Explore The Distinction Between Self - The Neural Basis Of The Faces Of Others

"Self is the center of the personal psychology"(William James,1890),the understanding of individual psychology cannot be separated from individual self-knowledge.In recent years, many researchers have been exploring the psychological process and neural basis of self-awareness.Research on self-face recognition is the most effective method to understand the nature of self-information processing(Gallup,1970).There are a lot of researches on self-face recognition at home and abroad,but the results of self-face recognition neural mechanism are inconsistent(Keenan,1999,2000;Turk,2002),and the researches related to the self-study need to take into account the different cultural factors (Zhu,2004).In this study,college students have been taken part in two experiments,by use of event-related potential techniques(ERP) and transcranial magnetic stimulation(TMS),adopted experimental method to explore the following questions:First,to explore the general neural mechanisms of face recognition;Second,to test Chinese college students' neural mechanisms of self-face recognition;third,to test Chinese college students' neural mechanisms of friends-face recognition;at last,trying to understand the similarities and differences between Chinese college students and West college students in face-recognition tasks so as to explore the cultural effects on self-perception(self-face recognition).The results were as follows:First,face recognition in the early phase,the N170 and the VPP in the right hemisphere temporal-occipital junction was the face-specific ERP components to identify common face structural characteristics.The ERPs induced by face materials were more-positive going at 300ms and lasted 300ms,followed by a negative wave which lasted about 200ms.Second,in addition to the general characteristics of face recognition,self-face recognition had unique characteristics.The ERPs induced by self-face in the top area,the central area and the frontal area showed more-positive amplitude than faces of strangers after 200ms. Transcranial magnetic stimulation experiment after inhibition right anterior frontal(F6 electrode) found that reaction time of self-face recognition become significantly longer,which proved that the right anterior frontal lobes involved in self-face recognition. Third,the ERPs induced by friends' face also shown different characteristics with the self-face recognition and strangers face.Compared with the famous faces and the faces of strangers,the ERPs induced by friends' face showed more-positive amplitude after 300ms in the top zone,the central area and the frontal area.At 500ms,the ERP components evoked by friends' face in the left anterior frontal lobe showed more positive than the right anterior frontal lobe,showing the advantages of the left anterior frontal lobe in friend face recognition. Transcranial magnetic stimulation experiment further found that inhibiting the left anterior frontal indeed had an impact of the task of friend face recognition.Fourth,the differences between the Chinese students' friends and self-face recognition in the study were not exactly consistent with the West.The direct comparison between the self and friend face recognition found the ERP waveform in the top zone,the central area and the anterior frontal area showed no significant difference,but the results from the West showed that self face recognition had their unique process of time both in the top area,central area and the frontal area compared to friend face recognition after 300ms(Keenan,1998,2000).After 700ms,self-face recognition showed right anterior frontal advantages,which may be related to self-awareness; and friends face recognition showed the left anterior frontal advantages,which may be associated with the names of the faces.