Anne-Marie Schuller

Bio: Anne-Marie Schuller is an academic researcher from Université catholique de Louvain. The author has contributed to research in topics: N2pc & Visual field. The author has an hindex of 4, co-authored 4 publications receiving 778 citations.

A network of occipito-temporal face-sensitive areas besides the right middle fusiform gyrus is necessary for normal face processing.

Abstract: Neuroimaging studies have identified at least two bilateral areas of the visual extrastriate cortex that respond more to pictures of faces than objects in normal human subjects in the middle fusiform gyrus [the 'fusiform face area' (FFA)] and, more posteriorly, in the inferior occipital cortex ['occipital face area' (OFA)], with a right hemisphere dominance. However, it is not yet clear how these regions interact which each other and whether they are all necessary for normal face perception. It has been proposed that the right hemisphere FFA acts as an isolated ('modular') processing system for faces or that this region receives its face-sensitive inputs from the OFA in a feedforward hierarchical model of face processing. To test these proposals, we report a detailed neuropsychological investigation combined with a neuroimaging study of a patient presenting a deficit restricted to face perception, consecutive to bilateral occipito-temporal lesions. Due to the asymmetry of the lesions, the left middle fusiform gyrus and the right inferior occipital cortex were damaged but the right middle fusiform gyrus was structurally intact. Using functional MRI, we disclosed a normal activation of the right FFA in response to faces in the patient despite the absence of any feedforward inputs from the right OFA, located in a damaged area of cortex. Together, these findings show that the integrity of the right OFA is necessary for normal face perception and suggest that the face-sensitive responses observed at this level in normal subjects may arise from feedback connections from the right FFA. In agreement with the current literature on the anatomical basis of prosopagnosia, it is suggested that the FFA and OFA in the right hemisphere and their re-entrant integration are necessary for normal face processing.

Spatial attention triggered by eye gaze increases and speeds up early visual activity.

Abstract: What are the neuronal correlates of reflexive shifts of attention triggered by eye gaze direction? Event related potentials (ERPs) were measured on 14 subjects performing a spatial attention task where eye gaze direction of a face cued the location of a forthcoming target. Subjects were faster in detecting a validly cued target, i.e. one appearing at the location the eye was gazing at, compared to invalidly cued targets, despite the non-predictive value of the eye cues. ERP results showed an enhanced and earlier occipito-parietal P1 and N1 for valid trials, demonstrating the early modulation of visual input by attentional allocation. These findings provide the first evidence that social attention can rapidly modify the processing of visual information in extrastriate cortex.

Toward a mechanistic psychology of dialogue

Abstract: Traditional mechanistic accounts of language processing derive almost entirely from the study of monologue. Yet, the most natural and basic form of language use is dialogue. As a result, these accounts may only offer limited theories of the mechanisms that un- derlie language processing in general. We propose a mechanistic account of dialogue, the interactive alignment account, and use it to de- rive a number of predictions about basic language processes. The account assumes that, in dialogue, the linguistic representations em- ployed by the interlocutors become aligned at many levels, as a result of a largely automatic process. This process greatly simplifies production and comprehension in dialogue. After considering the evidence for the interactive alignment model, we concentrate on three aspects of processing that follow from it. It makes use of a simple interactive inference mechanism, enables the development of local di- alogue routines that greatly simplify language processing, and explains the origins of self-monitoring in production. We consider the need for a grammatical framework that is designed to deal with language in dialogue rather than monologue, and discuss a range of implica- tions of the account.

The fusiform face area: a cortical region specialized for the perception of faces.

Abstract: Faces are among the most important visual stimuli we perceive, informing us not only about a person’s identity, but also about their mood, sex, age and direction of gaze The ability to extract this information within a fraction of a second of viewing a face is important for normal social interactions and has probably played a critical role in the survival of our primate ancestors Considerable evidence from behavioural, neuropsychological and neurophysiological investigations supports the hypothesis that humans have specialized cognitive and neural mechanisms dedicated to the perception of faces (the face-specificity hypothesis) Here, we review the literature on a region of the human brain that appears to play a key role in face perception, known as the fusiform face area (FFA) Section 1 outlines the theoretical background for much of this work The face-specificity hypothesis falls squarely on one side of a longstanding debate in the fields of cognitive science and cognitive neuroscience concerning the extent to which the mind/brain is composed of: (i) special-purpose (‘domain-specific’) mechanisms, each dedicated to processing a specific kind of information (eg faces, according to the face-specificity hypothesis), versus (ii) general-purpose (‘domain-general’) mechanisms, each capable of operating on any kind of information Face perception has long served both as one of the prime candidates of a domain-specific process and as a key target for attack by proponents of domain-general theories of brain and mind Section 2 briefly reviews the prior literature on face perception from behaviour and neurophysiology This work supports the face-specificity hypothesis and argues against its domain-general alternatives (the individuation hypothesis, the expertise hypothesis and others) Section 3 outlines the more recent evidence on this debate from brain imaging, focusing particularly on the FFA We review the evidence that the FFA is selectively engaged in face perception, by addressing (and rebutting) five of the most widely discussed alternatives to this hypothesis In §4, we consider recent findings that are beginning to provide clues into the computations conducted in the FFA and the nature of the representations the FFA extracts from faces We argue that the FFA is engaged both in detecting faces and in extracting the necessary perceptual information to recognize them, and that the properties of the FFA mirror previously identified behavioural signatures of face-specific processing (eg the face-inversion effect) Section 5 asks how the computations and representations in the FFA differ from those occurring in other nearby regions of cortex that respond strongly to faces and objects The evidence indicates clear functional dissociations between these regions, demonstrating that the FFA shows not only functional specificity but also area specificity We end by speculating in § 6o n some of the broader questions raised by current research on the FFA, including the developmental origins of this region and the question of whether faces are unique versus whether similarly specialized mechanisms also exist for other domains of high-level perception and cognition

The functional architecture of the ventral temporal cortex and its role in categorization.

Abstract: The ventral temporal cortex (VTC) rapidly and flexibly categorizes visual stimuli. In this Review, Grill-Spector and Weiner discuss how the structural features of the VTC support the computations that are necessary to achieve this categorization.