Activation of face expertise and the inversion effect
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Updated: Aug 14, 2026

Analyzing Neural Activity and Connectivity Using Intracranial EEG Data with SPM Software
Published on: October 30, 2018
Liezhong Ge1, Zhe Wang, Joseph P McCleery
1Zhejiang Sci-Tech University, Hangzhou, People's Republic of China.
Abstract:
We used a contextual priming paradigm to examine top-down influences on the face-inversion effect. Adult participants were primed with either faces or Chinese characters and then tested on ambiguous figures that could be perceived as either faces or Chinese characters, dependent on the priming condition. The ambiguous figures differed from one another in their configural information, which is crucial for processing faces but not Chinese characters. The inversion effect was observed in the face-priming condition, but not in the character-priming condition. The present results provide the first direct evidence that top-down activation of the face-processing expertise system plays a crucial role in the face-inversion effect.
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