title: The face evoked steady-state visual potentials are sensitive to the orientation, viewpoint, expression and configuration of the stimuli.
abstract: Previous studies demonstrated that the steady-state visual-evoked potential (SSVEP) is reduced to the repetition of the same identity face when compared with the presentation of different identities, suggesting high-level neural adaptation to face identity. Here we investigated whether the SSVEP is sensitive to the orientation, viewpoint, expression and configuration of faces (Experiment 1), and whether adaptation to identity at the level of the SSVEP is robust enough to generalize across these properties (Experiment 2). In Experiment 1, repeating the same identity face with continuously changing orientation, viewpoint or expression evoked a larger SSVEP than the repetition of an unchanged face, presumably reflecting a release of adaptation. A less robust effect was observed in the case of changes affecting face configuration. In Experiment 2, we found a similar release of adaptation for faces with changing orientation, viewpoint and configuration, as there was no difference between the SSVEP for the same and different identity faces. However, we found an adaptation effect for faces with changing expressions, suggesting that face identity coding, as reflected in the SSVEP, is largely independent of the emotion displayed by faces. Taken together, these results imply that the SSVEP taps high-level face representations which abstract away from the changeable aspects of the face and likely incorporate information about face configuration, but which are specific to the orientation and viewpoint of the face.
authors.affiliation: Department of Cognitive Science, Budapest University of Technology and Economics, Egry József u. 1, 1111 Budapest, Hungary. Electronic address: pvakli@cogsci.bme.hu.
authors.forename: Pál
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Vakli
authors.affiliation: Department of Cognitive Science, Budapest University of Technology and Economics, Egry József u. 1, 1111 Budapest, Hungary. Electronic address: knemeth@cogsci.bme.hu.
authors.forename: Kornél
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Németh
authors.affiliation: Department of Cognitive Science, Budapest University of Technology and Economics, Egry József u. 1, 1111 Budapest, Hungary. Electronic address: mzimmer@cogsci.bme.hu.
authors.forename: Márta
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Zimmer
authors.affiliation: Department of Cognitive Science, Budapest University of Technology and Economics, Egry József u. 1, 1111 Budapest, Hungary; Institute of Psychology, Friedrich-Schiller-University of Jena, Leutragraben 1, 07743 Jena, Germany; DFG Research Unit Person Perception, Friedrich-Schiller-University of Jena, Leutragraben 1, 07743 Jena, Germany. Electronic address: gyula.kovacs@uni-jena.de.
authors.forename: Gyula
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Kovács
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D005074:Evoked Potentials, Visual / Q000502:physiology*; D005149:Facial Expression; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009949:Orientation / Q000502:physiology*; D010364:Pattern Recognition, Visual / Q000502:physiology*; D010775:Photic Stimulation / Q000379:methods*; D014796:Visual Perception / Q000502:physiology; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: Face perception; Neural adaptation; Steady-state VEPs