Abstract
Are all faces recognized in the same way, or does previous experience with a face change how it is retrieved? Previous research using human scalp-recorded Event-Related Potentials (ERPs) demonstrates that recognition memory can produce dissociable brain signals under a variety of circumstances. While many studies have reported dissociations between the putative ‘dual processes’ of familiarity and recollection, a growing number of reports demonstrate that recollection itself may be fractionated into component processes. Many recognition memory studies using lexical materials as stimuli have reported a left parietal ERP old/new effect for recollection; however, when unfamiliar faces are recollected, an anterior effect can be observed. This paper addresses two separate hypotheses concerning the functional significance of the anterior old/new effect: perceptual retrieval and semantic status. The perceptual retrieval view is that the anterior effect reflects reinstatement of perceptual information bound up in an episodic representation, while the semantic status view is that information not represented in semantic memory pre-experimentally elicits the anterior effect instead of the left parietal effect. We tested these two competing accounts by investigating recognition memory for unfamiliar faces and famous faces in two separate experiments, in which same or different pictures of studied faces were presented as test items to permit brain activity associated with retrieving face and perceptual information to be examined independently. The difference in neural activity between same and different picture hits was operationalized as a pattern of activation associated with perceptual retrieval; while the contrast between different picture hits and correct rejection of new faces was assumed to reflect face retrieval. In Experiment 1, using unfamiliar faces, the anterior old/new effect (500–700 ms) was observed for face retrieval but not for perceptual retrieval, challenging the perceptual retrieval hypothesis. In Experiment 2, using famous faces, face retrieval was associated with a left parietal effect (500–700 ms), supporting the semantic representation hypothesis. A between-subjects analysis comparing scalp topography across the two experiments found that the anterior effect observed for unfamiliar faces is dissociable from the left parietal effect found for famous faces. This pattern of results supports the hypothesis that an item's status in semantic memory determines how it is recognized.
Highlights
Is the way that you recognize somebody you have just met for the very first time the same as the way you recognize a familiar person? Some recent investigations of brain function imply that there are at least two different neural processing routes associated with face recognition (Galli and Otten, 2011; Nie et al, 2014)
The first study reporting the alternative anterior recollection Event-Related Potentials (ERPs) old/new effect by MacKenzie and Donaldson (2007) was designed to investigate whether unfamiliar faces could be used to identify a pure familiarity signal, since unfamiliar faces should not be contaminated with previous episodic memories
If the anterior effect reflects semantic status, the different hit/new ERP contrast will have a frontal maximum, because unfamiliar faces are not represented in semantic memory pre-experimentally and are more likely to produce an anterior effect than a left parietal effect
Summary
Is the way that you recognize somebody you have just met for the very first time the same as the way you recognize a familiar person? Some recent investigations of brain function imply that there are at least two different neural processing routes associated with face recognition (Galli and Otten, 2011; Nie et al, 2014). The first study reporting the alternative anterior recollection ERP old/new effect by MacKenzie and Donaldson (2007) was designed to investigate whether unfamiliar faces could be used to identify a pure familiarity signal, since unfamiliar faces should not be contaminated with previous episodic memories. In their study MacKenzie and Donaldson (2007) observed an ERP old/new effect with an anterior distribution from approximately 400 to 800 ms for faces that were recollected, and this anterior effect was bigger when names were retrieved than when other specific information was retrieved. One way to isolate brain activity associated with successful retrieval of perceptual information that is bound up in an episodic representation is to contrast ERP waveforms for same and different pictures of studied faces In principle, this contrast should reveal a pattern of brain activity for the retrieval of perceptual information from the episodic representation; and if an anterior effect is observed the perceptual retrieval hypothesis will be supported. The key difference between these two sets of stimuli is their status in semantic memory
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