A Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (FMRI) Study Evaluating the Domain- and Processing-Specific Theories of Face and Non-Face Object Processing in the Human Brain

Controversy surrounds the proposal that specific human cortical regions in the fusiform gyrus are specialized for face processing. Instead, process specific face processing theories assert that cortical regions in the so-called fusiform face area (FFA) respond equally to non-face stimuli under specific processing conditions that are routinely deployed when viewing face stimuli. In the present study, typically developing undergraduate participants viewed three different FMRI tasks involving face and non-face stimuli: a passive viewing localizer task, a one-back classification task (e.g., male-female judgments), and a one-back memory (individuation) task (e.g., same-different individual judgment). The FFA regions are defined from the passive viewing task and face and non-face brain activation are tracked within the FFA in the other two tasks. Our hypothesis predicts that faces will produce greater FFA activation in the categorization task, but that faces and non-face objects will produce equivalent FFA activation in the individuation task. Such findings challenge the prevailing view that the FFA is a module that is specialized for faces, demonstrating instead that the FFA functions to individuate within a category. These findings have significant implications for understanding the function of brain regions widely believed to play an important role in social cognition.