School of Psychological Science, Birkbeck College, University of London, UK; William James Center for Research, Ispa - Instituto Universitário, Portugal.
School of Psychology, University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK.
Cortex. 2023 Feb;159:299-312. doi: 10.1016/j.cortex.2022.11.004. Epub 2022 Dec 17.
Although humans are considered to be face experts, there is a well-established reliable variation in the degree to which neurotypical individuals are able to learn and recognise faces. While many behavioural studies have characterised these differences, studies that seek to relate the neuronal response to standardised behavioural measures of ability remain relatively scarce, particularly so for the time-resolved approaches and the early response to face stimuli. In the present study we make use of a relatively recent methodological advance, multi-variate pattern analysis (MVPA), to decode the time course of the neural response to faces compared to other object categories (inverted faces, objects). Importantly, for the first time, we directly relate metrics of this decoding assessed at the individual level to gold-standard measures of behavioural face processing ability assessed in an independent task. Thirty-nine participants completed the behavioural Cambridge Face Memory Test (CFMT), then viewed images of faces and houses (presented upright and inverted) while their neural activity was measured via electroencephalography. Significant decoding of both face orientation and face category were observed in all individual participants. Decoding of face orientation, a marker of more advanced face processing, was earlier and stronger in participants with higher levels of face expertise, while decoding of face category information was earlier but not stronger for individuals with greater face expertise. Taken together these results provide a marker of significant differences in the early neuronal response to faces from around 100 ms post stimulus as a function of behavioural expertise with faces.
虽然人类被认为是面部专家，但神经典型个体在学习和识别面部的程度上存在着可靠的差异。虽然许多行为研究已经描述了这些差异，但寻求将神经元反应与标准化行为能力测量相关联的研究仍然相对较少，特别是对于时间分辨方法和对面部刺激的早期反应。在本研究中，我们利用了一种相对较新的方法学进展，即多元模式分析（MVPA），来解码面部相对于其他物体类别（倒置的面部、物体）的神经反应的时间过程。重要的是，这是第一次将在个体水平上评估的这种解码的度量直接与在独立任务中评估的行为面部处理能力的金标准度量相关联。39 名参与者完成了行为剑桥面孔记忆测试（CFMT），然后观看了面孔和房屋的图像（正面和倒置呈现），同时通过脑电图测量他们的神经活动。在所有个体参与者中都观察到了对面部方向和面部类别的显著解码。对面部方向的解码，这是更高级的面部处理的标志，在面部专业水平较高的参与者中更早且更强，而对面部类别信息的解码则更早但在具有更高面部专业水平的个体中则不那么强。这些结果共同提供了一个标志，表明作为行为专业知识的函数，对面部的早期神经元反应存在显著差异，从刺激后约 100 毫秒开始。
