Previous studies have focused on the modulatory effects of face familiarity on different components of an event-related potential (ERP), but there is controversy in the literature regarding the precise component that reflects the process of identity recognition. This may be partly explained by limits to this waveform analysis approach, as waveforms elicited by the presentation of a face are likely to reflect a variety of different cognitive processes that overlap in time. Using fast periodic visual stimulation and EEG (FPVS-EEG), we directly measured the electrophysiological response reflecting identity-specific recognition after isolating it from responses attributable to low-level visual processing and face-selective processes that are not identity-specific. The observed response therefore provides a robust and objective measure of the recognition of a personally familiar face generated bilaterally in the occipito-temporal region. We tested the magnitude of this identity-specific response to three categories of familiarity: the own-face (high familiarity), a friend's face (moderate familiarity), and a stranger's face (no familiarity). We found the largest response to the participant's own-face, followed by an intermediate response to a highly personally familiar face, and the smallest response to an unfamiliar face. An additional response was observed over the posterior cortical midline for familiar faces only, consistent with theories that familiar identity recognition also triggers post-perceptual semantic processing.

中文翻译：

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使用快速的周期性视觉刺激，针对三类面孔熟悉程度（个人，朋友，陌生人）的特定于身份的神经反应。

先前的研究集中在面部熟悉对事件相关电位（ERP）的不同组成部分的调节作用上，但是在文献中关于反映身份识别过程的精确组成部分存在争议。这可能是由于该波形分析方法的局限性而在某种程度上解释了这一点，因为由面部表情引起的波形很可能反映出时间上重叠的各种不同的认知过程。使用快速周期性视觉刺激和EEG（FPVS-EEG），我们将其与低水平视觉处理和非特定于人脸的选择相关的反应分离出来后，直接测量反映出特定身份识别的电生理反应。因此，观察到的反应为识别枕颞区域双侧产生的个人熟悉的脸部提供了鲁棒而客观的方法。我们测试了针对三类熟悉程度的特定于身份的响应的强度：自己的脸（高度熟悉），朋友的脸（中等程度的熟悉）和陌生人的脸（不熟悉）。我们发现参与者对自己的脸的反应最大，其次是对高度熟悉的脸的中等反应，而对不熟悉的脸的反应最小。在皮质中线后方仅对熟悉的面孔观察到了另外的反应，这与熟悉的身份识别也触发感知后语义处理的理论一致。