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Abstract:
The formation of a structural representation has been
suggested as the first stage in face recognition (Bruce and Young,
1986). Recent event-related potential (ERP) studies of face
processing in humans revealed a negative component (N170)
associated with the activation of a neural circuit that may
subserve the structural encoding process (Bentin et al., 1996). The
authors suggested that this mechanism comprised two functionally
and anatomically distinct sub-modules: one more important for the
perception of whole faces, and the other one for the perception of
face components. However, it has not yet been determined what the
minimal figural requirements for triggering this face-specific
activity would be. We addressed this question by recording scalp
ERPs elicited by human face photographs, paintings, sketches, and
schematic drawings. It was found that even highly schematic faces
are sufficient to activate a response similar to the one elicited
by photographs of faces. Nevertheless, several differences were
found. Whereas the N170 elicited by natural faces was not affected
by face inversion and was larger for face parts than for full
faces, a reduced N170 was elicited by inverted schematic faces, and
no N170 was elicited by isolated schematic face parts. These
results suggest that detection of schematic faces relies primarily
on the holistic face processor, whereas natural faces trigger both
the holistic and the face-part processors independently.
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