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Related Experiment Videos

Visual neurones responsive to faces in the monkey temporal cortex

D I Perrett, E T Rolls, W Caan

    Experimental Brain Research
    |January 1, 1982
    PubMed
    Summary
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    Researchers discovered specialized neurons in the superior temporal sulcus (STS) of monkeys that selectively respond to faces. These face-selective neurons are crucial for facial recognition and may be linked to prosopagnosia when damaged.

    Area of Science:

    • Neuroscience
    • Primate Vision
    • Cognitive Neuroscience

    Background:

    • The superior temporal sulcus (STS) in primates is implicated in processing complex visual stimuli.
    • Understanding neuronal responses to faces is key to deciphering visual recognition mechanisms.
    • Previous research has not fully elucidated the specific neural coding for facial features.

    Purpose of the Study:

    • To identify and characterize neurons in the STS that are selectively responsive to faces.
    • To investigate the response properties of these face-selective neurons.
    • To explore the potential role of these neurons in face recognition and related disorders.

    Main Methods:

    • Single-unit recordings were performed in the STS of three alert rhesus monkeys.

    Related Experiment Videos

  • Neuronal responses were measured to various visual stimuli, including faces, gratings, objects, and facial features.
  • Stimulus transformations (rotation, size, distance, color) were used to assess response invariance.

    • Main Results:

    • A population of at least 48 neurons showed selective and significantly larger responses to faces compared to other stimuli.
    • These neurons exhibited excitatory, sustained, and time-locked responses to faces with latencies of 80-160 ms.
    • Responses were relatively invariant to transformations but reduced by profile views; different neurons responded to specific facial features.

    Conclusions:

    • The identified STS neurons form a system specialized for coding faces and their features.
    • These findings challenge explanations based solely on arousal, motor reactions, or simple visual features.
    • Damage to this face-processing system may underlie prosopagnosia and the Klüver-Bucy syndrome.