Adaptation Duration Dissociates Category-, Image-, and XXXX -Specific Processes on Face-Evoked Event-Related Potentials.

@entity1 @entity5748 @entity53262 @entity1155
Several studies demonstrated that face perception is biased by the prior presentation of another face, a phenomenon termed as face-related after-effect ( @entity53262 ). @entity53262 is linked to a neural signal-reduction at occipito-temporal areas and it can be observed in the amplitude modulation of the early event-related potential (ERP) components. Recently, macaque single-cell recording studies suggested that manipulating the duration of the adaptor makes the selective adaptation of different visual motion processing steps possible. To date, however, only a few studies tested the effects of adaptor duration on the electrophysiological correlates of @entity1 face processing directly. The goal of the current study was to test the effect of adaptor duration on the image-, identity-, and generic category-specific face processing steps. To this end, in a two-alternative forced choice familiarity decision task we used five adaptor durations (ranging from 200-5000 ms) and four adaptor categories: adaptor and test were identical @entity1155 ( @entity1155 ); adaptor and test were different images of the Same Identity (SameID); adaptor and test images depicted @entity5748 ( @entity5748 ); the adaptor was a Fourier phase-randomized image (No). Behaviorally, a strong priming effect was observed in both accuracy and response times for @entity1155 compared with both @entity5748 and No. The electrophysiological results suggest that rapid adaptation leads to a category-specific modulation of P100, N170, and N250. In addition, both identity and image-specific processes affected the N250 component during rapid adaptation. On the other hand, prolonged (5000 ms) adaptation enhanced, and extended category-specific adaptation processes over all tested ERP components. Additionally, prolonged adaptation led to the emergence of image-, and identity-specific modulations on the N170 and P2 components as well. In other words, there was a clear dissociation among category, identity-, and image-specific processing steps in the case of longer (3500 and 5000 ms) but not for shorter durations (< 3500 ms), reflected in the gradual reduction of N170 and enhancement of P2 in the No, @entity5748 , SameID, and @entity1155 conditions. Our findings imply that by manipulating adaptation duration one can dissociate the various steps of @entity1 face processing, reflected in the ERP response.
