L13 - Face Recog cont. & Mental Imagery

Question 1

What is the expertise hypothesis of face recognition?

Answer 1

• Face perception is an example of visual expertise in individuating a visually homogenous class of objects (faces).
• Experts in other domains recruit the same brain regions (Fusiform Face Area FFA) when they look at their objects of expertise.

Question 2

What are some findings regarding expertise and the change in entry level of object recognition?

Answer 2

• Usually naming is faster at the basic category level (e.g. dog, bird) than the subordinate level (e.g. Labrador, Robin).
• But acquired experts (e.g. dog show judges) can name exemplars as fast as basic level.
• Same shift can be observed in the lab after Greeble training.

Question 3

What are some findings regarding expertise and the holistic coding of objects?

Answer 3

• Inversion effects for objects of expertise like inversion effects for faces.
• Whole vs. part advantage for objects of expertise.
• Sensitivity to configural relations.

Question 4

What are some findings regarding expertise and specific brain regions?

Answer 4

• Objects of expertise recruit the FFA and OFA.
• Trained Greeble experts had increased activation in Right FFA & OFA compared to pre-training.
• FFA was activated by upright but not inverted Greebles (like faces).

Question 5

What are some similarities between mental images and visual images?

Answer 5

• A mental image is a depictive internal representation.

Mental images are “inspected” in a similar fashion to visual images:

• scanning across larger distances takes longer.
• zooming into an image takes time proportional to distance.
• mental images are depicted from a specific viewpoint.

Mental images are analogue representations of the real world.

Question 6

What are some neural substrates of mental images?

Answer 6

• Mental imagery recruits the same neural architecture as viewing corresponding images (e.g. imagining faces activates FFA).
• Mental imagery more consistently recruits “higher-level” visual areas, although low-level visual areas (primary visual cortex) may contribute to vividness and detail.