Multivoxel Patterns in Face-Sensitive Temporal Regions Reveal an Encoding Schema Based on Detecting Life in a Face

More than a decade of research has demonstrated that faces evoke prioritized processing in a ‘core face network’ of three brain regions. However, whether these regions prioritize the detection of global facial form (shared by humans and mannequins) or the detection of life in a face has remained unclear. Here, we dissociate form-based and animacy-based encoding of faces by using animate and inanimate faces with human form (humans, mannequins) and dog form (real dogs, toy dogs). We used multivariate pattern analysis of BOLD responses to uncover the representational similarity space for each area in the core face network. Here, we show that only responses in the inferior occipital gyrus are organized by global facial form alone (human vs dog) while animacy becomes an additional organizational priority in later face-processing regions: the lateral fusiform gyri (latFG) and right superior temporal sulcus. Additionally, patterns evoked by human faces were maximally distinct from all other face categories in the latFG and parts of the extended face perception system. These results suggest that once a face configuration is perceived, faces are further scrutinized for whether the face is alive and worthy of social cognitive resources

From mind perception to mental connection: Synchrony as a mechanism for social understanding

Abstract Connecting deeply with another mind is as enigmatic as it is fulfilling. Why people ''click'' with some people but not others is one of the great unsolved mysteries of science. However, researchers from psychology and neuroscience are converging on a likely physiological basis for connection -neural synchrony (entrainment). Here, we review research on the necessary precursors for interpersonal synchrony: the ability to detect a mind and resonate with its outputs. Further, We describe potential mechanisms for the development of synchrony between two minds. We then consider recent neuroimaging and behavioral evidence for the adaptive benefits of synchrony, including neural efficiency and the release of a reward signal that promotes future social interaction. In nature, neural synchrony yields behavioral synchrony. Humans use behavioral synchrony to promote neural synchrony, and thus, social bonding. This reverse-engineering of social connection is an important innovation likely underlying this distinctively human capacity to create large-scale social coordination and cohesion. At different states in our lives, the signs of love may vary: dependence, attraction, contentment, worry, loyalty, grief, but at the heart, the source is always the same. Human beings have the rare capacity to connect with each other, against all odds. Michael Dorris People seek meaning in life through the company of others. Yet, as anyone who has ever felt lonely in a crowd can attest, company alone is not enough. What people really seek is connection, the pleasurable mutual engagement between oneself and another mind. However, despite its importance, the origin of mental connection is one of the greatest unsolved mysteries of science. Here we review studies from a diverse literature that, collectively, converge on an origin of mental connection. First, we review evidence that the perceptual systems in the human brain are tuned to seek other minds and predict their behavior. Second, we suggest that the ability to dynamically predict behavior affords synchrony. We highlight the importance of synchrony as an adaptive neural mechanism by which people entrain to others; an adaptation that blurs the self-other boundary and promotes social bonds through the pleasurable feeling of connection. Finally, we speculate that the human brain, in contrast to the brains of other species, is uniquely able to reverse engineer connectionby-synchrony, thereby creating mass social coordination and cohesion. How the Brain Finds a Mind As Piaget famously opined, cognitive development is about making models. As children develop, their models of the world become increasingly sophisticated via the shaping Social and Personality Psychology Compass 6/8 (2012): 589-606, 10.1111/j.1751-9004.2012 ª 2012 Blackwell Publishing Ltd processes of assimilation and accommodation From birth, humans are predisposed to attend to animate beings. Newborns look more at faces than any other objects The brain's Turing Tests Alan Turing, a mathematician and computer scientist, famously outlined a scenario that would define whether a computer could be said to ''think.'' In this scenario, a person asks a series of spontaneous questions, and a second person or a computer responds to these questions via text. A computer passes the ''Turing Test'' if a human judge confuses its text responses with that of a real person. Today, computer programs can pass the Turing Test, albeit briefly. Indeed, Artificial Conversational Entities, or ''chatterbots,'' initiate thousands of ''chats'' daily with unsuspecting Internet users who believe they are conversing with other human beings. By mimicking the behavioral characteristics of natural conversation, these chatterbots trigger the inference of another mind. It is one thing to fool someone into believing that computer-generated text originated from a live source. The brain, after all, did not evolve to process the veracity of text message authorship. Fooling the brain's perceptual systems is a taller order. The human brain employs several perceptual Turing Tests devoted to scrutinizing faces, movements, and voices for evidence of minds worth modeling. The facial Turing Test: it looks like it has a mind It is hard to overstate the importance of the face as a social stimulus. Faces identify people, display mental states, and are evaluated along a host of dimensions (e.g., attractiveness, maturity, trustworthiness). Faces are important for the very reason that their root word suggests: they serve as the façades of other minds. Commensurate with this importance, faces capture attention faster than other objects This ability was recently investigated by Wheatley, Weinberg, Looser, Moran, and Hajcak Participants were asked to simply split an ordered row of faces (e.g., Other researchers have investigated the characteristics of movement that evoke the perception of a mind, including ''non-Newtonian'' velocity changes The vocal Turing Test: it sounds like it has a mind The voice has been referred to as an ''auditory face Summary: mind detection Mind-imposters are easy to come by. Mannequins have faces and eyes, robots move, and automated messages speak. Yet we know that manufactured faces, mechanical motion, and programmed speech do not belong to another mind. These simple qualities are enough to catch our attention and initially fool our low-level detection processes. But the human mind has a more discerning model of what it means to have a mind, and these primitive copies are quickly discarded as non-minds. This allows us to study the clothes on a mannequin without engaging with it, to crash robotic toys together in mock-battle without remorse, and to hang up on the automated solicitor mid-sentence. Indeed, doing any of these things (conversing with a mannequin; apologizing to a toy; adhering to social niceties with a recording) would be considered aberrant behavior. The healthy human brain institutes multiple levels of perceptual scrutiny in order to discriminate true minds from mind imposters

Mind Perception: Real but Not Artificial Faces Sustain Neural Activity beyond the N170/VPP

Faces are visual objects that hold special significance as the icons of other minds. Previous researchers using event-related potentials (ERPs) have found that faces are uniquely associated with an increased N170/vertex positive potential (VPP) and a more sustained frontal positivity. Here, we examined the processing of faces as objects vs. faces as cues to minds by contrasting images of faces possessing minds (human faces), faces lacking minds (doll faces), and non-face objects (i.e., clocks). Although both doll and human faces were associated with an increased N170/VPP from 175–200 ms following stimulus onset, only human faces were associated with a sustained positivity beyond 400 ms. Our data suggest that the N170/VPP reflects the object-based processing of faces, whether of dolls or humans; on the other hand, the later positivity appears to uniquely index the processing of human faces—which are more salient and convey information about identity and the presence of other minds

Stimulus-locked ERPs.

<p>ERPs elicited by human faces, doll faces, and clocks at frontal and central recording sites AFz (top) and Cz (bottom), respectively. The vertex positivity is highlighted in the yellow shaded region. The VPP is evident as a positive deflection maximal around 180 ms and is larger (i.e., more positive) for both human and doll faces relative to clocks. This difference is maximal at Cz (bottom graph). However, human faces elicited a larger later positive potential relative to both clocks and doll faces. This difference began following the vertex positivity and continued for the duration of stimulus presentation (highlighted in the orange shaded region). The LPP was maximal at AFz (top).</p

Mean ERP area measures (µV) for the VPP and the frontal positivity when viewing different stimulus types (<i>SD</i>s in parentheses).

<p> <i>Note:</i></p><p> <i>* indicates p<.01 when compared to clocks,</i></p><p> <i>† indicates p<.01 when compared to doll faces.</i></p

Scalp distributions of ERP differences.

<p>Scalp distributions of the difference between human faces and clocks (left), doll faces and clocks (middle), and human faces and doll faces (right) in the time range of the vertex positivity (i.e., 175–200 ms; top) and later positivity (i.e., 400–1,000 ms; bottom). Relative to clocks, both human and doll faces elicited an increased vertex positivity (top). However, human faces elicited an increased later positivity relative to both clocks and doll faces (bottom).</p

Stimulus exemplars from the three categories: Human Faces, Doll Faces, Clocks.

<p>Stimulus exemplars from the three categories: Human Faces, Doll Faces, Clocks.</p