We investigated the top-down influence of working memory (WM) maintenance on feedforward perceptual processing within occipito-temporal face processing structures. During event-related potential (ERP) recordings, subjects performed a delayed-recognition task requiring WM maintenance of faces or houses. The face-sensitive N170 component elicited by delay-spanning task-irrelevant grayscale noise ...

The N170 response differs when positive versus negative facial expressions are viewed. This neural response could be associated with the perception of emotions, or some feature of the stimulus. We used an aftereffect paradigm to clarify. Consistent with previous reports of emotional aftereffects, a neutral face was more likely to be described as happy following a sad face adaptation, and more l...

Background: According to the traditional two-stage model of face processing, the face-specific N170 event-related potential (ERP) is linked to structural encoding of face stimuli, whereas later ERP components are thought to reflect processing of facial affect. This view has recently been challenged by reports of N170 modulations by emotional facial expression. This study examines the time-cours...

The specialness of faces is seen in the face inversion effect, which disrupts the configural, but not the analytic, processing of faces. Mooney faces, which are processed holistically, allowed us to determine the contribution of holistic processing to the face inversion effect. As inverted Mooney faces are difficult to recognize as faces, we also included an intermediary training period for Moo...

The N170 is widely regarded as a face sensitive potential, having its maximum at occipito-temporal sites, with right-hemisphere dominance. However, it is debatable whether the N170 is modulated by different emotional expressions of a face. The aim of this study was to analyze the N170 elicited by schematic happy and angry faces when the emotional expression is semantically processed. To investi...

To study the response profile of the face-selective N170 component, an adaptation procedure was employed where adaptor and test stimuli were presented in rapid succession. Test stimuli came from 4 different face categories (upright, inverted, and eyeless faces and eyes-only images). The same face stimuli, as well as upright and inverted houses, served as adaptors. Strong N170 amplitude reductio...

BACKGROUND Adults with bipolar disorder (BD) have cognitive impairments that affect face processing and social cognition. However, it remains unknown whether these deficits in euthymic BD have impaired brain markers of emotional processing. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS We recruited twenty six participants, 13 controls subjects with an equal number of euthymic BD participants. We used an eve...

Scalp electrophysiological recordings in humans indicate that the processing of faces differs from other categories between 100 and 200 ms after stimulus onset, peaking at the N170. To test the effect of the addition of a second face stimulus in the visual field on the face-related N170, we measured this component in response to a laterally presented face stimulus while subjects were processing...

Visual representations of faces are extracted shortly after 100 ms in the human brain, leading to an occipito-temporal cortex N170 event-related potential (ERP). To understand the nature of this early visual representation, a full-front adapting face preceded a different or identical target face identity. The target face varied parametrically in head orientation from the adapting face (0-90°, 1...

In "Thatcherized" faces, the eyes and mouth regions are turned upside-down. Only when presented upright they are perceived as severely distorted. Common theories explain this effect by the loss of configural information for inverted faces. We investigated neural correlates of Thatcherization using event related potentials (ERPs). Sixteen right-handed participants performed identity classificati...