Abstract
The primate brain contains distinct areas densely populated by face-selective neurons. One of these, face-patch ML, contains neurons selective for contrast relationships between face parts. Such contrast-relationships can serve as powerful heuristics for face detection. However, it is unknown whether neurons with such selectivity actually support face-detection behavior. Here, we devised a naturalistic face-detection task and combined it with fMRI-guided pharmacological inactivation of ML to test whether ML is of critical importance for real-world face detection. We found that inactivation of ML impairs face detection. The effect was anatomically specific, as inactivation of areas outside ML did not affect face detection, and it was categorically specific, as inactivation of ML impaired face detection while sparing body and object detection. These results establish that ML function is crucial for detection of faces in natural scenes, performing a critical first step on which other face processing operations can build.
Highlights
Faces are among the most behaviorally salient and socially relevant visual stimuli (Leopold and Rhodes, 2010). Reflecting this importance, the primate brain contains multiple interconnected cortical areas specialized for face processing, the face-patch network (Tsao et al, 2006, 2008)
The hierarchically early location of face patch middle-lateral face patch (ML) and the functional specificity of ML neurons led us to hypothesize that ML neurons might be critical for detection of faces, but not objects, in natural scenes
From a visual scene displayed on the touchscreen, subjects were required to select an object belonging to one of three target categories – human faces, macaque bodies, or shoes
Summary
Faces are among the most behaviorally salient and socially relevant visual stimuli (Leopold and Rhodes, 2010). Face-detection performance was reduced by ~11% during ML inactivation (pooled over all visibilities and sessions, p
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