Reliability of individual differences in neural face identity discrimination

Abstract

Over the past years, much interest has been devoted to understanding how individuals differ in their ability to process facial identity. Fast periodic visual stimulation (FPVS) is a promising technique to obtain objective and highly sensitive neural correlates of face processing across various populations, from infants to neuropsychological patients. Here, we use FPVS to investigate how neural face identity discrimination varies in amplitude and topography across observers. To ascertain more detailed inter-individual differences, we parametrically manipulated the visual input fixated by observers across ten viewing positions (VPs). Specifically, we determined the inter-session reliability of VP-dependent neural face discrimination responses, both across and within observers (6-month inter-session interval). All observers exhibited idiosyncratic VP-dependent neural response patterns, with reliable individual differences in terms of response amplitude for the majority of VPs. Importantly, the topographical reliability varied across VPs and observers, the majority of which exhibited reliable responses only for specific VPs. Crucially, this topographical reliability was positively correlated with the response magnitude over occipito-temporal regions: observers with stronger responses also displayed more reliable response topographies. Our data extend previous findings of idiosyncrasies in visuo-perceptual processing. They highlight the need to consider intra-individual neural response reliability in order to better understand the functional role(s) and underlying basis of such inter-individual differences.