Abstract

It is widely assumed that the fusiform face area (FFA), a brain region specialized for face perception, is not involved in processing emotional expressions. This assumption is based on the proposition that the FFA is involved in face identification and only processes features that are invariant across changes due to head movements, speaking and expressing emotions. The present study tested this proposition by examining whether the response in the human FFA varies across emotional expressions with functional magnetic resonance imaging and brain decoding analysis techniques (n = 11). A one vs. all classification analysis showed that most emotional expressions that participants perceived could be reliably predicted from the neural pattern of activity in left and the right FFA, suggesting that the perception of different emotional expressions recruit partially non-overlapping neural mechanisms. In addition, emotional expressions could also be decoded from the pattern of activity in the early visual cortex (EVC), indicating that retinotopic cortex also shows a differential response to emotional expressions. These results cast doubt on the idea that the FFA is involved in expression invariant face processing, and instead indicate that emotional expressions evoke partially de-correlated signals throughout occipital and posterior temporal cortex.

Highlights

  • Many functional models of face processing propose that the neural pathways involved in face identification are separate from the pathways that are involved in recognizing emotional expressions (Haxby et al, 2000; O’Toole et al, 2002; for a detailed review see, Calder and Young, 2005)

  • A proposal common to these models is that the fusiform face area (FFA), a face selective brain region located in the ventral temporal lobes (Kanwisher and Yovel, 2006), is involved in face identification and as such, only processes features that are invariant across changes due to head movements, speaking and emotional expressions

  • The present study showed that emotional expressions could be decoded from the pattern of activity in the FFA

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Summary

Introduction

Many functional models of face processing propose that the neural pathways involved in face identification are separate from the pathways that are involved in recognizing emotional expressions (Haxby et al, 2000; O’Toole et al, 2002; for a detailed review see, Calder and Young, 2005). A proposal common to these models is that the fusiform face area (FFA), a face selective brain region located in the ventral temporal lobes (Kanwisher and Yovel, 2006), is involved in face identification and as such, only processes features that are invariant across changes due to head movements, speaking and emotional expressions. Positing a dichotomy between the processing of invariant and changeable properties of faces (and linking to different anatomic substrates) has been described as the standard view in the area (Calder and Young, 2005; Cohen Kadosh et al, 2010) Consistent with the dichotomous view, these studies showed that changeable features, such as head or gaze orientation, evoke distinct patterns of activity in face selective regions located in the STS (Carlin et al, 2011), whereas non-changeable features (such as identity) evoke distinct patterns of activity in the FFA and other regions in the ventral temporal lobes (Kriegeskorte et al, 2007; Op de Beeck et al, 2010; Nestor et al, 2011)

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