Neural Mechanism of Noise Affecting Face Recognition

Abstract Face recognition is one of the most important cognitive functions for humans in social activities. The ability will be negatively affected when the face images deteriorate. However, the neural process of extracting facial information under challenging conditions is still poorly understood. Therefore, it is necessary to further understand the neurophysiological relevance of this effect. We examined patients with multiple subdural electrodes (ECoG) monitored for clinical purposes. During the experimental task, the patients were presented with face and house images with different noise levels and were asked to recognize the faces. We found a striking increase in high gamma band power (HGP; 60–160 Hz) when face images were shown. We localized the face-specific electrodes to the fusiform gyrus (FG) and surrounding cortices. For each subject, the behavioral performance and magnitudes of the HGP for the face-specific sites significantly both fit a sigmoid function and showed similar changes. Additionally, the curve profile of the average HGP magnitude across the face-specific sites was almost equal to the average behavior curve; the former could precisely track the behavioral performance. In general, these results suggest that the HGP in the FG is closely related to the performance of face image recognition.