Neural mechanisms of context effects on face recognition: automatic binding and context shift decrements.

Hayes, Scott M

Baena, Elsa

Truong, Trong-Kha

Cabeza, Roberto

United States

2011-06-21T17:32:25Z

2010-11

Although people do not normally try to remember associations between faces and physical contexts, these associations are established automatically, as indicated by the difficulty of recognizing familiar faces in different contexts ("butcher-on-the-bus" phenomenon). The present fMRI study investigated the automatic binding of faces and scenes. In the face-face (F-F) condition, faces were presented alone during both encoding and retrieval, whereas in the face/scene-face (FS-F) condition, they were presented overlaid on scenes during encoding but alone during retrieval (context change). Although participants were instructed to focus only on the faces during both encoding and retrieval, recognition performance was worse in the FS-F than in the F-F condition ("context shift decrement" [CSD]), confirming automatic face-scene binding during encoding. This binding was mediated by the hippocampus as indicated by greater subsequent memory effects (remembered > forgotten) in this region for the FS-F than the F-F condition. Scene memory was mediated by right parahippocampal cortex, which was reactivated during successful retrieval when the faces were associated with a scene during encoding (FS-F condition). Analyses using the CSD as a regressor yielded a clear hemispheric asymmetry in medial temporal lobe activity during encoding: Left hippocampal and parahippocampal activity was associated with a smaller CSD, indicating more flexible memory representations immune to context changes, whereas right hippocampal/rhinal activity was associated with a larger CSD, indicating less flexible representations sensitive to context change. Taken together, the results clarify the neural mechanisms of context effects on face recognition.

Version of Record

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19925208

1530-8898

https://hdl.handle.net/10161/4621

eng

en_US

MIT Press - Journals

J Cogn Neurosci

10.1162/jocn.2009.21379

Journal of cognitive neuroscience

Adult

Automatism

Brain

Brain Mapping

Face

Female

Functional Laterality

Humans

Image Processing, Computer-Assisted

Magnetic Resonance Imaging

Male

Mental Recall

Oxygen

Pattern Recognition, Visual

Photic Stimulation

Reaction Time

Recognition (Psychology)

Statistics as Topic

Young Adult

Neural mechanisms of context effects on face recognition: automatic binding and context shift decrements.

Journal article

Truong, Trong-Kha|0000-0003-2699-1554

Cabeza, Roberto|0000-0001-7999-1182

2010-11-0

11

22

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19925208

2541

2554

11

Center for Cognitive Neuroscience

Center for Population Health & Aging

Clinical Science Departments

Duke

Duke Institute for Brain Sciences

Duke Population Research Institute

Duke Science & Society

Duke-UNC Center for Brain Imaging and Analysis

Initiatives

Institutes and Centers

Institutes and Provost's Academic Units

Psychiatry & Behavioral Sciences

Psychiatry & Behavioral Sciences, Geriatric Behavioral Health

Psychology and Neuroscience

Radiology

Sanford School of Public Policy

School of Medicine

Trinity College of Arts & Sciences

University Institutes and Centers

Published

22