Departamento de Psicología Biológica y de la Salud, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Madrid, Spain.
Center for Health Sciences, SRI International, Menlo Park, California, USA.
Psychophysiology. 2021 Dec;58(12):e13919. doi: 10.1111/psyp.13919. Epub 2021 Aug 12.
One's own face is recognized more efficiently than any other face, although the neural mechanisms underlying this phenomenon remain poorly understood. Considering the extensive visual experience that we have with our own face, some authors have proposed that self-face recognition involves a more analytical perceptual strategy (i.e., based on face features) than other familiar faces, which are commonly processed holistically (i.e., as a whole). However, this hypothesis has not yet been tested with brain activity data. In the present study, we employed an inversion paradigm combined with event-related potential (ERP) recordings to investigate whether the self-face is processed more analytically. Sixteen healthy participants were asked to identify their own face and a familiar face regardless of its orientation, which could either be upright or inverted. ERP analysis revealed an enhanced amplitude and a delayed latency for the N170 component when faces were presented in an inverted orientation. Critically, both the self and a familiar face were equally vulnerable to the inversion effect, suggesting that the self-face is not processed more analytically than a familiar face. In addition, we replicated the recent finding that the attention-related P200 component is a specific neural index of self-face recognition. Overall, our results suggest that the advantage for self-face processing might be better explained by the engagement of self-related attentional mechanisms than by the use of a more analytical visuoperceptual strategy.
尽管人们对面部识别的神经机制还知之甚少,但自己的面孔比任何其他面孔都更容易被识别。鉴于我们对自己面孔的广泛视觉体验,一些作者提出,自我面孔识别涉及一种比其他熟悉面孔更具分析性的感知策略(即基于面部特征),而其他熟悉面孔通常是整体处理的(即作为一个整体)。然而,这一假设尚未通过大脑活动数据进行测试。在本研究中,我们采用了反转范式结合事件相关电位(ERP)记录来研究自我面孔是否更具分析性。16 名健康参与者被要求识别自己的面孔和熟悉的面孔,无论其方向如何,都可以是直立的或倒置的。ERP 分析显示,当面孔以倒置的方向呈现时,N170 成分的振幅增强,潜伏期延迟。关键的是,自我和熟悉的面孔都同样容易受到反转效应的影响,这表明自我面孔的处理方式并不比熟悉的面孔更具分析性。此外,我们复制了最近的发现,即与注意力相关的 P200 成分是自我面孔识别的特定神经指标。总的来说,我们的结果表明,自我面孔处理的优势可能更好地通过自我相关注意力机制的参与来解释,而不是通过使用更具分析性的视觉感知策略来解释。