"What" Precedes "Which": Developmental Neural Tuning in Face- and Place-Related Cortex

Although category-specific activation for faces in the ventral visual pathway appears adult-like in adolescence, recognition abilities for individual faces are still immature. We investigated how the ability to represent "individual" faces and houses develops at the neural level. Category-...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Cerebral cortex (New York, N.Y. 1991) N.Y. 1991), 2011-09, Vol.21 (9), p.1963-1980
Main Authors: Scherf, K. Suzanne, Luna, Beatriz, Avidan, Galia, Behrmann, Marlene
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adaptation, Psychological - physiology
Adolescent
Aging - psychology
Brain Mapping
Cerebral Cortex - physiology
Child
Face
Female
Functional Laterality - physiology
Humans
Image Processing, Computer-Assisted
Linear Models
Magnetic Resonance Imaging
Male
Motion Pictures
Orientation - physiology
Parahippocampal Gyrus - physiology
Psychomotor Performance - physiology
Reaction Time - physiology
Recognition, Psychology - physiology
Visual Pathways - physiology
Young Adult
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Although category-specific activation for faces in the ventral visual pathway appears adult-like in adolescence, recognition abilities for individual faces are still immature. We investigated how the ability to represent "individual" faces and houses develops at the neural level. Category-selective regions of interest (ROIs) for faces in the fusiform gyrus (FG) and for places in the parahippocampal place area (PPA) were identified individually in children, adolescents, and adults. Then, using an functional magnetic resonance imaging adaptation paradigm, we measured category selectivity and individual-level adaptation for faces and houses in each ROI. Only adults exhibited both category selectivity and individual-level adaptation bilaterally for faces in the FG and for houses in the PPA. Adolescents showed category selectivity bilaterally for faces in the FG and houses in the PPA. Despite this profile of category selectivity, adolescents only exhibited individual-level adaptation for houses bilaterally in the PPA and for faces in the "left" FG. Children only showed category-selective responses for houses in the PPA, and they failed to exhibit category-selective responses for faces in the FG and individual-level adaptation effects anywhere in the brain. These results indicate that category-level neural tuning develops prior to individual-level neural tuning and that face-related cortex is disproportionately slower in this developmental transition than is place-related cortex.
ISSN:1047-3211
1460-2199
DOI:10.1093/cercor/bhq269