MODELS OF FACE Anoushiravan Zahedi

PERCEPTION
VENTRAL TEMPORAL CORTEX
 CORE NEURAL-SYSTEM OF FACE PERCEPTION

• What is the core neural

system of face perception?
• Extrastriate visual regions that
respond maximally to faces.
• Is there any functional
distribution across these
anatomical distribution of face
perception cortex?
BEFORE GOING FURTHER A
PSYCHOLOGICAL FRAMEWORK IS
NEEDED
What kind of information is related to face
perception?
1. Pictorial code
2. Structural code & Marr’s model
representations relations
• What is the difference between objects and faces
point of view?
• Is there only one structural code for familiar faces?
• Average faces vs single faces
3. Visually derived semantic code
• What kind of information is this?
• For familiar or unfamiliar faces?

4. Identity related semantic code

• What kind of information is this then?
• Is it similar again for familiar and unfamiliar faces?

5. Name code
• Why is it a different code from identity related code?
• Does evidences support it? Even in quotidian life experiences?
6. Expressions code
• What about eye gaze?
• Why separated from face recognition?
Prosopagnosia vs cerebral organic brain
syndrome
• Was it right after all?! Asymmetric
relationship between the to aspect
• Is it Intramodular information?

7. Facial speech code

• In prosopagnosia vs alexia syndrome
• Intramodular information
PSYCHOLOGICAL
MODEL OF FACE
RECOGNITION

Two not-mentioned class of codes:

1. Pictorial code
2. Visually derived information
LET’S GET BACK TO NEURONS
WHAT FUNCTIONS CAN BE
SEPARATED?
1. Prosopagnosia and monkeys with anterior temporal lesions demonstrate the same
deficits in face recognition.

2. Cerebral organic brain syndrome and electrical stimulation of posterior middle temporal
gyrus had affect the ability to label facial expressions.

3. Further monkeys with superior temporal sulcus lesion show impairments in

understanding angle of regards.
SINGLE UNIT RECORDINGS IN
MACAQUE
9 faces of macaque monkeys varying
across two dimension:
1. Expression
2. Identity
Recording single cells in two brain areas:
1. pSTS
2. ITG
RESULTS
OTHER PART OF VISUAL CORTEX
Face perception in the
Core System is not limited
to the regions that respond
maximally to faces but
rather extends beyond into
neighboring cortical fields
that respond significantly,
but not maximally, to
faces.
THE EXTENDED NEURAL
SYSTEM
1. Face identification, or recognition

2. Facial expression perception

3. Gaze perception
FACE RECOGNITION
1. Medial Prefrontal Cortex
2. Temporal Parietal Junction
3. Precuneus /Posterior Cingulate
Cortex
What does these regions activation tell
us?
Simple familiarity and Episodic memory
or semantic memory?
WHAT ABOUT OUR
EMOTIONAL BONDS
Two areas which play roles in emotional information retrieval:
1. Amygdala
2. Insula

Capgras syndrome vs Prosopagnosia

EXTRACTING THE MEANING
OF FACIAL EXPRESSION
•What is putative human mirror neuron system (hMNS)?
•And what does it do?
•Execution and perception together? Then what is the underlying reason?
EXTRACTING THE MEANING OF
FACIAL EXPRESSION NEURAL
COUNTERPART
•Frontal Operculum and its function
•Does it respond selectively and
differently to disparage parts of the
body?
•Inferior parietal lobe and pSTS
•Premotoric cortex
WHAT ABOUT EMOTIONAL
REGIONS OF BRAIN THEN?
•So imitation of others
emotion, conscious or
unconscious?
•Deliberately mimicking
or without control?
•Implication in real life!!
WHAT IS THE ROLE OF EMOTION
AND EMPATHY HERE
•What about meaningfulness of these
facial emotional expressions?
•Do people demonstrate differently then
to meaningful and meaningless facial
emotional expressions?
Again amygdala and insula?!
Which emotions they respond to?
Does it mean we imitate the emotion
too? So why we does not sense these
emotions?
EYE GAZE PERCEPTION
•The modulation of pSTS activity by
direct and averted eye gaze is variable,
why? The meaning can be ambiguous!
•Intraparietal sulcus and its function
1. Ocular control
2. Direction of attention
But MPFC and amygdala are activated,
why?
ARE THE FAMILIAR FACES
CONSTANT?
Is the models presented here
accounts for everything?
So what is the own-age bias?
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