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Published on: February 7, 2025
A Visual Behavioral Training Study of Categorical Face Pattern Recognition in Mice.
Yanhong Chen1, Lingna Guo2, Ri Jiang2
1Department of Neurobiology, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, Alabama, USA.
Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences
|June 5, 2026
Summary
Mice can recognize faces categorically, not just by visual features. This suggests a fundamental face concept exists even in species without primarily visual social communication.
Area of Science:
- Cognitive neuroscience
- Animal behavior
- Comparative psychology
Background:
- The ability to recognize faces is crucial for social interaction in humans.
- It remains unclear whether non-primate species, like rodents, possess a categorical face concept or rely solely on visual cues.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate whether mice (C57BL/6J) can form a categorical face concept.
- To determine if face discrimination in rodents is driven by visual features or a higher-level concept.
Main Methods:
- Mice were trained on a touchscreen face-object discrimination task.
- Behavioral responses to novel stimuli, inverted stimuli, and contrast-negated stimuli were analyzed.
- Performance along a continuum from pareidolia to real faces was assessed.
Main Results:
- Mice generalized face-object classification to novel stimuli.
- Discrimination ability was lost with inverted or contrast-negated stimuli, mirroring human face-specific task effects.
- Choice performance exhibited a sigmoidal function along a face-similarity continuum, indicating a categorical boundary.
Conclusions:
- Rodents demonstrate a categorical face concept, similar to humans.
- This suggests that a face concept can emerge independently of primarily visual social communication.
- The findings open avenues for exploring the neural and genetic underpinnings of categorical pattern recognition.
