A neuroimaging point of view on the diversity of social cognition: evidence for extended influence of experience- and emotion-related factors on face processing

Abstract

Faces are key social stimuli that convey a wealth of information essential for person perception and adaptive interpersonal behaviour. Studies in the domain of cognitive, affective, and social neuroscience have put in light that the processing of faces recruits specific visual regions and activates a distributed set of brain regions related to attentional, emotional, social, and memory processes associated with the perception of faces and the extraction of the numerous information attached to them. Studies using neuroimaging techniques such as functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) have allowed localizing these brain regions and characterizing their functional properties. Magnetoencephalography (MEG) and electroencephalography (EEG) techniques are complementary to fMRI in that they offer a unique insight into the temporal dynamics of mental processes. In this article, I review the contribution of neuroimaging techniques to the knowledge on face processing and person perception with the aim of putting in light the extended influence of experience-related factors, particularly in relation with emotions, on the face processing system. Although the face processing network has evolved under evolutionary selection pressure related to sociality-related needs and is therefore highly conserved throughout the human species, neuroimaging studies put in light both the extension and the flexibility of the brain network involved in face processing. MEG and EEG allow in particular to reveal that the human brain integrates emotion- and experience-related information from the earliest stage of face processing. Altogether, this emphasizes the diversity of social cognitive processes associated with face perception.