Skip Navigation


Cerebral Cortex Advance Access originally published online on August 21, 2006
Cerebral Cortex 2007 17(6):1423-1432; doi:10.1093/cercor/bhl054
This Article
Right arrow Full Text Freely available
Right arrow FREE Full Text (PDF) Freely available
Right arrow All Versions of this Article:
17/6/1423    most recent
bhl054v1
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Services
Right arrow Email this article to a friend
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Similar articles in ISI Web of Science
Right arrow Similar articles in PubMed
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Add to My Personal Archive
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Right arrow Search for citing articles in:
ISI Web of Science (5)
Right arrowRequest Permissions
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by Chen, C.-C.
Right arrow Articles by Tyler, C. W.
Right arrow Search for Related Content
PubMed
Right arrow PubMed Citation
Right arrow Articles by Chen, C.-C.
Right arrow Articles by Tyler, C. W.
Social Bookmarking
Add to CiteULike   Add to Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us  
What's this?

© The Author 2006. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org

Face Configuration Processing in the Human Brain: The Role of Symmetry

Chien-Chung Chen1,2, Kai-Ling C. Kao1 and Christopher W. Tyler2

1 Department of Psychology, National Taiwan University, Taipei 106, Taiwan, 2 Smith-Kettlewell Eye Research Institute, San Francisco, CA 94115, USA

Address correspondence to Chien-Chung Chen, Department of Psychology, National Taiwan University, Taipei 106, Taiwan. Email: c3chen{at}ntu.edu.tw.

Symmetry is an important cue in face perception. We manipulated symmetry and other configurational variables to study their role in face processing in the human brain. We employed 2 types of symmetry: image symmetry (where one part of the image is defined as the mirrored transform of the other part about an axis) and object symmetry (where the spatial relationships among the image components are interpreted as parts of a symmetric 3-dimensional object). We compared blood oxygenation level dependent responses in healthy human observers for upright front-view faces with responses to different symmetry-controlled images. The cortical areas activated by the face images, relative to Fourier-matched scrambled images, were the fusiform (FFA) and occipital (OFA) face areas, the middle occipital gyri (MOG), and areas around the superior temporal and intraoccipital sulci (IOS). Contrasting faces and their image-symmetric scrambled versions showed a similar activation pattern except in the right OFA, suggesting an involvement in facial symmetry processing. The upright versus inverted faces (with the same image symmetry but unfamiliar object identity) showed robust differential activation in the FFA, OFA, MOG, IOS, and precuneus. The response to frontal-view versus 3/4-view faces (having the same object symmetry but disrupted image symmetry) showed little differential activation in the FFA or the OFA but strong responses in the MOG and IOS, suggesting that face processing in the FFA and the OFA is holistic and viewpoint invariant.

Key Words: fMRI • fusiform • intraoccipital sulcus • inverted face • object perception • occipital face area

Accepted for publication July 21, 2006.


Add to CiteULike CiteULike   Add to Connotea Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us Del.icio.us    What's this?




Disclaimer: Please note that abstracts for content published before 1996 were created through digital scanning and may therefore not exactly replicate the text of the original print issues. All efforts have been made to ensure accuracy, but the Publisher will not be held responsible for any remaining inaccuracies. If you require any further clarification, please contact our Customer Services Department.