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Neural correlates of face gender discrimination learning

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Abstract

Using combined psychophysics and event-related potentials (ERPs), we investigated the effect of perceptual learning on face gender discrimination and probe the neural correlates of the learning effect. Human subjects were trained to perform a gender discrimination task with male or female faces. Before and after training, they were tested with the trained faces and other faces with the same and opposite genders. ERPs responding to these faces were recorded. Psychophysical results showed that training significantly improved subjects’ discrimination performance and the improvement was specific to the trained gender, as well as to the trained identities. The training effect indicates that learning occurs at two levels—the category level (gender) and the exemplar level (identity). ERP analyses showed that the gender and identity learning was associated with the N170 latency reduction at the left occipital-temporal area and the N170 amplitude reduction at the right occipital-temporal area, respectively. These findings provide evidence for the facilitation model and the sharpening model on neuronal plasticity from visual experience, suggesting a faster processing speed and a sparser representation of face induced by perceptual learning.

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported by the Ministry of Science and Technology of China (2011CBA00400 and 2010CB833903) and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Project 31230029, 30925014 and J1103602).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology and Key Laboratory of Machine Perception (Ministry of Education), Peking University, Beijing, 100871, People’s Republic of China

    Junzhu Su, Qingleng Tan & Fang Fang

  2. Peking-Tsinghua Center for Life Sciences, Peking University, Beijing, 100871, People’s Republic of China

    Fang Fang

  3. IDG/McGovern Institute for Brain Research, Peking University, Beijing, 100871, People’s Republic of China

    Fang Fang

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  1. Junzhu Su
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  2. Qingleng Tan
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  3. Fang Fang
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Correspondence to Fang Fang.

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Junzhu Su and Qingleng Tan contributed equally to this work.

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Su, J., Tan, Q. & Fang, F. Neural correlates of face gender discrimination learning. Exp Brain Res 225, 569–578 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00221-012-3396-x

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