Neural Computations Underlying Contextual Processing in Humans

Abstract

Context shapes our perception of facial expressions during everyday social interactions. We interpret a person's face in a hostile situation negatively, while judging the same face in a pleasant circumstance positively. Critical to our adaptive fitness, context provides situation-specific framing to resolve ambiguity and guide our interpersonal behavior. This context-specific modulation of facial expression is thought to engage the amygdala, the hippocampus, and the orbitofrontal cortex; however, the underlying neural computations remain unknown. Here, we use human intracranial EEG directly recorded from these regions and report bidirectional theta-gamma interactions within the amygdala-hippocampal network, facilitating contextual processing. Critically, contextual information is subsequently represented in the orbitofrontal cortex, where theta phase precession binds context and face associations within theta cycles, endowing faces with contextual meanings at behavioral timescales. Our results identify theta phase precession as mediating associations between context and face processing, supporting flexible social behavior.