Research reportPerceptual face processing in developmental prosopagnosia is not sensitive to the canonical location of face parts
Section snippets
Participants
Ten participants with DP (five females, aged 21–58 years; mean age: 40 years) and ten age-matched control participants (five females, aged 25–54 years; mean age: 39 years) were tested. All DP participants reported severe difficulties with face recognition since childhood. They were recruited after contacting our research website (http://www.faceblind.org). To assess and verify their face recognition problems, behavioural tests were conducted in two sessions on separate days, and prior to the
Behaviour
Mean response times (RTs) on infrequent target trials where an immediate stimulus repetition was correctly detected were 744 msec for control participants and 757 msec for participants with DP, and did not differ between the two groups (t < 1). Due to the inclusion of mirror-reversed versions of the same upright face images, participants adopted a conservative response criterion for the one-back detection task. This was reflected by relatively low target detection percentages of 66% in the
Discussion
Recent neuroimaging and electrophysiological investigations into the nature of the face recognition problems suffered by individuals with DP have suggested that early visual-perceptual stages of face processing operate largely normally in DP. There appear to be little difference between DPs and control participants in the pattern of face-selective neural activity within the core posterior face processing network (e.g., Avidan et al., 2014), or in the face-sensitivity of the N170 component (
Conflict of interest
None declared.
Acknowledgement
This work was supported by a grant (ES/K002457/1) from the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), UK.
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Neural responses in a fast periodic visual stimulation paradigm reveal domain-general visual discrimination deficits in developmental prosopagnosia
2020, CortexCitation Excerpt :In contrast to fMRI measures, more temporally precise ERP markers of markers of face identity processing (N250/N250r components) have consistently found identity-specific face matching and recognition deficits in DPs (Parketny et al., 2015; Fisher et al., 2017; Towler et al., 2018). Also in line with a rapid perceptual discrimination deficit, we previously found impaired sensitivity to the canonical spatial configuration of facial features in DPs at the level of the N170 component (140–190 msec post-stimulus) that was no longer evident from around 200 msec after face stimulus onset (Towler et al., 2016). To put our findings into a wider context, theories of rapid auditory discrimination deficits have been used to explain perceptual and memory deficits in neurodevelopmental disorders such as specific language impairment (e.g., Benasich & Tallal, 2002), dyslexia (e.g., Hari & Renvall, 2001), and amusia (e.g., Albouy, Cousineau, Caclin, Tillmann, & Peretz, 2016).
Testing the effects of transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) on the face inversion effect and the N170 event-related potentials (ERPs) component
2020, NeuropsychologiaCitation Excerpt :All scalp electrodes were referenced off-line to a common average reference. This was used in line with previous studies in the field specifically investigating the N170 for faces (e.g. Towler et al., 2016; Feuerriegel et al., 2015; Civile et al., 2018a), and for faces vs objects (e.g. Greebles; Rossion et al., 2002; cars, Goffaux et al., 2003). Conspicuously bad parts of the EEG recording were identified and removed using EEGLab's pop_rejcont function (threshold 12, all other settings default).
Tests of whole upright face processing in prosopagnosia: A literature review
2018, Neuropsychologia