Face processing in the temporal lobe

Abstract

Face perception is a socially important but complex process with many stages and many facets. There is substantial evidence from many sources that it involves a large extent of the temporal lobe, from the ventral occipitotemporal cortex and superior temporal sulci to anterior temporal regions. While early human neuroimaging work suggested a core face network consisting of the occipital face area, fusiform face area, and posterior superior temporal sulcus, studies in both humans and monkeys show a system of face patches stretching from posterior to anterior in both the superior temporal sulcus and inferotemporal cortex. Sophisticated techniques such as fMRI adaptation have shown that these face-activated regions show responses that have many of the attributes of human face processing. Lesions of some of these regions in humans lead to variants of prosopagnosia, the inability to recognize the identity of a face. Lesion, imaging, and electrophysiologic data all suggest that there is a segregation between identity and expression processing, though some suggest this may be better characterized as a distinction between static and dynamic facial information.

Keywords: Face expression; Face patch; Face recognition; Fusiform face area; Prosopagnosia.