Recognizing a person by face: Dissociating brain regions involved in perceptual and conceptual components of person identification

Abstract

 

Recognition of a familiar face affords access to a wealth of perceptual and conceptual information about the identified person, including biographical information. The fusiform face region and anterior temporal cortex have been implicated in person identification by face. However, it remains unclear what precise roles they serve in the process. Here we attempt to dissociate the diverse perceptual and conceptual representations automatically activated when a face is recognized. We measured brain activity with functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) while subjects viewed face images of three levels of familiarity: (1) faces they had never seen before (unfamiliar faces), (2) faces repeatedly viewed previously (perceptually familiar faces) and (3) faces repeatedly viewed previously in conjunction with associated names and short biographies (known individuals). Blood-oxygen-level-dependent fMRI measurements were performed at high resolution (1.95 × 1.95 ×31 2 mm3 voxel volume) using a 3T scanner (GE) and a custom-made 16-channel head coil. In the three subjects studied so far, we found similar patterns of activity during perception of faces of all three levels of familiarity, including early visual regions and the fusiform face region. We found a slightly greater response to less familiar faces (greatest for unfamiliar ones) in the fusiform face region in one of three subjects analyzed so far. Anterior temporal regions showed a slightly greater response to faces of known individuals than to merely perceptually familiar faces in two of three subjects.