Week 3 Chris Dodds Object Recognition

Question 1

How are faces processed?

Answer 1

Holistically - (as a whole)

Question 2

Provide evidence for faces being processed holistically

Answer 2

B Rossion- using the composite face illusion, the top half of faces are perceived as different when when the bottom half is a different face. However, when the bottom half is not aligned with the top of the face

Question 3

What is meant by ‘prosopagnosia?’

Answer 3

This is a face recognition deficit. Patients can recognise who is who by their voice, however they are unable to recognise their face of friends and family BUT can recognise objects

Question 4

What is the Fusiform area hypothesis and give a piece of evidence which supports this

Answer 4

This claims that areas of brain processing faces are distinct from brain areas processing objects

Question 5

Give a piece of challenging the evidence against the Fusiform Face Area Hypothesis

Answer 5

Perhaps this region is activated when we process something familiar, and not necessarily just faces. we process faces a lot therefore this area could be activated when we process familiar stimuli?

Question 6

Provide a study which challenges the FFA hypothesis

Answer 6

Gauthier et al (1999) - participants who were trained to recognise Greebles showed greater activation in FFA vs participants who had no training.

Suggests FFA is activated during a familiar stimulus

Question 7

The Greeble study by Gauthier et al (1999) suggested that FFA activation is heightened during a familiar stimulus rather than specifically faces. What is a weakness of this study?

Answer 7

The greebles already look similar to faces - this could be a confound?

Question 8

True or False?

Face processing is only activated in the FFA

Answer 8

FALSE

there are other brain regions which process faces

Question 9

Does prosopagnosia support or challenge the FFA hypothesis?

Answer 9

Prosopagnosia supports the FFA hypothesis, as although patients do not recognise the faces of their friends and family, they can recognise objects

Question 10

In terms of brain regions, where does prosopagnosia cause a lesion too?

Answer 10

There is a lesion in any area of the right ventral occipitotemporal cortex

however it is difficult to pinpoint a specific region

Question 11

what evidence is there from FMRI that the FFA is a face-processing module?

Answer 11

Kanwisher et al (1997
- using a region of interest approach
-

Question 12

Apart from FFA, give TWO other modules in the ventral visual cortex which are involved in selective processing

Answer 12

1) Parahippocampamal place area (PPA) - this region is activated selectively during scenes
2) The extrastriate body area (EBA) this region selectively attends to pictures of human bodies

Question 13

Give an example of prosopagnosia which supports the FFA and prosopagnosia that challenges the FFA hypothesis

Answer 13

Acquired prosopagnosia SUPPORTS the FFA hypothesis
Developmental prosopagnosia CHALLENGES the FFA hypothesis (can occur from birth rather than damaging a lesion in an accident)

Question 14

In terms of multivariate FMRI, what does univariate and multivariate FMRI look for?

Answer 14

• univariate: ‘peaks’ of activation

- Multivariate: ‘patterns’ of activation