Spatiotemporal dynamics of similarity-based neural representations of facial identity

Abstract

<p id="d1845643e200">Humans can rapidly discriminate among many highly similar facial identities across identity-preserving image transformations (e.g., changes in facial expression), an ability that requires the system to rapidly transform image-based inputs into a more abstract, identity-based representation. We used magnetoencephalography to provide a temporally precise description of this transformation within human face-selective cortical regions. We observed a transition from an image-based representation toward an identity-based representation after ∼200 ms, a result suggesting that, rather than computing a single representation, a given face-selective region may represent multiple distinct types of information about face identity at different times. Our results advance our understanding of the microgenesis of fine-grained, high-level neural representations of object identity, a process critical to human visual expertise. </p><p class="first" id="d1845643e203">Humans’ remarkable ability to quickly and accurately discriminate among thousands of highly similar complex objects demands rapid and precise neural computations. To elucidate the process by which this is achieved, we used magnetoencephalography to measure spatiotemporal patterns of neural activity with high temporal resolution during visual discrimination among a large and carefully controlled set of faces. We also compared these neural data to lower level “image-based” and higher level “identity-based” model-based representations of our stimuli and to behavioral similarity judgments of our stimuli. Between ∼50 and 400 ms after stimulus onset, face-selective sources in right lateral occipital cortex and right fusiform gyrus and sources in a control region (left V1) yielded successful classification of facial identity. In all regions, early responses were more similar to the image-based representation than to the identity-based representation. In the face-selective regions only, responses were more similar to the identity-based representation at several time points after 200 ms. Behavioral responses were more similar to the identity-based representation than to the image-based representation, and their structure was predicted by responses in the face-selective regions. These results provide a temporally precise description of the transformation from low- to high-level representations of facial identity in human face-selective cortex and demonstrate that face-selective cortical regions represent multiple distinct types of information about face identity at different times over the first 500 ms after stimulus onset. These results have important implications for understanding the rapid emergence of fine-grained, high-level representations of object identity, a computation essential to human visual expertise. </p>