Attention to faces in the fusiform gyrus

Abstract

Face recognition represents one of the most expert skills of the human visual/memory system. It has been proposed to rely on a highly specific, modular system distinct from the system(s) involved in recognition of other objects. A recent imaging study has shown face-specific activations in the ventral occipito-temporal pathway, in particular, in the fusiform gyrus[1xCovert visual attention modulates face-specific activity in the human fusiform gyrus: fMRI study. Wojciulik, E., Kanwisher, N., and Driver, J. J. Neurophysiol. 1998; 79: 1574–1578PubMedSee all References][1]. In this blocked-design functional magnetic resonance imaging study, the authors investigate whether fusiform gyrus activity in response to faces is modulated by attention. They show that the same stimuli containing a pair of houses plus a pair of faces activate face-specific fusiform areas more strongly when the task focuses subjects' attention on faces relative to houses. Consequently, this study supports the idea that fusiform gyrus activation in response to faces is not merely driven by the visual characteristics specific to these stimuli relative to other objects, but is also modulated by attentional processes. This result has implications for a strictly modular view of the face-recognition system. Because it shows that face-specific fusiform gyrus activations are not purely automatic and unmodulated, this study throws doubt on such a strict modular view of face recognition.