The involvement of the "fusiform face area" in processing facial expression

Tzvi Ganel*, Kenneth F. Valyear, Yonatan Goshen-Gottstein, Melvyn A. Goodale

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

164 Scopus citations

Abstract

We conducted an fMRI investigation to test the widely accepted notion that the fusiform face area (FFA) mediates the processing of facial identity but not expression. Participants attended either to the identity or to the expression of the same set of faces. If the processing of identity is neuroanatomically dissociable from that of expression, then one might expect the FFA to show higher activation when processing identity as opposed to expression. Contrary to this prediction, the FFA showed higher activation for judgments of expression. Furthermore, the FFA was sensitive to variations in expression even when attention was directed to identity. Finally, an independent observation showed higher activation in the FFA for passive viewing of faces when expression was varied as compared to when it remained constant. These findings suggest an interactive network for the processing of expression and identity, in which information about expression is computed from the unique structure of individual faces.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)1645-1654
Number of pages10
JournalNeuropsychologia
Volume43
Issue number11
DOIs
StatePublished - 2005

Funding

FundersFunder number
Canadian Institutes of Health Research
Canada Research Chairs

    Keywords

    • Emotion
    • Faces
    • Facial identity
    • Selective attention
    • fMRI

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