EVENT: Psychology Colloquium: Prof Martin Eimer (Birkbeck College, University of London)

Psychology Colloquium Tuesday 21st February 4:00-5:00pm in Bayliss MCS G.33, followed by post-talk drinks in the Psychology Courtyard (or, in bad weather, the Psychology Common Room, 2nd floor of main psychology building)

Presenter: Prof Martin Eimer (Birkbeck College, University of London)

Title: Face perception and face recognition in developmental prosopagnosia.

Abstract:

People with developmental prosopagnosia (DP) show severe face recognition deficits that typically emerge in early childhood, without any apparent neurological damage. It is still unclear which aspects of face processing are impaired in DPs, and in particular whether their face recognition deficits reflect problems in face perception or impairments at later post-perceptual processing stages. In this talk, I will present and discuss recent findings from studies where behavioural measures of face perception and recognition were combined with event-related brain potential (ERP) measures. These studies provide strong evidence that early visual-perceptual stages of face processing operate differently in individuals with DP as compared to age-matched control participants. On the one hand, the generic face-sensitivity of the face-selective N170 component to upright faces is preserved in most DPs, suggesting intact neural discrimination between faces and non-face objects. On the other hand, individuals with DP show atypical modulations of the N170 component in response to non-canonical faces (faces presented upside-down, faces with scrambled internal features, and contrast-inverted faces). These atypical N170 modulations are very systematic, and also appear to be linked to individual differences in face recognition abilities. Their presence suggests that face perception in DP is poorly tuned to the canonical features of prototypical upright faces. This may be the major visual-perceptual cause for the face recognition deficits in DP. I will also discuss the impact of this early perceptual deficit on subsequent face recognition processes in DP, based on studies that employed electrophysiological markers of detecting face identity repetitions or changes, and ERP measures of explicit face recognition.

Speaker Bio:

Martin Eimer is Professor of Psychology and Director of the Brain and Behaviour Lab at Birkbeck, University of London, UK. His main research areas are visual attention and working memory, and face processing and its impairments in prosopagnosia. He has published more than 200 research articles, has held numerous research grants, and is a Fellow of the British Academy and the German National Academy of Sciences.