Associative ERP effects with memories of artificial faces.
A previous study (Valdes-Sosa and Bobes, 1990) described a negative ERP component evoked by mis-matches in a face-feature matching task, using photographs of real faces. This component could be N400 (or an analogue), elicited by associative priming within a non-linguistic domain: that of face structure. To confirm this it is necessary to demonstrate that semantic/linguistic recoding was not a necessary condition in triggering the negativity. This means falsifying what we call the 'priming by proxy' hypothesis, and locating the triggering mis-match within face structure. In this paper subjects studied artificial schematic faces over several sessions, and 1 week later were presented with a face-feature matching task with simultaneous ERP recording. Since no semantic information or verbal labels were available, eliciting a mis-match negativity with these faces contradicts the 'priming by proxy' hypothesis. In a first experiment, in which the subjects learning was controlled through a face familiarity decision task, no significant mis-match negativity was found. However, in a second experiment in which learning was controlled through a forced-choice face-feature match, a significant mis-match negativity was found in the subsequent recording session. This result supports the idea that a component similar to N400 can be elicited by an associative mis-match restricted to the face-structural domain.
Olivares
E
E
Department of Cognitive Neurosciences, Cuban Neuroscience Center, Havana.
Bobes
M A
MA
Aubert
E
E
Valdes-Sosa
M
M
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D004193:Discrimination Learning / Q000502:physiology*; D005074:Evoked Potentials, Visual / Q000502:physiology*; D006801:Humans; D008570:Memory, Short-Term / Q000502:physiology*; D010364:Pattern Recognition, Visual / Q000502:physiology*