Fast temporal dynamics and causal relevance of face processing in the human temporal cortex

Jessica Schrouff, Omri Raccah, Sori Baek, Vinitha Rangarajan, Sina Salehi, Janaina Mourão-Miranda, Zeinab Helili, Amy L. Daitch and Josef Parvizi ()
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Jessica Schrouff: Stanford University
Omri Raccah: Stanford University
Sori Baek: Stanford University
Vinitha Rangarajan: Stanford University
Sina Salehi: Stanford University
Janaina Mourão-Miranda: University College London
Zeinab Helili: Stanford University
Amy L. Daitch: Stanford University
Josef Parvizi: Stanford University

Nature Communications, 2020, vol. 11, issue 1, 1-13

Abstract: Abstract We measured the fast temporal dynamics of face processing simultaneously across the human temporal cortex (TC) using intracranial recordings in eight participants. We found sites with selective responses to faces clustered in the ventral TC, which responded increasingly strongly to marine animal, bird, mammal, and human faces. Both face-selective and face-active but non-selective sites showed a posterior to anterior gradient in response time and selectivity. A sparse model focusing on information from the human face-selective sites performed as well as, or better than, anatomically distributed models when discriminating faces from non-faces stimuli. Additionally, we identified the posterior fusiform site (pFUS) as causally the most relevant node for inducing distortion of conscious face processing by direct electrical stimulation. These findings support anatomically discrete but temporally distributed response profiles in the human brain and provide a new common ground for unifying the seemingly contradictory modular and distributed modes of face processing.

Date: 2020
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DOI: 10.1038/s41467-020-14432-8

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