Winrich Freiwald: Taking Apart the Neural Circuits of Face Processing

Topics: Connection of face recognition to intelligence: social cognition and perception start with faces, e.g. facial expression and communication; requirements for face recognition: (1) detect face, (2) encode structural properties, (3) encode dynamic properties, (4) extract different kinds of information (e.g. species, ethnicity, gender, age, identity, mood, direction of attention, attractiveness, likeability, trustworthiness), and (5) activate other parts of the brain to generate emotional response, activate a memory, draw attention, or elicit a motor response; early IT studies; fusiform face area; fMRI reveals face patches in the temporal lobe; response properties of middle face patch neurons; combining stimulation and fMRI to discover connectivity of face patches; connections of face network to lateral amygdala and pulvinar; development of face selectivity along a hierarchy that evolves from responses to faces in general, to faces in a particular location, to individual faces; connection to models of the ventral stream