的最早神经元反应提供了一个新的更低基准。
