Event-Related Potentials for Category-Specific Information During Passive Viewing of Faces and Objects

Abstract

Normal subjects passively viewed an upright or inverted face or objects during recording of event-related potentials. Face inversion augmented N170 amplitude and latency in the temporal region, but on ly the latency in the parietal region. The same manipulation slowed down the on set of the P220 and caused disappearance of the N300, whereas none of these effects was seen after object inversion. Item-specific processing of objects was observed, namely disappearance of the N190 and the appearance of a P170 wave in the left posterior hemisphere to on e object but not the other. These results are concordant with the hypothesis of category-specific processing during the recognition of faces and objects.

Key Words:

• Evoked potential
• Face perception
• N170