Abstract
IntroductionFace processing undergoes significant developmental change with age. Two kinds of developmental changes in face specialization were examined in this study: specialized maturation, or the continued tuning of a region to faces but little change in the tuning to other categories; and competitive interactions, or the continued tuning to faces accompanied by decreased tuning to nonfaces (i.e., pruning).MethodsUsing fMRI, in regions where adults showed a face preference, a face‐ and object‐specialization index were computed for younger children (5–8 years), older children (9–12 years) and adults (18–45 years). The specialization index was scaled to each subject's maximum activation magnitude in each region to control for overall age differences in the activation level.ResultsAlthough no regions showed significant face specialization in the younger age group, regions strongly associated with social cognition (e.g., right posterior superior temporal sulcus, right inferior orbital cortex) showed specialized maturation, in which tuning to faces increased with age but there was no pruning of nonface responses. Conversely, regions that are associated with more basic perceptual processing or motor mirroring (right middle temporal cortex, right inferior occipital cortex, right inferior frontal opercular cortex) showed competitive interactions in which tuning to faces was accompanied by pruning of object responses with age.ConclusionsThe overall findings suggest that cortical maturation for face processing is regional‐specific and involves both increased tuning to faces and diminished response to nonfaces. Regions that show competitive interactions likely support a more generalized function that is co‐opted for face processing with development, whereas regions that show specialized maturation increase their tuning to faces, potentially in an activity‐dependent, experience‐driven manner.
Highlights
Face processing undergoes significant developmental change with age
We examined whether a larger FFA than used in the primary analysis would dilute FSIB in any age group to further determine whether face specialization depends on spatial extent of activation, more generally
The present study provided evidence for increased tuning of face responses during development with or without pruning of nonface responses
Summary
Face processing undergoes significant developmental change with age. Two kinds of developmental changes in face specialization were examined in this study: specialized maturation, or the continued tuning of a region to faces but little change in the tuning to other categories; and competitive interactions, or the continued tuning to faces accompanied by decreased tuning to nonfaces (i.e., pruning). An alternative to competitive interactions is specialized maturation of a brain region, or increased tuning to faces but no pruning of responses to non-preferred categories. This outcome would be predicted by the Maturational account (discussed in Johnson 2005; Joseph et al 2011) or Constructivist viewpoints (Quartz 1999). In these alternative accounts, the primary process is increased tuning of a region to faces but minimal pruning back of nonpreferred a 2016 The Authors.
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