@article {1007, title = {Contrasting Specializations for Facial Motion within the Macaque Face-Processing System}, journal = {Current Biology}, volume = {25}, year = {2015}, type = {Report}, chapter = {261}, abstract = {

Facial motion transmits rich and ethologically vital information
[1, 2], but how the brain interprets this complex signal is
poorly understood. Facial form is analyzed by anatomically
distinct face patches in the macaque brain [3, 4], and facial
motion activates these patches and surrounding areas [5,
6]. Yet, it is not known whether facial motion is processed
by its own distinct and specialized neural machinery, and if
so, what that machinery{\textquoteright}s organization might be. To address
these questions, we used fMRI to monitor the brain activity
of macaque monkeys while they viewed low- and high-level
motion and form stimuli. We found that, beyond classical
motion areas and the known face patch system, moving
faces recruited a heretofore unrecognized face patch.
Although all face patches displayed distinctive selectivity
for face motion over object motion, only two face patches
preferred naturally moving faces, while three others
preferred randomized, rapidly varying sequences of facial
form. This functional divide was anatomically specific,
segregating dorsal from ventral face patches, thereby
revealing a new organizational principle of the macaque
face-processing system.

}, author = {Clark Fisher and W. A. Freiwald} } @article {1466, title = {Whole-agent selectivity within the macaque face-processing system}, journal = {Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS)}, volume = {112}, year = {2015}, month = {10/2015}, chapter = {14717}, abstract = {

The primate brain contains a set of face-selective areas, which are thought to extract the rich social information that faces provide, such as emotional state and personal identity. The nature of this information raises a fundamental question about these face-selective areas: Do they respond to a face purely because of its visual attributes, or because the face embodies a larger social agent? Here, we used functional magnetic resonance imaging to determine whether the macaque face patch system exhibits a whole-agent response above and beyond its responses to individually presented faces and bodies. We found a systematic development of whole-agent preference through the face patches, from subadditive integration of face and body responses in posterior face patches to superadditive integration in anterior face patches. Superadditivity was not observed for faces atop nonbody objects, implying categorical specificity of face{\textendash}body interaction. Furthermore, superadditivity was robust to visual degradation of facial detail, suggesting whole-agent selectivity does not require prior face recognition. In contrast, even the body patches immediately adjacent to anterior face areas did not exhibit superadditivity. This asymmetry between face- and body-processing systems may explain why observers attribute bodies{\textquoteright} social signals to faces, and not vice versa. The development of whole-agent selectivity from posterior to anterior face patches, in concert with the recently described development of natural motion selectivity from ventral to dorsal face patches, identifies a single face patch, AF (anterior fundus), as a likely link between the analysis of facial shape and semantic inferences about other agents.

}, issn = {0027-8424}, doi = {10.1073/pnas.1512378112 }, url = {http://www.pnas.org/content/112/47/14717.abstract}, author = {Clark Fisher and W. A. Freiwald} }