Specificity Of Face Recognition

One of the hot points in current cognitive science is the specificity of human face processing. Using Chinese characters as contrast stimuli, the author investigated the reversion effect and race effect in human face recognition on both behavioral and neural levels. Four tasks (differentiation task, recognition task, race judgment task and delayed comparison task) were used in these researches to explore the neural mechanism of human face processing.There are three studies in this paper. Using priming task and face/character ambiguous figures as stimulus, study 1 (expt. 1 & 2) explored reversion effect of faces and characters. Using recognition task and race-judgment task, study 2 (expt. 3, 4 and 5) investigated the effects of faces and words' orientation and race membership with two subjects of races. Study 3 included two ERP experiments comparing neural correlates with recognition processing of faces, characters and other two kinds of objects, and comparing neural correlates with two race effects.In these researches we found following results.1. Reversion effect in recognition of the face/character ambiguous figure emerged in the face-priming condition but not in the character-priming condition in study 1. These results suggest that there is the specific system for face recognition, despite the expertise property of face processing.2. "Same-race first" effect and reversion effect both emerged in both face and word recognition task. And the magnitude of effect on face is larger that than on words.3. Both Caucasian and Chinese showed "Same-race first" effect in face recognition task and "other-race first" in face race judgment task.4. The amplitude of N170 and P200 was higher when faces were reversed (compared with normal condition). The amplitude of P200 was lower when Chinese characters were reversed (compared with normal condition). No such patterns were found in conditions of other stimulus.Our results were consistent with Face Specificity Hypothesis. The N170 in FFA in right occipital-temporal lobe might be related with configural information processing in human face recognition. The P200 in bilateral occipital-temporal lobes might be related with general visual expertise system.