Elsevier

Cortex

Volume 80, July 2016, Pages 141-153
Cortex

Special issue: Review
Repetition effects in human ERPs to faces

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cortex.2015.11.001Get rights and content

Abstract

In the present paper, we review research conducted over the past 25 years addressing the effects of repeating various kinds of information in faces (e.g., pictorial, spatial configural, identity, semantic) on different components in human event-related brain potentials (ERPs). This body of evidence suggests that several ERP components are systematically linked to different functional components of face identity processing. Specifically, we argue (1) that repetition of the category of faces (categorical adaptation) strongly affects the occipitotemporal N170 amplitude, which is systematically suppressed when a face is preceded by another face, irrespective of its identity, whereas (2) the prototypicality of a face's second order spatial configuration has a prominent effect on the subsequent occipitotemporal P200. Longer-latency repetition effects are related to the processing of individual facial identities. These include (3) an ERP correlate of the transient activation of individual representations of repeated faces in the form of an enhanced occipitotemporal N250r as seen in repetition priming experiments, and (4) a correlate of the acquisition of individual face identity representations during learning as seen in a topographically similar long-lasting N250 effect. Finally, (5) the repetition of semantic information in familiar person recognition elicits a central-parietal N400 ERP effect. We hope that this overview will encourage researchers to further exploit the potential of ERPs to provide a continuous time window to neuronal correlates of multiple processes in face perception under comparatively natural viewing conditions.

Section snippets

Outline

The ability to recognize a person by their face is crucial for humans' social functioning. Understanding which precise processes are involved in the coding, learning and subsequent recognition of individual faces is an important challenge for researchers in the field of the cognitive neurosciences. The human encephalogram is a rich source of information, and has enhanced our understanding of the neural mechanisms implicated in the coding of face identity coding over the past decades.

Categorical adaptation and face detection

Faces elicit a large bilateral temporal negativity peaking between 150 and 190 ms following face onset, termed N170. The N170 is typically regarded as a marker of the structural encoding of faces (for a review, see Eimer, 2011). In the words of the seminal publication by Shlomo Bentin and coworkers, “N170 may reflect the operation of a neural mechanism tuned to detect (as opposed to identify) human faces, similar to the ‘structural encoder’ suggested by Bruce and Young (1986).” (Bentin et al.,

Prototypicality effects and the encoding of second-order spatial relations

Immediately subsequent to the N170, faces elicit an occipitotemporal P200 with an approximate peak latency between 200 and 250 ms. The P200 is a face-sensitive response that has only recently attracted attention of researchers interested in face identification. Some earlier research indicated smaller P200 responses for less typical compared to more typical faces (Halit, de Haan, & Johnson, 2000), and Latinus and Taylor (2006) were the first to interpret the P200 as reflecting the encoding of

Identity repetition priming and representations for recognizing individual faces

The N250r (r for repetition) is a ventral temporal negativity that is consistently larger for repeated compared to non-repeated faces (i.e., is sensitive to repetition priming). This ERP modulation is typically larger for familiar than unfamiliar faces (Doerr et al., 2011, Herzmann et al., 2004, Schweinberger et al., 1995), more prominent over the right than the left hemisphere, onsets as early as between 180 and 220 ms, and has a peak latency between about 230 and 330 ms. With common average

Face identity learning and representations for recognizing individual faces

In earlier studies published before around 2005, and based on evidence from repetition priming studies which typically involved only a single repetition of a face, the N250r to familiar faces appeared to be a rather transient phenomenon: Although surviving a small number of 2–4 intervening faces (Pfütze et al., 2002), N250r seemed to be almost eliminated when hundreds of faces intervene between familiar face repetitions – despite the fact that behavioural priming from a single presentation of a

Semantic processing and memory for people

The “classical” ERP component that is related to aspects of semantic processing is the N400. Although originally demonstrated as a prominent negative ERP in response to semantic violations in a sentence context, maximal at central-parietal locations around 400 ms (Kutas & Hillyard, 1980), subsequent research used pairs of stimuli and suggested that a reduced negativity (or larger positivity) to a second stimulus (S2) which repeated some semantic attributes of S1 reflected the attenuation of an

Neuroimaging studies

Although ERP repetition effects are at focus of the present review, a few selected comments might be appropriate with respect to a comparison with findings from neuroimaging studies (for overview see also R. N. Henson, this issue). The model by Haxby et al. (2000) distinguishes between a “core” system with three components, according to which the inferior occipital gyri mediate the early perception of facial features, whereas the fusiform cortex mediates the perception of invariant aspects of

Conclusion

In this paper, we reviewed evidence for a number of ERP components that are sensitive to the repetition of different kinds of information in faces. We have largely restricted this review to studies that have considered more than one ERP component only (typically the N170). In adopting this broader perspective to various ERP repetition effects, we also seek to avoid problems that may be related with an over-focus on specific EEG phenomena. As an example, consider a highly cited paper by Tanaka

Acknowledgements

SRS is supported by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG Research Unit Person Perception; Grant Reference FOR1097). MFN is supported by the ARC Centre of Excellence in Cognition and its Disorders (Grant Reference CE110001021).

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