Self-related information, such as one’s own face, is prioritized by our cognitive system. Whilst recent theoretical developments suggest that this is achieved by an interplay between bottom-up and top-down attentional mechanisms, their underlying neural dynamics are still poorly understood. Furthermore, it is still matter of discussion as to whether these attentional mechanisms are truly self-specific or instead driven by face familiarity. To address these questions, we used EEG to record the brain activity of twenty-five healthy participants whilst identifying their own face, a friend’s face and a stranger’s face. Time-frequency analysis revealed a greater sustained power decrease in the alpha and beta frequency bands for the self-face, which emerged at late latencies and was maintained even when the face was no longer present. Critically, source analysis showed that this activity was generated in key brain regions for self-face recognition, such as the fusiform gyrus. As in the Myth of Narcissus, our results indicate that one’s own face might have the potential to hijack attention. We suggest that this effect is specific to the self and driven by a top-down attentional control mechanism, which might facilitate further processing of personally relevant events.

中文翻译：

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“水仙效应”：在自我面部处理过程中面部相关大脑区域的自上而下 α-β 波段调制

我们的认知系统会优先考虑与自我相关的信息，例如自己的脸。虽然最近的理论发展表明这是通过自下而上和自上而下的注意力机制之间的相互作用来实现的，但它们的潜在神经动力学仍然知之甚少。此外，关于这些注意力机制是真正的自我特定还是由面孔熟悉度驱动，仍然是讨论的问题。为了解决这些问题，我们使用 EEG 记录了 25 名健康参与者的大脑活动，同时识别了他们自己的脸、朋友的脸和陌生人的脸。时频分析显示，自我面孔的 alpha 和 beta 频段持续功率下降幅度更大，这种下降出现在延迟的后期，并且即使在面孔不再存在时也保持不变。关键的是，来源分析表明，这种活动是在用于自我面部识别的关键大脑区域中产生的，例如梭状回。正如在水仙神话中一样，我们的结果表明，一个人自己的脸可能有可能劫持注意力。我们认为这种效应是特定于自我的，由自上而下的注意力控制机制驱动，这可能有助于进一步处理与个人相关的事件。