Skip to main content
Key Specialties
Cardiology Diabetology Endocrinology Gastroenterology Geriatrics and Gerontology Gynecology and Obstetrics Hematology Infectious Disease Internal Medicine Nephrology Neurology Oncology Pediatrics Respiratory Medicine Rheumatology Surgery
Congress Coverage
2024 ACC Congress 2023 ESMO Congress 2023 EASD Congress 2023 ERS Congress 2023 ESC Congress
Clinical Collections
Advances in Alzheimer’s

Keynote webinar | Spotlight on medication adherence

LIVE: Thursday 27th June 2024, 18:00-19:30 (CEST)
Join our expert panel to discover why you need to understand the drivers of non-adherence in your patients, and how you can optimize medication adherence in your clinics to drastically improve patient outcomes.
ADVANCED SEARCH
Log in
Top
Current Neurology and Neuroscience Reports
Published in: Current Neurology and Neuroscience Reports 7/2019

01-07-2019 | Behavior (HS Kirshner, Section Editor)

Face Recognition

Author: Steven Z. Rapcsak

Published in: Current Neurology and Neuroscience Reports | Issue 7/2019

Login to get access

Abstract

Purpose of Review

Functional imaging studies, intracranial recordings, and lesion-deficit correlations in neurological patients have produced unique insights into the cognitive mechanisms and neural substrates of face recognition. In this review, we highlight recent advances in the field and integrate data from these complementary lines of research to propose a functional neuroanatomical model of face identity recognition.

Recent Findings

Rather than being localized to a single specialized cortical region, face recognition is supported by a distributed neural network. Core components of the network include face-selective visual areas in the ventral occipito-temporal cortex, whereas the extended network is comprised of anterior temporal lobe structures involved in the retrieval of multimodal identity-specific knowledge about familiar individuals, the amygdala responsible for generating emotional responses to faces, and prefrontal regions that provide top-down executive control of the recognition process. Damage to different network components results in neuropsychological disorders of face identity processing manifested either as impaired recognition of familiar faces (prosopagnosia, person recognition disorders) or as false recognition/misidentification of unfamiliar faces.

Summary

Face identity recognition requires the coordinated activity of a large-scale neural network. Neurological damage can compromise the structural/functional integrity of specific network nodes or their connections and give rise to face recognition disorders with distinct clinical features and underlying cognitive mechanisms determined primarily by the location of the lesion.
Literature
1.
Bruce V, Young AW. Understanding face recognition. Br J Psychol. 1986;77:305–27.PubMed
2.
Rossion B. Understanding face perception by means of prosopagnosia and neuroimaging. Front Bioscience (Elite Ed). 2014;6:308–17.
3.
Haxby JV, Hoffman EA, Gobbini MI. The distributed human neural system for face perception. Trends Cogn Sci. 2000;4:223–33.PubMed
4.
Gobbini IM, Haxby JV. Neural systems for recognition of familiar faces. Neuropsychologia. 2007;45:32–41.PubMed
5.
Haxby JV, Gobbini IM. Distributed neural systems for face perception. In: Rhodes G, Calder A, Johnson M, Haxby JV, editors. Oxford handbook of face perception. New York: Oxford University Press; 2011.
6.
7.
Rapcsak SZ. Face recognition. In: Chatterjee A, Coslett HB, editors. The roots of cognitive neuroscience: behavioral neurology and neuropsychology. New York: Oxford University Press; 2014.
8.
Ishai A. Let’s face it: it’s a cortical network. Neuroimage. 2008;40:415–9.PubMed
9.
Kanwisher N, Barton JJS. The functional architecture of the face system: integrating evidence from fMRI and patient studies. In: Rhodes G, Calder A, Johnson M, Haxby JV, editors. Oxford handbook of face perception. New York: Oxford University Press; 2011.
10.
Duchaine B, Yovel G. A revised neural framework for face processing. Ann Rev Vision Sci. 2015;1:393–416.
11.
•• Freiwald W, Duchaine B, Yovel G. Face processing systems: from neurons to real-world social perception. Ann Rev Neurosci. 2016;39:325–46 This paper reviews evidence from multiple sources relevant to the functional organization of the face recognition network. PubMed
12.
•• Grill-Spector K, Weiner KS, Kay K, Gomez J. The functional neuroanatomy of human face perception. Ann Rev Vision Sci. 2017;3:167–96 An in-depth review of neuroimaging studies of face recognition.
13.
Elbich DB, Scherf S. Beyond the FFA: brain-behavior correspondences in face recognition abilities. Neuroimage. 2017;147:409–22.PubMed
14.
• Mueller VI, Hohner Y, Eickhoff SB. Influence of task instructions and stimuli on the neural network for face processing: an ALE meta-analysis. Cortex. 2018;103:2410–255 This paper provides a meta-analysis of brain regions that show reliable activation across different imaging studies of face processing.
15.
Gschwind M, Pourtois G, Schwartz S, Van De Ville D, Vuilleumier P. White-matter connectivity between face-responsive regions in the human brain. Cereb Cortex. 2012;22:1564–76.PubMed
16.
17.
Zhu Q, Zhang J, Luo YLL, Dilks DD, Liu J. Resting-state neural activity across face-selective cortical regions is behaviorally relevant. J Neurosci. 2011;31:10323–103030.PubMed
18.
O’Neill EB, Hutchinson RM, McLean DA, Kohler S. Resting-state fMRI reveals functional connectivity between face-selective perirhinal cortex and fusiform face area related to face inversion. Neuroimage. 2014;92:349–55.
19.
Nasr S, Tootell RBH. Role of the fusiform and anterior temporal cortical areas in face recognition. Neuroimage. 2012;63:1743–53.PubMedPubMedCentral
20.
Collins JA, Olson IR. Beyond the FFA: the role of the ventral anterior temporal lobes in face processing. Neuropsychologia. 2014;61:65–79.PubMed
21.
22.
23.
Nestor A, Plaut DC, Behrmann M. Unraveling the distributed neural code of facial identity through spatiotemporal pattern analysis. PNAS. 2011;108:9998–10003.PubMed
24.
25.
Weibert K, Andrews TJ. Activity in the right fusiform face area predicts the behavioral advantage for the perception of familiar faces. Neuropsychologia. 2015;75:588–96.PubMed
26.
Yang H, Susilo T, Duchaine B. The anterior face area contains invariant representations of face identity that can persist despite the loss of right FFA and OFA. Cereb Cortex. 2014;1–12.
27.
Perrodin C, Kayser C, Abel TJ, Logothetis NK, Petkov CI. Who is that? Brain networks and mechanisms for identifying individuals. Trends Cogn Sci. 2015;19:783–96.PubMedPubMedCentral
28.
Maguinness C, Rowandowitz C, von Kriegstein K. Understanding the mechanisms of familiar voice identity recognition in the human brain. Neuropsychologia. 2018;116:179–93.PubMed
29.
• Rice GE, Hoffman P, Binney RJ, Lambon Ralph MA. Concrete versus abstract forms of social concept: and fMRI comparison of knowledge about people vs. social terms. Philos Trans R So B. 2017;373. https://​doi.​org/​10.​1098/​rstb.​2017.​0136. Neuroimaging evidence for the central role of the ATL in representing multimodal semantic knowledge about familiar people.
30.
Nielson KA, Seidenberg M, Woodard JL, Durgerian S, Zhang Q, Gross WL, et al. Common neural systems associated with the recognition of famous faces and names: an event-related fMRI study. Brain Cogn. 2010;72:491–8.PubMedPubMedCentral
31.
32.
Blank H, Kiebel SJ, von Kriegstein K. How the human brain exchanges information across sensory modalities to recognize other people. Hum Brain Mapp. 2015;36:324–39.PubMed
33.
Hasan BAS, Valdes-Sosa M, Gross J, Belin P. “Hearing faces and seeing voices”: amodal coding of person identity in the human brain. Nat Sci Rep. 2016;6:37494.
34.
Tsukiura T, Suzuki C, Shigemune Y, Mokizuki-Kawai H. Differential contributions of the anterior temporal and medial temporal lobe to the retrieval of memory for person identity information. Hum Brain Mapp. 2008;29:1343–54.PubMed
35.
Tsukiura T, Mokizuki-Kawai H, Fujii T. Dissociable roles of the bilateral anterior lobe in face-name associations: an event-related fMRI study. Neuroimage. 2006;30:617–26.PubMed
36.
Tsukiura T, Mano Y, Sekiguchi A, Yomogida Y, Hoshi K, Kambara T, et al. Dissociable roles of the anterior temporal regions in successful encoding of memory for person identity information. J Cogn Neurosci. 2009;22:2226–37.
37.
• Wang Y, Collins JA, Koski J, Nugiel T, Metoki A, Olson, IR. Dynamic neural architecture for social knowledge retrieval. PNAS. 2017;E3305–E3314.https://​doi.​org/​10.​1073/​pnas.​1621234114. Neuroimaging evidence for the critical contribution of the ATL to the encoding and retrieval of novel multimodal person-specific information.
38.
Blank H, Wieland N, von Kriegstein K. Person recognition and the brain: merging evidence from patients and healthy individuals. Neurosci Biobehav Rev. 2014;47:717–34.PubMed
39.
Barton JJS, Corrow SL. Recognizing and identifying people: a neuropsychological review. Cortex. 2016;75:132–50.PubMed
40.
Gazzaley A, Cooney JW, McEvoy K, Knight RT, D’Esposito M. Top-down enhancement and suppression of the magnitude and speed of neural activity. J Cogn Neurosci. 2005;17:507–17.PubMed
41.
Chadick JZ, Gazzaley A. Differential coupling of visual cortex with default or frontoparietal network based on goals. Nat Neurosci. 2011;14:830–2.PubMedPubMedCentral
42.
•• Rossion B, Jacques C, Jonas J. Mapping face categorization in the human ventral occipitotemporal cortex with direct neural intracranial recordings. Ann N Y Acad Sci. 2018;1426:5–24 A comprehensive review of intracranial recording studies of face processing.
43.
44.
Quiroga RQ. Concept cells: the building blocks of declarative memory functions. Nat Rev Neurosci. 2012;13:587–97.PubMed
45.
Quiroga RQ. Neural codes for visual perception and memory. Neuropsychologia. 2016;83:227–41.
46.
Abel TJ, Rhone AE, Nourski Kirill V, Kawasaki H, Oya H, Griffiths TD, et al. Direct physiologic evidence of a heteromodal convergence region for proper naming in human left anterior temporal lobe. J Neurosci. 2015;35:1513–20.PubMedPubMedCentral
47.
Viskontas IV, Quiroga RQ, Fried I. Human medial temporal lobe neurons respond preferentially to personally relevant images. PNAS. 2009;106:21329–34.PubMed
48.
Mormann F, Niediek J, Tudusciuc O, Quesda CM, Coenen V, Elger C, et al. Neurons in human amygdala encode face identity but not gaze direction. Nat Neurosci. 2015;18:1568–70.PubMedPubMedCentral
49.
Vignal JP, Chauvel P, Halgren E. Localized face processing by the human prefrontal cortex: stimulation-evoked hallucinations of faces. Cogn Neuropsychol. 2000;17:281–91.PubMed
50.
Barbeau JE, Taylor MJ, Regis J, Marquis P, Chauvel P, Liegeois-Chauvel C. Spatio temporal dynamics of face recognition. Cereb Cortex. 2008;18:997–1009.PubMed
51.
Rangarajan V, Hermes D, Foster BL, Weiner KS, Jacques C, Grill-Spector K, et al. Electrical stimulation of the left and right human fusiform gyrus causes different effects in conscious face perception. J Neurosci. 2014;34:12828–36.PubMedPubMedCentral
52.
Jonas J, Rossion B, Brissart H, Frismand S, Jacques C, Hossu G, et al. Beyond the core face processing network: intracerebral stimulation of a face-selective area in the right anterior fusiform gyrus elicits transient prosopagnosia. Cortex. 2015;72:140–55.PubMed
53.
Jonas J, Descoins M, Koessler L, Colnat-Coulbois S, Sauvee M, Guye M, et al. Focal electrical intracranial stimulation of the face sensitive area causes transient prosopagnosia. Neuroscience. 2012;22:281–8.
54.
Pitcher D, Walsh V, Duchaine B. Transcranial magnetic stimulation studies of face processing. In: Rhodes G, Calder A, Johnson M, Haxby JV, editors. Oxford handbook of face perception. New York: Oxford University Press; 2011.
55.
Rapcsak SZ. Face memory and its disorders. Curr Neurol Neurosci Rep. 2003;3:494–501.PubMed
56.
Rapcsak SZ. Prosopagnosia. In: Wenzel AE, editor. The SAGE Encyclopedia of Abnormal and Clinical Psychology. SAGE Publications; 2017.
57.
Davies-Thompson J, Pancaroglu R, Barton J. Acquired prosopagnosia: structural basis and processing impairments. Front Biosci (Elite Ed). 2014;6:159–74.
58.
Barton JS. Structure and function in acquired prosopagnosia: lessons from a series of 10 patients with brain damage. J Neuropsychol. 2008;2:197–225.PubMed
59.
Busigny T, Joubert S, Felician O, Ceccaldi M, Rossion B. Holistic perception of the individual face is specific and necessary: evidence from an extensive case study of acquired prosopagnosia. Neuropsychologia. 2010;48:4057–92.PubMed
60.
Busigny T, Van Belle G, Jemel B, Hosein A, Joubert S, Rossion B. Face-specific impairment in holistic perception following focal lesion of he right anterior temporal lobe. Neuropsychologia. 2014;56:312–33.PubMed
61.
Barton JJS, Press DZ, Keenan JP, O’Connor M. Lesions of the fusiform area impair perception of facial configuration in prosopagnosia. Neurology. 2002;58:71–8.PubMed
62.
Barton JJS, Cherkasova M. Face imagery and its relation to perception and covert recognition in prosopagnosia. Neurology. 2003;61:220–5.PubMed
63.
Barton JSS, Cherkasova M, O’Connor M. Covert recognition in acquired and developmental prosopagnosia. Neurology. 2001;57:1161–8.PubMed
64.
Barton JSS, Cherkasova M, Hefter R. The covert priming effect of faces in prosopagnosia. Neurology. 2004;63:2062–8.PubMed
65.
Tranel D, Damasio AR. Knowledge without awareness: an autonomic index of facial recognition by prosopagnosics. Science. 1985;228:1453–4.PubMed
66.
Fox JC, Iaria G, Barton JJS. Disconnection in prosopagnosia and face processing. Cortex. 2008;44:996–1009.PubMed
67.
Grossi D, Soricelli A, Ponari M, Salvatore E, Quarantelli M, Prinster A, et al. Structural connectivity in a single case of progressive prosopagnosia: the role of the right inferior longitudinal fasciculus. Cortex. 2104, 56:111–20.PubMed
68.
Bouvier SE, Engel SA. Behavioral deficits and cortical damage loci in cerebral achromatopsia. Cereb Cortex. 2006;16:183–91.PubMed
69.
Omar R, Rohrer JD, Hailstone JC, Warren JD. Structural neuroanatomy of face processing in frontotemporal lobar degeneration. J Neurol Neurosurg Psychiatry. 2011;82:1341–3.PubMed
70.
Josephs KA, Whitwell JL, Vemuri P, Senjem ML, Boeve BF, Knopman DS, et al. The anatomic correlate of prosopagnosia in semantic dementia. Neurology. 2008;71:1628–33.PubMedPubMedCentral
71.
Rossion B. Constraining the cortical face network by neuroimaging studies of acquired prosopagnosia. Neuroimage. 2008;40:423–6.PubMed
72.
73.
74.
Bernstein M, Yovel G. Two neural pathways of face processing: a critical evaluation of current models. Neurosci Behav Rev. 2015;55:536–46.
75.
Liu J, Wang M, Shi X, Feng L, Li L, Thacker JM, et al. Neural correlates of covert face processing: fMRI evidence from a prosopagnosic patient. Cereb Cortex. 2014;24:2081–92.PubMed
76.
Valdes-Sosa M, Bobes MA, Quinones I, Garcia L, Valdes-Henrandez PA, Iturria Y, et al. Covert face recognition without the fusiform-temporal pathways. Neuroimage. 2011;57:1162–76.PubMed
77.
Gainotti G. Different patterns of famous person recognition disorders in patients with right and left anterior temporal lesions: a systematic review. Neuropsychologia. 2007;45:1591–607.PubMed
78.
Gainotti G. Is the right anterior temporal variant of prosopagnosia a form of ‘associative prosopagnosia’ of a form of ‘multimodal person recognition disorder’? Neuropsychol Rev. 2013;23:99–110.PubMed
79.
Gainotti G. Implications of recent findings for current cognitive models of familiar people recognition. Neuropsychologia. 2015;77:279–87.PubMed
80.
• Gainotti G. The differential contributions of conceptual representation format and language structure to levels of semantic abstraction capacity. Neuropsychol Rev. 2017;27:134–45 A review of different patterns of person recognition impairment following left vs. right ATL damage and their implications for the representation of person semantic knowledge. PubMed
81.
Busigny T, Robaye L, Dricot L, Rossion B. Right anterior temporal lobe atrophy and person-based semantic defect: a detailed case study. Neurocase. 2009;15:485–508.PubMed
82.
Snowden JS, Thompson JC, Neary D. Knowledge of famous faces and names in semantic dementia. Brain. 2004;127:1–13.
83.
Snowden JS, Thompson JC, Neary D. Famous people knowledge and the right and left temporal lobes. Behav Neurol. 2012;25:35–44.PubMed
84.
•• Borghesani V, Narvid J, Battistella G, Shwe W, Watson C, Binney JR, et al. “Looks familiar, but I don’t know who she is”: the role of the right anterior temporal lobe in famous face recognition. Cortex. 2019;115:72–85 A large-scale investigation of the neuroanatomical substrates of face recognition impairment in patients with neurodegenerative disease. PubMed
85.
Gefen T, Wieneke C, Martersteck A, Whitney K, Weintraub S, Mesulam M-M, et al. Naming and knowing faces in primary progressive aphasia: a tale of 2 hemispheres. Neurology. 2013;81:658–64.PubMedPubMedCentral
86.
Cosseddu M, Gazzina S, Borroni B, Padovani A, Gainotti G. Multimodal face and voice recognition disorders in a case with unilateral right anterior temporal lobe atrophy. Neuropsychology. 2018;32:920–30.PubMed
87.
• Luzzi S, Baldinelli S, Ranaldi V, Fabi K, Cafazzo V, Fringuelli F, et al. Famous faces and voices: differential profiles in early right and left semantic dementia and in Alzheimer’s disease. Neuropsychologia. 2017;94:118–28 A comparison of the cognitive mechanisms and neural substrates of multimodal person recognition impairment in FTD vs. AD. PubMed
88.
Montembeault M, Brambati SM, Joubert S, Boukadi M, Chapleau M, RJr L, et al. Naming unique entities in the semantic variant of primary progressive aphasia and Alzheimer’s disease: towards a better understanding of the semantic impairment. Neuropsychologia. 2017;95:11–20.PubMed
89.
Werheid K, Clare L. Are faces special in Alzheimer’s disease? Cognitive conceptualization, neural correlates and diagnostic relevance of impaired memory for faces and names. Cortex. 2007;43:898–906.PubMed
90.
Grilli MD, Bercel JJ, Wank AA, Rapcsak SZ. The contribution of left anterior ventrolateral temporal lobe to the retrieval of personal semantics. Neuropsychologia. 2018;117:178–87.PubMed
91.
Drane DL, Ojemann JG, Phatak V, Loring DW, Gross RE, Hebb AO, et al. Famous face identification in temporal lobe epilepsy: support for a multimodal integration model of semantic memory. Cortex. 2013;49:1648–67.PubMed
92.
Benke T, Kuen E, Schwarz M, Walser G. Proper name retrieval in temporal lobe epilepsy: naming of famous faces and landmarks. Epilepsy Behav. 2013;27:371–7.PubMed
93.
Gainotti G. Face familiarity feelings, the right temporal lobe and the possible underlying neural mechanisms. Brain Res Rev. 2007;56:214–35.PubMed
94.
Rapcsak SZ, Nielsen MA, Littrell LD, Glisky EL, Kaszniak AW, Laguna JF. Face memory impairments in patients with frontal lobe damage. Neurology. 2001;57:1168–75.PubMed
95.
Rapcsak SZ, Reminger SL, Glisky EL, Kaszniak AW, Comer JF. Neuropsychological mechanisms of false facial recognition following frontal lobe damage. Cogn Neuropsychol. 1999;16:267–92.
Metadata
Title
Face Recognition
Author
Steven Z. Rapcsak
Publication date
01-07-2019
Publisher
Springer US
Published in
Current Neurology and Neuroscience Reports / Issue 7/2019
Print ISSN: 1528-4042
Electronic ISSN: 1534-6293
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/s11910-019-0960-9

Other articles of this Issue 7/2019

Current Neurology and Neuroscience Reports 7/2019 Go to the issue

Movement Disorders (T. Simuni, Section Editor)

Paroxysmal Movement Disorders: Recent Advances

Headache (R.B. Halker Singh, Section Editor)

Cold Stimulus Headache

Stroke (H.C. Diener, Section Editor)

Patients on NOACs in the Emergency Room

Headache (R.B. Halker Singh, Section Editor)

Primary Stabbing Headache

Sleep (M. Thorpy and M. Billiard, Section Editors)

Sleep and Tension-Type Headache

Neuroimaging (N Pavese, Section Editor)

Tau Imaging in Neurodegenerative Diseases Using Positron Emission Tomography