Cognition (Faces, Places, Attention)

faces

Giuseppe Arcimbaldo made seasonal paintings of vegetables that were organized to look like ______, showing that we are able to recognize _____ even when we know it is not a _____.

pareidolia

seeing faces in stuff that isn’t actually a face (ex. front of a car, outlet, etc.)

False, it fires less than it would for a real face

In humans and monkeys, the face regions of the brain still respond to objects that look like faces, and they fire the same amount as they would for a real face. True or False.

1. Critical for survival

2. Special cognitive signatures

3. Dedicated neural hardware

4. Domain-specific vs domain-general

5. Nativism vs. empiricism

Why study face recognition?

domain-specific

the concept that the brain has recognizers for each category: a face regions, a place region, an object region, etc.

domain-general

the concept that the brain has one recognizer that goes across domains

domain-specific

Is the brain/mind domain-specific or general?

nativism

the idea that we are born with certain knowledge and information

empiricism

the idea that certain things are learned

prosopagnosia

the inability to recognize faces

super recognizers

people who are exceptionally good at recognizing faces (so they claim)

autism spectrum disorder (ASD)

people who have difficulty recognizing emotions on faces often have…

face blindness

prosopagnosia is also known as…

False, they can’t recognize faces but they can recognize emotions

Prosopagnosics can’t recognize emotions on faces. True or False

other race effect

the concept that if you’re not exposed to a race, it’s difficult to discriminate within that race

1. face inversion effect

2. parts-whole effect

3. composite effect

The 3 special cognitive/behavioral signatures for faces

face inversion effect

the idea that we are less accurate and slower to recognize faces when they are presented upside down

mono-oriented objects

objects that are typically oriented from one angle/viewing position

parts-whole effect

the idea that it is more difficult to distinguish two different facial features when they are on the face compared to when they are presented in isolation

composite effect

the idea that different lower halves of a face are harder to distinguish when the photos are aligned compared to when they are misaligned

LOC

What non-face region of the brain responds to an inverted face?

Mooney face

illusion that looks like a face

autism spectrum disorder

ASD

Fusiform face area

FFA

lateral occipital complex

LOC

functional magnetic resonance imaging

fMRI

trans-cranial magnetic stimulation

TMS

occipital face area

OFA

posterior superior temporal sulcus

pSTS

parahippocampal place area

PPA

retrosplenial complex

RSC

occipital place area

OPA

False, a prosopagnosic can tell you a person’s sex, age, and expression despite the fact that they don’t recognize the face.

A prosopagnosic can not tell you a person’s sex based on their face. True or False.

doors on houses

What control was used to demonstrate that the parts-whole effect was a cognitive/behavioral signature for faces?

houses and inverted faces

What two controls were used to demonstrate that the composite effect is a cognitive/behavioral signature for faces?

objects

We functionally define a “face region” using an fMRI and by ensuring that it responds 2-4 times more to faces than…

True. Some people have FFA exclusively in the right temporal lobe, but some do have bilateral FFA.

FFA can be bilateral. True or False.

intracranial stimulation

What is the name of the brain-studying method where a net is placed on an epilepsy patient’s brain to zap/stimulate a deeper area that can’t be reached with TMS?

True, this is why Parvizi et al. had to use intracranial stimulation to get causal data for FFA.

TMS can only reach brain areas that are on the cortex surface. True or false.

Sham

What was it called when Parvizi played a click sound without actually zapping the brain?

They reported seeing Parvizi’s face warp, saying “you turned into someone else.” Still, they said Parvizi was still a man and had the same skin color.

What did Parvizi’s patient see when Parvizi zapped FFA and they were looking at his face?

He reported seeing a face in front of the basketball.

What did the Japanese patient see when his FFA was zapped and he was looking at a basketball?

He reported seeing rainbow colors in front of the basketball, though only on one side of the visual field (because they zapped one hemisphere and the Vs are retinotopic).

What did the Japanese patient see when they zapped his V4 and he was looking at a basketball?

OFA deals with parts of a face/features

What does OFA do?

FFA deals with the whole/configuration of the face

What does FFA do?

pSTS deals with recognizing emotions on faces

What does pSTS do?

grooves

Sulcus (sulci) are grooves (valleys) or bumps (peaks)?

bumps

Gyrus (gyri) are grooves (valleys) or bumps (peaks)?

True, but for different reasons. People with FFA damage have trouble recognizing the whole/configuration, while people with OFA damage have trouble recognizing the parts/features.

People with damage to FFA or OFA both have prosopagnosia. True or False.

resting state scanning

What is the name of the brain-scanning method that tests the brain when it’s firing randomly, which is beneficial for babies who can’t stay awake?

4 to 6

OFA, FFA, and pSTS exist in babies as young as _____ months.

False, they can because they still have PPA, which is activated by large immovable objects that are unique to a scene, like fridges, beds, toilets, etc.

An object agnosic can’t differentiate between a kitchen and bedroom. True or False.

scene content and spatial layout

What are the two things that make up a scene?

13 or 50 milliseconds

How long does it take us to recognize a scene?

topographical disorientation

What is the term for an inability to do stuff with scenes?

1. gist

2. recognition equal to face and object recognition

What are the 2 cognitive signatures of scenes?

gist

What is the name of the concept for when we give people blurry images so that they can’t see the objects clearly but they can still categorize the scene?

That scenes can NOT be a compilation of objects, or else it would take us 13 or 50 seconds times the number of objects in the scene

What does it signify when we say we are equally accurate and fast at recognizing scenes (13 or 50 ms) as we are at faces and objects?

1. recognition (scene categorization)

2. visually guided navigation

3. map-based navigation

What are the 3 ways we interact with scenes?

objects

Place regions are best functionally defined on an fMRI when comparing scenes to…

scene categorization

What is PPA responsible for?

visually guided navigation

What is OPA responsible for?

map-based navigation

What is RSC responsible for?

temporal lobe, ventral stream

Where is PPA?

parietal lobe, dorsal stream

Where is OPA?

near the hippocampus

Where is RSC?

vertex

What is the chasm between the hemispheres called?

OPA, RSC

Of the 3 place regions, which two are sensitive to left-right orientation?

temporal lobe, ventral stream

Where is OFA?

temporal lobe, ventral stream

Where is FFA?

temporal lobe, ventral stream

Where is pSTS?

OFA, FFA, pSTS

List the 3 face regions in order from the back of the brain to the front

hemispatial neglect

What is the term for impairment in attending to stimuli (or thoughts) on one side of space?

parietal lobe, dorsal stream

Hemispatial neglect is caused by damage where?

the left side, because damage is typically seen in the right hemisphere

What side of space is often neglected in hemispatial neglect?

False, they can see it, they just can’t attend to it.

People with hemispatial neglect can’t see one side of space. True or false.

line bi-section task

the name of the task where people are instructed to cut a line in half

line cancellation

the name of the task where people are told to cross out every line

They bisect lines further to the right or left, they cancel lines on only one side, they only draw half of an object when copying, they only report seeing 6789 when asked to imagine a number line, they will only draw half of an object when drawing from memory, and they will only eat half of their plate.

What are the signs of hemispatial neglect?

False, they are different, but they are often correlated (we typically fixate on and attend to the same thing)

Fixation and attention are the same thing. True or false.

1. whether attention is multimodal or not

2. in what way we attend to stuff in space (spatial representation)

What two main things can neglect tell us?

We have 1 attention that talks to all 5 senses

What would multimodal attention mean?

whether affecting something in vision for example will directly affect another sense

In order to test if attention is multimodal, you have to test…

They will not report seeing it.

What will someone with left neglect, no extinction report when an object is presented on the left?

They will report seeing it.

What will someone with left neglect, no extinction report when something is presented on the right?

They will only report seeing the thing on the right

What will someone with left neglect, no extinction report when an object is presented on both the left and right?

They will report seeing it

What will someone with left neglect, extinction report when something is presented on the left?

They will report seeing it

What will someone with left neglect, extinction report when an object is presented on the right?

They will only report seeing the object on the right

What will someone with left neglect, extinction report when an object is reported on both the left and right?

when an object is presented only on the left

On what trial do people with left neglect extinction vs. no extinction differ?

no extinction

People with left neglect, ________ don’t report anything on the left ever

Extinction

People with left neglect, _______ only lose stuff on the left when something is presented on the right at the same time

When, for example, an object is visually presented on the left and someone is tapped on their right shoulder, a person with left neglect, extinction will only report feeling the tap and will not see the object. This proves that attention is multimodal because it shows that affecting one sense (touch) directly affects another (vision).

What was the evidence that attention is multimodal?

1. egocentric

2. allocentric

3. object-centered

What are the 3 frames of reference?

egocentric

the frame of reference relative to your eyes, head, or body (what’s left or right of us?)

allocentric

the frame of reference relative to stuff in the environment (what’s left or right of stuff in the world?)

object centered

the frame of reference relative to the intrinsic axes of an object (what’s left or right of the object itself?)

parietal lobe, dorsal stream

Where is spatial representation in the brain?

egocentric (retinocentric)

What was patient CS’s frame of reference?

a change in emotion on Parvizi’s face

Parvizi zapped FFA. If he had zapped pSTS instead, what might the patient report if they were looking at Parvizi’s face?