In the 1970s Charlie Gross was among the first to identify neurons that respond selectively to faces, in the macaque inferior temporal (IT) cortex. This seminal finding has been followed by numerous studies quantifying the visual features that trigger a response from face cells in order to answer the question; what do face cells want? However, the connection between face-selective activity in IT cortex and visual perception remains only partially understood. Here we present fMRI results in the macaque showing that some face patches respond to illusory facial features in objects. We argue that to fully understand the functional role of face cells, we need to develop approaches that test the extent to which their response explains what we see.

1970 年代，查理·格罗斯率先在猕猴颞下皮层 (IT) 中识别出对面部做出选择性反应的神经元。在这一开创性发现之后，许多研究量化了触发面部细胞反应的视觉特征，以回答这个问题；面部细胞想要什么？然而，IT 皮层中的面部选择性活动与视觉感知之间的联系仍然只是部分理解。在这里，我们展示了猕猴的 fMRI 结果，表明一些面部补丁会对物体中的虚幻面部特征做出反应。我们认为，为了充分理解面部细胞的功能作用，我们需要开发方法来测试它们的反应在多大程度上解释了我们所看到的。