TY - JOUR
T1 - Cortical mechanisms of person representation
T2 - Recognition of famous and personally familiar names
AU - Sugiura, Motoaki
AU - Sassa, Yuko
AU - Watanabe, Jobu
AU - Akitsuki, Yuko
AU - Maeda, Yasuhiro
AU - Matsue, Yoshihiko
AU - Fukuda, Hiroshi
AU - Kawashima, Ryuta
N1 - Funding Information:
We would like to thank Yuko Satoh for operating the MRI scanner, and Atsushi Harada and Kazunori Satoh for support in data analysis. The fMRI experiment was carried out in the Kansei Fukushi Research Center, Tohoku Fukushi University, Sendai, Japan, supported by the Academic Frontiers Project for Private Universities (MEXT) (1998–2002). This research project was supported by the JST/RISTEX, a Grant-in-aid for Scientific Research on Priority areas (C)–Advanced Brain Science Project (MEXT), and the 21st Century COE Program (MEXT) entitled, “A Strategic Research and Education Center for an Integrated Approach to Language and Cognition” (Tohoku University).
PY - 2006/6
Y1 - 2006/6
N2 - Personally familiar people are likely to be represented more richly in episodic, emotional, and behavioral contexts than famous people, who are usually represented predominantly in semantic context. To reveal cortical mechanisms supporting this differential person representation, we compared cortical activation during name recognition tasks between personally familiar and famous names, using an event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). Normal subjects performed familiar- or unfamiliar-name detection tasks during visual presentation of personally familiar (Personal), famous (Famous), and unfamiliar (Unfamiliar) names. The bilateral temporal poles and anterolateral temporal cortices, as well as the left temporoparietal junction, were activated in the contrasts Personal-Unfamiliar and Famous-Unfamiliar to a similar extent. The bilateral occipitotemporoparietal junctions, precuneus, and posterior cingulate cortex showed activation in the contrasts Personal-Unfamiliar and Personal-Famous. Together with previous findings, differential activation in the occipitotemporoparietal junction, precuneus, and posterior cingulate cortex between personally familiar and famous names is considered to reflect differential person representation. The similar extent of activation for personally familiar and famous names in the temporal pole and anterolateral temporal cortex is consistent with the associative role of the anterior temporal cortex in person identification, which has been conceptualized as a person identity node in many models of person identification. The left temporoparietal junction was considered to process familiar written names. The results illustrated the neural correlates of the person representation as a network of discrete regions in the bilateral posterior cortices, with the anterior temporal cortices having a unique associative role.
AB - Personally familiar people are likely to be represented more richly in episodic, emotional, and behavioral contexts than famous people, who are usually represented predominantly in semantic context. To reveal cortical mechanisms supporting this differential person representation, we compared cortical activation during name recognition tasks between personally familiar and famous names, using an event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). Normal subjects performed familiar- or unfamiliar-name detection tasks during visual presentation of personally familiar (Personal), famous (Famous), and unfamiliar (Unfamiliar) names. The bilateral temporal poles and anterolateral temporal cortices, as well as the left temporoparietal junction, were activated in the contrasts Personal-Unfamiliar and Famous-Unfamiliar to a similar extent. The bilateral occipitotemporoparietal junctions, precuneus, and posterior cingulate cortex showed activation in the contrasts Personal-Unfamiliar and Personal-Famous. Together with previous findings, differential activation in the occipitotemporoparietal junction, precuneus, and posterior cingulate cortex between personally familiar and famous names is considered to reflect differential person representation. The similar extent of activation for personally familiar and famous names in the temporal pole and anterolateral temporal cortex is consistent with the associative role of the anterior temporal cortex in person identification, which has been conceptualized as a person identity node in many models of person identification. The left temporoparietal junction was considered to process familiar written names. The results illustrated the neural correlates of the person representation as a network of discrete regions in the bilateral posterior cortices, with the anterior temporal cortices having a unique associative role.
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U2 - 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2006.01.002
DO - 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2006.01.002
M3 - Article
C2 - 16478667
AN - SCOPUS:33646825227
VL - 31
SP - 853
EP - 860
JO - NeuroImage
JF - NeuroImage
SN - 1053-8119
IS - 2
ER -