title: Differential age-related changes in N170 responses to upright faces, inverted faces, and eyes in Japanese children.
abstract: The main objectives of this study were to investigate the development of face perception in Japanese children, focusing on the changes in face processing strategies (holistic and/or configural vs. feature-based) that occur during childhood. To achieve this, we analyzed the face-related N170 component, evoked by upright face, inverted face, and eyes stimuli in 82 Japanese children aged between 8- and 13-years-old. During the experiment, the children were asked to perform a target detection task in which they were told to press a button when they saw images of faces or kettles with mustaches, glasses, and fake noses; i.e., an implicit face perception task. The N170 signals observed after the presentation of the upright face stimuli were longer in duration and/or had at least two peaks in the 8-11-year-old children, whereas those seen in the 12-13-year-old children were sharp and only had a single peak. N170 latency was significantly longer after the presentation of the eyes stimuli than after the presentation of the upright face stimuli in the 10- and 12-year-old children. In addition, significant differences in N170 latency were observed among all three stimulus types in the 13-year-old children. N170 amplitude was significantly greater after the presentation of the eyes stimuli than after the presentation of the upright face stimuli in the 8-10- and 12-year-old children. The results of the present study indicate that the upright face stimuli were processed using holistic and/or configural processing by the 13-year-old children.
authors.affiliation: Department of Integrative Physiology, National Institute for Physiological Sciences Okazaki, Japan ; Department of Physiological Sciences, School of Life Science, SOKENDAI (The Graduate University for Advanced Studies) Hayama, Japan.
authors.forename: Kensaku
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Miki
authors.affiliation: Department of Integrative Physiology, National Institute for Physiological Sciences Okazaki, Japan.
authors.forename: Yukiko
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Honda
authors.affiliation: Department of Integrative Physiology, National Institute for Physiological Sciences Okazaki, Japan.
authors.forename: Yasuyuki
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Takeshima
authors.affiliation: Department of Integrative Physiology, National Institute for Physiological Sciences Okazaki, Japan.
authors.forename: Shoko
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Watanabe
authors.affiliation: Department of Integrative Physiology, National Institute for Physiological Sciences Okazaki, Japan ; Department of Physiological Sciences, School of Life Science, SOKENDAI (The Graduate University for Advanced Studies) Hayama, Japan.
authors.forename: Ryusuke
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Kakigi
keywords: EEG; N170; development; eyes; face; inversion