Decoding Task and Stimulus Representations in Face-responsive Cortex

Overview

Journal Cogn Neuropsychol

Publisher Routledge

Specialties Neurology
Psychology

Date 2016 Dec 17

PMID 27978778

Citations 3

Authors

Dorit Kliemann

Nir Jacoby

Stefano Anzellotti

Rebecca R Saxe

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

Observers can deliberately attend to some aspects of a face (e.g. emotional expression) while ignoring others. How do internal goals influence representational geometry in face-responsive cortex? Participants watched videos of naturalistic dynamic faces during MRI scanning. We measured multivariate neural response patterns while participants formed an intention to attend to a facial aspect (age, or emotional valence), and then attended to that aspect, and responses to the face's emotional valence, independent of attention. Distinct patterns of response to the two tasks were found while forming the intention, in left fronto-lateral but not face-responsive regions, and while attending to the face, in almost all face-responsive regions. Emotional valence was represented in right posterior superior temporal sulcus and medial prefrontal cortex, but could not be decoded when unattended. Shifting the focus of attention thus alters cortical representation of social information, probably reflecting neural flexibility to optimally integrate goals and perceptual input.

Citing Articles

Specific Neural Mechanisms of Self-Cognition and the Application of Brainprint Recognition.

Zhang R, Zeng Y, Tong L, Yan B Biology (Basel). 2023; 12(3).

PMID: 36979177 PMC: 10044822. DOI: 10.3390/biology12030486.

Cortical responses to dynamic emotional facial expressions generalize across stimuli, and are sensitive to task-relevance, in adults with and without Autism.

Kliemann D, Richardson H, Anzellotti S, Ayyash D, Haskins A, Gabrieli J Cortex. 2018; 103:24-43.

PMID: 29554540 PMC: 5988954. DOI: 10.1016/j.cortex.2018.02.006.

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