Adaptation modulates the electrophysiological substrates of perceived facial distortion: support for opponent coding.

In two experiments we determined the electrophysiological substrates of figural aftereffects in face adaptation using compressed and expanded faces. In Experiment 1, subjects viewed a series of compressed and expanded faces. Results demonstrated that distortion systematically modulated the peak amplitude of the P250 event-related potential (ERP) component.

Set-size effects for identification versus localization depend on the visual search task.

In both behavior and neuroscience research, it is debated whether the processing of identity and location is closely bound throughout processing. One aspect of this debate is the possibly privileged processing of identity or location. For example, processing identity may have unlimited capacity, while processing location does not.

Broadly tuned, view-specific coding of face shape: opposing figural aftereffects can be induced in different views.

Face aftereffects are sensitive to changes in viewpoint, suggesting view-specific face coding, yet are not entirely eliminated by changes in viewpoint, suggesting view-invariance. To determine whether broad view-tuning can account for these findings we measured the reduction of a figural face aftereffect induced in one view by concurrent adaptation to an opposite distortion in a second viewpoint, varying the angle between these views. To the degree that the same neural population codes both viewpoints, the opposing aftereffects should cancel.

View-specific coding of face shape.

Monkey and human cortex contain view-specific face neurons, but it remains unclear whether they code face shape. We tested the view specificity of face-shape coding by inducing figural face aftereffects at one viewpoint (3/4 left) and testing generalization to different viewpoints (front view and 3/4 right). The aftereffects were induced by adaptation to consistent figural distortions (contracted or expanded), which shifts the distortion perceived as most normal toward the adapting distortion.