Psychology Commons^™

Probabilistic Atlases For Face And Biological Motion Perception: An Analysis Of Their Reliability And Overlap, Andrew Engell

Andrew Engell

Neuroimaging research has identified several category-selective regions in visual cortex that respond most strongly when viewing an exemplar image from a preferred category, such as faces. Recent studies, however, have suggested a more complex pattern of activation that has been heretofore unrecognized, e.g., the presence of additional patches of activation to faces beyond the well-studied fusiform face area, and the activation of ostensible face selective regions by animate motion of non-biological forms. Here, we characterize the spatial pattern of brain activity evoked by viewing faces or biological motion in large fMRI samples (N > 120). We create probabilistic atlases for both …

Common Neural Mechanisms For The Evaluation Of Facial Trustworthiness And Emotional Expressions As Revealed By Behavioral Adaptation, Andrew Engell

Andrew Engell

People rapidly and automatically evaluate faces along many social dimensions. Here,we focus on judgments of trustworthiness, which approximate basic valence evaluation of faces, and test whether these judgments are an overgeneralization of the perception of emotional expressions. We used a behavioral adaptation paradigm to investigate whether the previously noted perceptual similarities between trustworthiness and emotional expressions of anger and happiness extend to their underlying neural representations. We found that adapting to angry or happy facial expressions causes trustworthiness evaluations of subsequently rated neutral faces to increase or decrease, respectively. Further, we found no such modulation of trustworthiness evaluations after participants …

Differential Activation Of Frontoparietal Attention Networks By Social And Symbolic Spatial Cues, Andrew Engell

Andrew Engell

Perception of both gaze-direction and symbolic directional cues (e.g. arrows) orient an observer’s attention toward the indicated location. It is unclear, however, whether these similar behavioral effects are examples of the same attentional phenomenon and, therefore, subserved by the same neural substrate. It has been proposed that gaze, given its evolutionary significance, constitutes a ‘special’ category of spatial cue. As such, it is predicted that the neural systems supporting spatial reorienting will be different for gaze than for non-biological symbols. We tested this prediction using functional magnetic resonance imaging to measure the brain’s response during target localization in which laterally …

The Fmri Bold Signal Tracks Electrophysiological Spectral Perturbations, Not Event-Related Potentials., Andrew Engell

Andrew Engell

Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and electroencephalography (EEG) are primary tools of the psychological neurosciences. It is therefore important to understand the relationship between hemodynamic and electrophysiological responses. An early study by Huettel and colleagues found that the coupling of fMRI blood-oxygen-level-dependent signal (BOLD) and subdurally-recorded signal-averaged event-related potentials (ERPs) was not consistent across brain regions. Instead, a growing body of evidence now indicates that hemodynamic changes measured by fMRI reflect non-phase-locked changes in high frequency power rather than the phase-locked ERP. Here, we revisit the data from Huettel and colleagues and measure event-related spectral perturbations (ERSPs) to examine the …

Selective Attention Modulates Face-Specific Induced Gamma Oscillations Recorded From Ventral Occipitotemporal Cortex, Andrew Engell

Andrew Engell

EEG studies from subdural electrodes have demonstrated a face-specific event-related potential (face-N200) recorded from human ventral occipitotemporal cortex. The insensitivity of face-N200 to task manipulations has supported the proposal that face-N200 reflects an initial obligatory response to faces. This result stands in striking contrast to results of neuroimaging studies that have demonstrated strong task sensitivity of the fusiform hemodynamic response evoked by faces, and thus has created a paradox in the face perception literature. We recorded field potentials directly from the cortical surface of 16 patients while they selectively attended to faces or houses. Here we report that face-specific gamma …

Facial Expression And Gaze-Direction In Human Superior Temporal Sulcus, Andrew Engell

Andrew Engell

The perception of facial expression and gaze-direction are important aspects of non-verbal communication. Expressions communicate the internal emotional state of others while gaze-direction offers clues to their attentional focus and future intentions. Cortical regions in the superior temporal sulcus(STS) play a central role in the perception of expression and gaze, but the extent to which the neural representations of these facial gestures are overlapping is unknown. In the current study 12 subjects observed neutral faces with direct-gaze, neutral faces with averted-gaze, or emotionally expressive faces with direct-gaze while we scanned their brains with functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), allowing a …

Implicit Trustworthiness Decisions: Automatic Coding Of Face Properties In Human Amygdala, Andrew Engell

Andrew Engell

Deciding whether an unfamiliar person is trustworthy is one of the most important decisions in social environments. We used functional magnetic resonance imaging to show that the amygdala is involved in implicit evaluations of trustworthiness of faces, consistent with prior findings. The amygdala response increased as perceived trustworthiness decreased in a task that did not demand person evaluation. More importantly, we tested whether this response is due to an individual’s idiosyncratic perception or to face properties that are perceived as untrustworthy across individuals. The amygdala response was better predicted by consensus ratings of trustworthiness than by an individual’s own judgments. …

Stimulus Induced Reversal Of Information Flow Through A Cortical Network For Animacy Perception., Sarah Shultz, Rebecca Van Den Honert, Andrew Engell, Gregory Mccarthy

Andrew Engell

Autism Spectrum Traits Predict The Neural Response To Eye Gaze In Typical Individuals., Lauri Nummenmaa, Andrew Engell, Elisabeth Von Dem Hagen, Richard Henson, Andy Calder

Andrew Engell

Task-Invariant Brain Responses To The Social Value Of Faces., Alex Todorov, Chris Said, Nicholas Oosterhof, Andrew Engell

Andrew Engell

Autism Spectrum Traits In The Typical Population Predict Structure And Function In The Posterior Superior Temporal Sulcus., Elisabeth Von Dem Hagen, Lauri Nummenmaa, R Yu, Andrew Engell, Michael Ewbank, Andy Calder

Andrew Engell

Amygdala And Dorsomedial Prefrontal Cortex Responses To Appearance-Based And Behavior-Based Person Impressions., Sean Baron, M Gobinni, Andrew Engell, Alex Todorov

Andrew Engell

Distributed Representations Of Dynamic Facial Expressions In The Superior Temporal Sulcus., Chris Said, Chris Moore, Andrew Engell, Alex Todroov, James Haxby

Andrew Engell

Connectivity Analysis Reveals A Cortical Network For Eye Gaze Perception., Lauri Nummenmaa, Luca Passamonti, James Rowe, Andrew Engell, Andy Calder

Andrew Engell

Understanding Evaluation Of Faces On Social Dimensions., Alex Todorov, Said Chris, Andrew Engell, Nicholas Oosterhof

Andrew Engell

The Neural Bases Of Cognitive Conflict And Control In Moral Judgment., Joshua Greene, Leigh Nystrom, Andrew Engell, John Darley, Jon Cohen

Andrew Engell