The N170 event-related potential (ERP) component reflects visual perceptual processes and is known to have a source in the lateral occipital cortex (LOC) and temporal lobe regions. Convergent evidence from neuropsychological and neuroimaging studies suggests that the LOC is recruited for action tasks in which visibility of a target is unavailable and a perceptual memory of the target's characte...

Cartoon characters are omnipresent in popular media. While few studies have scientifically investigated their processing, in computer graphics, efforts are made to increase realism. Yet, close approximations of reality have been suggested to evoke sometimes a feeling of eeriness, the "uncanny valley" effect. Here, we used high-density electroencephalography to investigate brain responses to pro...

Recent studies report that the occipito-temporal N170 component of the ERP is enhanced by letter strings, relative to non-linguistic strings of similar visual complexity, with a left-lateralized distribution. This finding is consistent with underlying mechanisms that serve visual word recognition. Conclusions about the level of analysis reflected within the N170 effects, and therefore the timec...

In grapheme-color synesthesia, seeing particular letters or numbers evokes the experience of specific colors. We investigate the brain's real-time processing of words in this population by recording event-related brain potentials (ERPs) from 15 grapheme-color synesthetes and 15 controls as they judged the validity of word pairs ('yellow banana' vs. 'blue banana') presented under high and low vi...

Although galvanic vestibular stimulation (GVS) is known to affect the speed and accuracy of visual judgments, the underlying electrophysiological response has not been explored. In the present study, we therefore investigated the effect of GVS on the N170 event-related potential, a marker commonly associated with early visual structural encoding. To elicit the waveform, participants distinguish...

Does contextual affective information influence the processing of facial expressions already at the relatively early stages of face processing? We measured event-related brain potentials to happy and sad facial expressions primed by preceding pictures with affectively positive and negative scenes. The face-sensitive N170 response amplitudes showed a clear affective priming effect: N170 amplitud...

The present study investigated the neural correlates of perceiving human bodies. Focussing on the N170 as an index of structural encoding, we recorded event-related potentials (ERPs) to images of bodies and faces (either neutral or expressing fear) and objects, while subjects viewed the stimuli presented either upright or inverted. The N170 was enhanced and delayed to inverted bodies and faces,...

Event-related potentials (ERPs) triggered by three different faces (unfamiliar, famous, and the subject's own) were analyzed during passive viewing. A familiarity effect was defined as a significant difference between the two familiar faces as opposed to the unfamiliar face. A degree of familiarity effect was defined as a significant difference between all three conditions. The results show a f...

The adult N170 is considered to be an electrophysiological marker of specialised mechanisms for face processing, but little is known about its developmental origin. Previous work has identified two face-sensitive infant ERP components (N290 and P400) (J. Cog. Neurosci. 14 (2002), 199). In the present study, we assessed the specificity (to upright human faces) of these infant components at 3 and...

Simulation models of facial expressions suggest that posterior visual areas and brain underpinning sensorimotor simulations might interact to improve expression processing. According these models, mimicry, a manifestation simulation, may contribute the processing by influencing early stages. The aim this study was assess whether how simulation influences stages face processing, also investigati...