A fast link between face perception and memory in the temporal pole

Abstract

Explicit semantic information in the brain is generated by gradually stripping off the specific context in which the item is embedded. A particularly striking example of such explicit representations are face-specific neurons. Landi et al . report the properties of neurons in a small region of the monkey anterior temporal cortex that respond to the sight of familiar faces. These cells respond to the internal features of familiar faces but not unknown faces. Some of these responses are very highly selective, reliably responding to only one face out of a vast number of other stimuli. These findings will advance our understanding about where and how semantic memories are stored in the brain. —PRS

Document Details

Document Type
Pub Defense Publication
Publication Date
Jul 30, 2021
Source ID
10.1126/science.abi6671

Entities

People

  • Pooja Viswanathan
  • Sofia M Landi
  • Stephen Serene
  • Winrich A. Freiwald

Organizations

  • German Primate Centre
  • Howard Hughes Medical Institute
  • Human Frontier Science Program
  • Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai
  • National Eye Institute
  • National Institute of Mental Health
  • National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke
  • National Institutes of Health
  • New York Stem Cell Foundation
  • Simons Foundation
  • Society for Technical Communication
  • The Rockefeller University
  • United States Department of the Navy
  • University of Washington

Tags

Fields of Study

  • Biology
  • Psychology

Readers

  • Agent-Based Social Robotics and Mobile-Assisted Learning in Virtual Environments.
  • Neuroscience
  • Systems Analysis and Design