Trends in Cognitive Sciences
Update
Research FocusDeveloping a cortex specialized for face perception
Research Focus
Introduction
Faces are vital for human interaction. It is not surprising, therefore, that face processing in the human adult brain involves several cortical areas, such as the fusiform gyrus, the superior temporal sulcus and other parts of the occipito-temporal cortex [1]. Two very recent studies systematically investigated the development of specificity of the cortical activations resulting from face perception in children and showed that, although regions of cortex are activated for faces, these regions do not become specifically tuned to faces until surprisingly late in development. These new imaging data support behavioural evidence that some face-processing skills can be late to develop. For example, although six-year-old children are adult-like in their abilities to process faces in tasks involving processing of individual internal or external features, sensitivity to changes in the spacing of features remains inferior until age ten. Furthermore, children have difficulty ignoring irrelevant information, such as head orientation or external paraphernalia when processing the identity of a face [2].
Section snippets
Developmental imaging studies provide new insights in face processing abilities
In an innovative study, Scherf and colleagues [3] used short-clips of naturalistic movies of faces, objects, buildings and navigation scenes in a passive viewing task with children (5–8 years), adolescents (11–14 years) and adults. Interestingly, they observed that although children at 5–8 years showed patterns of cortical activation similar in magnitude to that seen at older ages, this activation was not selective to faces in the classical adult face processing areas (such as the Fusiform
The interactive specialization approach to functional brain development
It has recently been suggested that data from development could help to resolve the continuing debate in the adult literature [7]. Aside from the obvious question of the importance, or otherwise, of expertise acquired over the first months and years of life, developmental data might offer new insights into the basic mechanisms that determine the adult human pattern of cortical specialization for cognitive and perceptual functions [8]. More specifically, developmental neuroimaging studies on
Conclusions
Recent studies provide an important piece of the jigsaw in our understanding of the development and neural basis of face processing. The developmental perspective on the debate from adult studies (about the specificity or otherwise of face processing areas in cortex) offers an intriguing middle-ground view. That is, the FFA and related areas, such as the superior temporal sulcus, might begin with connection and architectural biases sufficient to ensure that they are activated by the presence of
Acknowledgements
K.C.K. is supported by a Marie Curie Fellowship (MEST-CT-2005–020725) and M.H.J. by the MRC (G-9715587).
References (16)
The distributed human neural system for face perception
Trends Cogn. Sci.
(2000)Developmental changes in face processing skills
J. Exp. Child Psychol.
(2003)- et al.
The development of face expertise
Curr. Opin. Neurobiol.
(2001) Can generic expertise explain special processing for faces?
Trends Cogn. Sci.
(2007)Developmental differences in the neural bases of the face inversion effect show progressive tuning of face-selective regions in the upright orientation
Neuroimage
(2007)Visual category-selectivity for faces, places and objects emerges along different developmental trajectories
Dev. Sci.
(2007)Differential development of high-level visual cortex correlates with category-specific recognition memory
Nat. Neurosci.
(2007)The fusiform face area: a module in human extrastriate cortex specialized for face perception
J. Neurosci.
(1997)
Cited by (121)
Functional MRI responses to naturalistic stimuli are increasingly typical across early childhood
2023, Developmental Cognitive NeuroscienceDevelopmental eye movement strategies for decoding facial expressions of emotion
2023, Journal of Experimental Child PsychologyDecoding functional brain networks through graph measures in infancy: The case of emotional faces.
2022, Biological PsychologyThe role of the MTG in negative emotional processing in young adults with autistic-like traits: A fMRI task study
2020, Journal of Affective DisordersFunctional neural network configuration in late childhood varies by age and cognitive state
2020, Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience