Revisiting the Role of the Fusiform Face Area in Expertise
Revisiting the Role of the Fusiform Face Area in Expertise
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DOI：
10.1162/jocn_a_00974
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发表时间：
2016-09-01
影响因子：
3.2
通讯作者：
Bilalic, Merim
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
Bilalic, Merim
梭状回面孔区（FFA）被认为是一个高度专业化的大脑模块，因为它的核心重要性的面孔知觉。然而，许多研究人员声称FFA是一个通用的视觉专业知识模块，可以区分单个类别中的单个示例。在这里，我规避了一些以前的研究FFA的争议的缺点，使用国际象棋刺激，这在视觉上不像脸，再加上更敏感的分析方法，如多变量模式分析。我还扩展了以前的研究，提出了国际象棋的位置，复杂的场景与多个对象，以及它们之间的相互关系，国际象棋专家和新手以及孤立的国际象棋对象。第一个实验表明，国际象棋专业知识调制FFA激活时，国际象棋位置。与此相反，单一的国际象棋对象并没有产生不同的激活模式之间的专家和新手，即使当使用的多变量模式分析。第二个实验集中在单个象棋对象，并设有一个明确的任务，识别象棋对象，但未能证明在FFA的专业知识的影响。实验结果支持了FFA功能的一般专家观点，也扩展了我们对FFA功能的理解范围。FFA不仅仅区分同一类刺激中的不同样本。更有可能的是，它解析包含许多功能和空间关系的复杂多对象刺激。
The fusiform face area (FFA) is considered to be a highly specialized brain module because of its central importance for face perception. However, many researchers claim that the FFA is a general visual expertise module that distinguishes between individual examples within a single category. Here, I circumvent the shortcomings of some previous studies on the FFA controversy by using chess stimuli, which do not visually resemble faces, together with more sensitive methods of analysis such as multivariate pattern analysis. I also extend the previous research by presenting chess positions, complex scenes with multiple objects, and their interrelations to chess experts and novices as well as isolated chess objects. The first experiment demonstrates that chess expertise modulated the FFA activation when chess positions were presented. In contrast, single chess objects did not produce different activation patterns among experts and novices even when the multivariate pattern analysis was used. The second experiment focused on the single chess objects and featured an explicit task of identifying the chess objects but failed to demonstrate expertise effects in the FFA. The experiments provide support for the general expertise view of the FFA function but also extend the scope of our understanding about the function of the FFA. The FFA does not merely distinguish between different exemplars within the same category of stimuli. More likely, it parses complex multiobject stimuli that contain numerous functional and spatial relations.