Face-specific processing in the brain has been widely studied through the N170 component of the ERP, which responds differently to faces compared to a wide variety of other stimulus categories. The N170 spans from about 130 ms to 200 ms post stimulus onset (Bötzel, Schulze, & Stodieck,
1995; Eimer,
2000; Itier & Taylor,
2002; Rousselet, Husk, Bennett, & Sekuler,
2008), the time required, it is argued, to extract stimulus information necessary for categorizing a stimulus as a face versus other categories of objects. Although the robust face effect of the N170 dominates the face-processing literature, a less reliable P100 face-specific effect challenges the interpretation that the N170 is the first marker of face-specific high level perceptual processing in the visual system (Debruille, Guillem, & Renault,
1998; George, Jemel, Fiori, & Renault,
1997; Halit, de Haan, & Johnson,
2000; Itier & Taylor,
2004; Mouchetant-Rostaing, Giard, Bentin, Aguera, & Pernier,
2000). In this paper, we address the question of the anatomical independence of cortical processes that account for scalp effects during the period of the P100 and N170 ERP components.